Christmas Baking Part 1 - Christmas Baking makes for good gifts

I decided this year that I would put my new baking skills to good use and make some of my favourite cookies and chocolate as christmas gifts. Not because I'm too lazy to think of what to get them, just because I thought that it would be a more personal gift from me not to mention to share with them my love of baking.

I had this idea that I would pack them all up in takeaway noodle boxes with a bit of coloured paper and some nice ribbons. It was simple, quick and cute. :)

The big boxes would be filled with some pistachio biscuits and some Lime and Honey chocolate truffles;

whilst the little boxes would just be filled with the chocolate truffles.

Dark Chocolate Truffles w/ Lime & Honey
*The Cooks Book, Desserts by Pierre Herme. p.575

For coating:

Finely grated zest of 1/2 lime
120g caster sugar
120g cocoa powder.

Prepare coating in advance (at least 1 day) before it is required.

Combine lime zest and sugar and rub sugar and zest together with the palm of your hands and spread the sugar mixture thinly onto a non stick baking tray. Leave to dry overnight at room temperature.

The following day, mix cocoa powder with the lime sugar.

For ganache:

95g of butter
440g best quality dark chocolate (60 - 70% cocoa)
325ml creme fraiche
zest of 1 lime
50g lime juice
50g acacia honey (I used Manuka Honey)

Cut butter into walnut-sized pieces, place in a bowl and leave to soften to room temperature.

Chop chocolate into small pieces and place in a large bowl.

Bring to boil, creme fraiche and lime zest. Remove from heat, cover and let the zest and creme fraiche to infuse for about 10mins. Return pan to heat and bring it back just to the boil and remove. In another saucepan, pour in lime juice and honey and warm without boiling.

Pour half of the infused boiling cream over the chocolate and stir with a wooden spoon to combine. It is recommended that you mix the chocolate and cream by starting from the centre in small circles, moving outwards. Add the remaining creme and repeat stirring process, then add the lime juice and honey mixture and stir until ganache is smooth.

When ganache is smooth, slowly add the pieces of butter, stirring them gently into the mixture.

At this point, if you have a pipping bag and a No. 9 plain nozzle, you may choose to only refrigerate the ganache for 30mins and then pouring chocolate ganache into a pipping bag and pipe balls of ganache onto a baking tray lined with baking parchment. Then chill piped balls of chocolate for 2 hrs before rolling them in the lime-sugar and cocoa mixture.

Alternatively, you could either:
a) pour ganache into a thin shallow pan lined with baking paper, then refrigerate for 4hrs before cutting up the ganache into squares or

b) refrigerate ganache in the same mixing bowl for 4hrs. After which, you could use a melon baller to scoop up the ganaches into balls or roll ganache balls with your hands.

After preparing balls of ganaches, remember to return to the fridge to chill for at least 2hrs. Then roll ganaches in the cocoa/lime-sugar mixture, place in asieve to remove excess coating and store in the fridge in an air tight container.

Christmas 2006 - Part 1 - Xmas Lunch is a Roasted Affair

Christmas this year has been big for me! Big in the sense that I whipped up two big meals (the second one was dinner on christmas day.. post to follow). As it has been the last two years, Alv's mum jetted off to Singapore again and left us 'orphaned' for christmas.

Alv's mum decided that we would have a family lunch early this time round as she wanted to catch up with the family before leaving on another 3 month holiday. As part of the family celebrations this year, I was asked if I would cook christmas lunch because: a) Little B could only stay up til 7pm every night; b) his mum was a tad lazy. And so the family celebrated christmas a week early on 17 December.

Xmas Lunch was a Roasted affair

Roasted rack/s of lamb w/ rosemary and thyme
Roasted pumpkin w/ onions
Crunchy roasted baby potatoes*
Green Beans and Broccolini salad*
Roasted tomatoes
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Almond and Blackberry Tart

When coming up with the menu for lunch, it was suggested that lamb be part of the menu. I wasn't too keen on roasting a leg of lamb for a small lunch so I decided to go with racks of lamb like we did some months ago at FLim's.

