Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukkah!

I hope your holidays are filled with peace and joy

Our friends, who are really our “adopted” family, sent us an Instant Pot for a gift. We received it a week or so ago, and we’ve been having a wonderful time with it. It’s fun cooking in the kitchen together. The food cooks quickly in the Instant Pot and is utterly delicious. For us it was love at first bite.

So far we’ve made pot roast, chicken and potatoes, and chicken teriyaki. I’ve been printing out recipes from the Internet that look interesting and putting them in a binder. Today we went to the store and bought a few extra ingredients so we can make more foods. We have a lot of things we’d like to try–like yogurt, cheesecake, and many other dishes.

EJ has continued to make bread, learning as he goes. He is having trouble getting the bread to rise, even though he bought new yeast. We think our house is too cold. We are trying to learn how to proof the bread in the Instant Pot. Tonight he is making donuts. We celebrate Hanukkah and donuts are one of the traditional foods. Latkes are another. I made some yesterday. There were delicious.

In between making donuts, we’ve been watching literary movies tonight–first The Scarlet Pimpernel and now Ivanhoe.

Tomorrow we are going to cook a turkey, and I will make more potpies from the leftovers.