*Christmas Cooking*

In the spirit of Advent Conspiracy (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVqqj1v-ZBU for a promo video on it), I decided to spend more time with my family doing something together, rather than just spending money on them for silly gifts. So, this year, my thought was to spend time in the kitchen with each of my present family members.

Basic Premise:
First, write down the names of different courses on paper for family members to draw out. (entree, appetizer, side dish, dessert, etc.). Make them choose out of a hat or bowl.
Then, once the parts of the meal have been assigned, each member is to look up a recipe that they have never tried before but one that sounds interesting/good to them. I made my family use allrecipes.com because it has such great reviews, pictures, comments, etc.
Next, I went grocery shopping and picked up all the ingredients needed.
Last, each member chose the day and time we would make the item together.

IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!! We enjoyed measuring and cooking, then critiquing and evaluating the final products. There were some recipes that we liked so much that we are going to add them to our regular list of foods.

Here's the breakdown of what we created together:

Mom: Salad: Mojito Salad.
Dad: Entree: Deer Poppers.
Elizabeth: Appetizer: Crab Dip.
Tim: Beverage: Turkish coffee.
Sarah: Dessert: Fruit Pizza.

PS. I had never seen my dad in the kitchen making anything before this night. I think cooking venison with him was one of the biggest highlights of my holiday.