We're having friends over for dinner tomorrow night! Julia from ffstockings.com is coming! I've decided to make my proscuitto wrapped chicken thighs with portobella mushrooms. Not sure what to do for side dishes yet. Also going to make some more banana muffins.

Today I cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom. Gosh the ledge above the fridge was yucky! Blech! It looks much the same now, but just a little more sparkly and I feel better, which is the important thing.

Here's to a great weekend!

San Francisco was a blast! I will blog more about it once I'm back and all caught up for real :) Yesterday was sleepy on the couch day to recover and today was workin workin and making chili day!

About the chili.. my slow cooker was acting up again. The plug that had worked perfectly before was underpowered today! It took 3 hours for the chili to come to a boil. After much thinking, I decided it was because the dishwasher was running and then on heat dry.

We watched Wall-E last night and absolutely loved it. I almost cried twice! Wall-E and Eva.. awwww :)

Well, not super duper, but it's still a good day. Even though it's a cloudy one, we're going to visit friends for dinner tonight (From ffstockings.com!) After dinner we'll take in the Vancouver Symphony of Fire. Canada is opening the contest tonight. Last year we managed to catch a glimpse of Italy's night (I think it was Italy, at least.) But our view was from the Burrard St. Bridge and it was crowded and I couldn't see much. Tonight should be much better!

That went well! We just had my man's folks over for dinner and gosh it was good! I made proscuitto wrapped chicken thighs in mushroom sauce with mild mushrooms. It went over well. Afterwards he made us a heavenly dessert with chocolate bar, chocolate cherry frozen yogurt, bananas, and hershey chocolate syrup. Yum! I've noticed a major hit is my vegetable bath, which is what I use instead of butter for cooked veggies. It's good with anything savory like green beans, broccoli, or carrots.

Here's my recipe:

Vegetable Bath

Prep Time: 2 minutes
Cook Time: 0 minutes

Ingredients
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp balsamic vinegar (or other flavoured vinegar like red wine, champagne, etc)
“Italian seasonings” dried herb mix
small pinch sugar
1 dash lemon juice

Instructions

1. In small bowl, jiggle bowl to mix the vinegar and oil, then add the rest of ingredients.
2. Pour over cooked and drained vegetables. Shake pot to coat. Serve!

 Optional:

If don’t have Italian seasonings mix, can use bit of dried oregano, thyme, and rosemary. Use dried, not ground!

I don't think Santa will mind, do you?

Ok fans and fanettes! Tonight is the Christmas Family Dinner! I, once again, get the chance to give my entire family (barring a couple cousins and two uncles) salmonella poisoning! I sure do hope it goes well.

I made rumballs to give away as presents this year. I found these darling Christmas tins with penguins and santas and stars on them, and they are perfect to hold about a dozen balls each, so that is how the goodies will be presented. I sure do hope people like them. I'm worried. They didn't turn out quite the way I expected. They still taste good, though. Just not the same texture. Elli is not a baker, folks. But she's trying, bless her heart.

Ok, I have only half a million things left to do before I head over to the house to get started on Mr. Turkey Lurkey. Have a great day, everyone!

Elli signing off.

I had a fabulous time last night! I had a dinner with Randy, who is a very long time supporter of my site, and has gone above and beyond with his generosity to me. Last night was no exception. He treated me to a wonderful dinner at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix, and we chatted away the evening on the patio. Karma must be trying to tell him something. Last year when he came to Phoenix, he won a chunk of money in the lottery just before he flew down, and this time the hotel messed up his reservation, so they comped the entire dinner and a bottle of wine! Thank you very much Randy! I had a wonderful time. :)

This morning I check out of my hotel, then head over to have lunch with an old friend. You might remember Holly from Dreamnet-past. :) After lunch I'm off to Tucson! I wish I had brought more than one music CD. Ipods are great and all, but they don't replace the CD player in a car. A quick note about my rental car: it's a Cobalt, and is nice to drive, but seems to have that common-to-Arizona alignment drift and the rear window is too small and angled too sharply for good visibility. The a/c, stereo, and other niceties are very handy, though.