christmas kitchen chaos

Gah! I have my computer back. It's free of water, wine and damage. Hurrah! I on the other hand, am not free of water, wine or damage, and a return to bikram yoga yesterday very nearly broke me. It was supposed to be a calming hour and a half of escaping Christmassy chaos, but my hypothesis proved correct and wine is a much better escape mechanism at this time of year (and more socially acceptable than gin shots. But they work a treat too). There was none of the euphoria I experienced that magical week I first tried Bikram, in the aftermath of the royal wedding. Perseverance is the key though, right?

I have, as always, set myself some wildly ambitious kitchen-related Christmas goals, and am, as usual, flailing around having failed at many of them. Curdled curd, burnt caramel, un-iced cookies - it is all go. I am hurtling towards Friday (when I finish work for two weeks, fly home and then hit the beach, yayyyy), and in between it all there have been friends in town, gold glitter nail polish, many and varied christmas parties, barbecues, shopping, coffees and ginger spiced cookies.

I wanted to do a gingery type gifty thing and found these cookies over at smitten kitchen when I was researching wedding cake buttercream (but more about that in the New Year!)

I have made about a million stars, and rolled them reasonably thin to get a slightly crunchier-than-gingerbread biscuit. I followed the recipe pretty much word for word, although I halved it and it still made plenty. Molasses by the way, is available in the organic section of the supermarket, and the smell reminds me so much of my Grandma!

Although I'm yet to ice the cookies with royal icing, on their own they have a depth and a kick that leaves normal gingerbread seem both lacking and childish in comparison. I'll get to the icing despite having used the last of my lemons on a roast chicken we had for dinner tonight, served with an adaption of this quinoa salad. It's nowhere near midnight after all!

Lots to do, not enough hours in the day, and a bombsite of a bedroom, but keeping calm, admiring our tree, brownie in the oven, and annoying the flatmates with plenty of christmas music is keeping things Merry in Aro. And we're having a flat Christmas feast tomorrow night, but more about that later as well. And now that I've been both reunited with my laptop, and strongly advised (refer gin shots, above) to be blogging about recent dates and what not as well as food, well, the possibilites are endless now aren't they? There's still 4 full days to go after all...