the river heights gazette

My sister and brother-in-law are visiting, and they eat carbs, so we did have a few normal things (Stovetop stuffing, cloverleaf [brown and serve] rolls, sweet potato souffle, macaroni and cheese, jellied cranberry sauce) but I didn't eat any of the "full-carb" dishes.

Our menu:
-Roasted turkey (which Mom just does however she wants every year, and it includes salt, pepper, butter, poultry seasoning if we have it, and a light dusting of flour)
-Spiral sliced ham
-Sausage and sage stuffing (which requires 8 slices of Atkins Cuisine bread)
-Cauliflower-Sour Cream Mash
-Atkins Cornbread
-Steamed broccoli
-Cran-raspberry sauce
-Deviled eggs (made southern style)
-Maple Pecan Pie

I haven't tried the pecan pie yet, but Dad said it was good.

I made the pie, boiled the eggs, and made the Atkins Cuisine bread last night - and ended up getting to bed at 4 a.m. What have I learned? Nothing, really. The stuffing was just a touch wetter than I usually want it, so I'll cut down on the chicken broth next time, but on the whole, everything was excellent this year. I'm so glad the Atkins bake mix got here yesterday.

Hope everyone who is celebrating is having a good one! :) If not, happy Thursday!

Merry Christmas, flist! I wrote two stories for yuletide (can't tell you which ones yet) and I've posted one so far for the nancy drew yuletide. I'm planning on working on some more during the break; it just took me SO LONG to do the yuletide. (but the recipient for that fic really enjoyed it, so yay!)

so, today mom and i did an excellent turkey. it's just under 10 pounds and we did 300 for 1 hour, 325 for one hour. hurrah! and i've made a pair of pecan pies, and we've done dressing, broccoli casserole, sweet potato casserole, deviled eggs, fruit salad, lemon curd bar cookies, pumpkin pies, congealed lime salad. i'll probably post some pics later.

anyway, if you've caught a few spare minutes, go visit nancydrewfic or yuletide and have fun! i will. later. once we're finished cooking. =D (i'm so looking forward to reading some more nancy drew stories after this morning's excellent story, the curse!)

i wonder if i'm in this fix-things rut, which is ridiculous, since i am not a showrunner by any stretch of the imagination. i started with fixing the chuck 3x07 freakout via fic, and now i've written a fic to fix season 9 of criminal intent before it's even started. the closer it gets, the more concerned i am that goren or eames are going to bite it. I'M SERIOUS GUYS, I WILL TOTALLY CRY.

crock pot is full of soup ingredients. kitchen is a mess. going to make a chocolate cheesecake before the night is over.

also i adore this ridiculous marathon of snapped that's running on oxygen right now. the narrator is so dramatically serious, the reenactments are blurry still shots. now i want to watch mst3k: tormented. "it's sandy! your little conscience!"

that's it, i think. oh, and: i think THE WOLFMAN would've gone better if they hadn't just kind of sideways acknowledged that they were making cheesy cinema: they should have gone full-out over-the-top with it. what with the HUGE DRAMATIC SHOTS OF THE RISING MOON and, well, sir anthony hopkins.

"that means you have to accept that she's the best lesbian lover to have ever walked this earth." oh, "snapped," never change.

* criminal intent directors are really good at the pre-commercial abuse/meaningful glance/incest implication scenes. i always feel kinda bad for the actors. "so i really have to act like i'm gonna shove that kid's face against a stove burner? is there any way we can get around this?" "no. also, make your expression a little more evil, a little less conflicted."

* i blame jesshelga for my having mostly watched "you've got mail" this morning. and i agree with the "with anyone other than tom hanks, it wouldn't have worked nearly as well." the modem dialup noises were so cute.

* i seem to have started watching "legend of the seeker," because WGN shows a criminal intent mini-marathon on saturday afternoons that i almost always seem to tune in to, and "legend of the seeker" shows right after it. however, we're now mid-season 2 and i haven't seen season 1. so i poke around on amazon and end up ordering the first three books in the series instead of the s1 DVD set. this should be interesting.

* picked up a reliable wife by goolrick based on its kickass cover art. and slaughterhouse five because i read a few vonnegut short stories and got intrigued.

* barbecue chicken in the crock pot. MMMMMMMMM.

so, i wonder if there's an LJ community for "oh, cocoa isn't the same as chocolate syrup, that's why it came out a horrible gloppy mess."

because i think what's about to come out of the oven would qualify.

OMG WHY DID I EVER CLICK THIS THRICE-DAMNED CAFEWORLD ICON. it's so hypnotic.

i made the best soup i've ever made, today. however, it required the remains of a barbecue chicken plate and the leftover toppings from make-your-own-pizza night, so i doubt i'll ever be able to make it again. which is sad. ahh well.

also i very much need to get to work on the story lottery prompts, but i've got terry pratchett's newest book, and i just finished diana gabaldon's latest, and i have papers to grade and an online class to complete and a daughters of the american revolution meeting and...

and that other story that i really hope i can get finished tonight. just have to figure out if i want it to fade to black or not. ;)

so, while you guys continue playing with the otp meme (i think the harder ones seem to be the book-based ones), i'll be watching the three-hour block of LOST EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

(well, you know, the hour long clip show and then the premiere.)

i made celebratory brownies. shut up.

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ETA: ( lost 5x01/5x02 )