In my cookbook, a roast meal is never complete without any pumpkin, onions or potatoes, so it was only natural that I'd be roasting all three things together with the lamb and to finish off, I had the beans and brocollini salad from the current issue (Dec/Jan 07) of Donna Hay magazine and the accidental roasted tomatoes. (hehe.. sigh)

I have to say though, cooking christmas lunch is hard work. I applaud all the mums out there who does all the cooking every year at christmas. I was about an hour late with lunch. Even though I prepared mostly everything the day before. Sigh.. one man band cooking is hard work. I got up at about 10am and did the rest of the food prep whilst everyone else went off to church. I think the hardest part was waiting for the food to cook. Whilst I manage to get mostly everything into the oven by 1:15pm, waiting for it to cook felt like forever....

It was almost 2:30 by the time we sat down to eat and because I was so busy cooking I didn't even get much of a chance to snap any photos. (The above photo courtesy of Alv)

Roasted Rack of Lamb w/ Rosemary and Thyme

Just a simple marinade of chopped rosemary, thyme, olive oil, garlic and salt and pepper. Mix everything together and rub onto the lamb. Cut slits in the meat and insert left over herb from the marinade into the slits. Marinate for a minimum of 2hrs or overnight for extra flavour.

Heat some oil on a medium sized saucepan and pan fry the lamb rack for about 2 mins on each side to seal in the juices and roast in the oven at 200 deg C for about 25-30mins for a medium cooked lamb. (Add another 10mins for well done)

Crunchy Roasted Baby Potatoes*
Issue Dec/Jan 2007 of Donna Hay Magazine

Clean and dry baby potatoes and cut thin slits into the potatoes without cutting all the way through. Toss potatoes with some olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper and bake at 200 deg C for 35- 40mins until golden and crunchy.

Green Beans and Broccolini salad w/ bacon balsamic dressing*
Issue Dec/Jan 2007 of Donna Hay Magazine

300g green beans
180g broccolini
50g butter
1/4 cup olive oil
2 eschallots
3 rashers bacon
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

Trim and blanch green beans and broccolini and set aside. Chop up bacon and eschallots and fry them over medium heat in the butter and oil until bacon is golden. Add lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and cook for about 1 min. Add beans and broccolini and cook for another 2-3mins until beans and broccolini is warmed through.

Serves 8.

Roasted Pumpkin w/ onions

I used the kabocha I purchased from Prahran market for this. Slice up or chop up pumpkin to your liking, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper and place in a baking dish on top of some chopped onions and scatter a few knob of butter on top of the pumpkin. Roast in the oven for about 30mins at 180 deg C or until the pumpkin is cooked yet firm.


"Accidental" Roasted Tomatoes

Originally I had intended to make the spicy tomato sauce from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries as the sauce for the roast lamb. But in my haste to prepare everything, I forgot all about the tomatoes. When I finally remembered about it, it was way too late as the sauce requires the tomatoes to be roasted for at least 45mins. In the end, I took it out of the oven after 20mins and simply served it as a side.

Nigel's recipe for spicy tomato sauce is simple yet delicious:

950g tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
2 small chillies
olive oil

Set oven at 200 deg C, peel and finely slice garlic and finely chop chillies. Cut tomatoes in half and drizzle tomatoes with oil and season with salt, pepper, garlic and chilli. Roast for 45 - 50mins until tomatoes are soft and flecked with black. Rougly chop tomaotes to give a coarse 'sauce' and serve.

For dessert, I decided to make an Almond and Blackberry tart from Skye Gyngell's A Year in my kitchen. Essentially, it's a tart filled with frangipane and blackberries. Unfortunately this was the most underbaked tart I have ever made. Sigh... Makes me wonder if the oven turned off on me again. The tart filling was absolutely delicious... once it was properly cooked through. The sweetness of the frangipane was well balanced out by the slightly tart blackberries.

Though it looks absolutely well done in the photo above, the tart was under cooked and when I served it, the filling all oozed out.... it was disappointing, but we ate it anyway. LOL and no, none of us got sick from eating under cooked tart. Although, I did stick it in the oven again to cook it thoroughly.

Almond and Blackberry Tart
*Skye Gyngell's A year in my Kitchen

About 250g or 1 quantity of your favourite sweet pastry/pate sucree

200g blanched almonds or almond meal
200g caster sugar
200g unsalted butter
1tsp vanilla extract
6 egg yolks
250g blackberries

creme fraiche to serve

Roll out pastry and line onto a tart pan (I used a 25cm wide x 2.5cm depth) and refrigerate for about 30mins before baking blind in oven at 180 deg C.

If using blanched almonds, roast the almonds in the oven for about 3 - 4mins. Allow to cool and then crush almonds coarsely by pulsing it in a food processor.

Cream sugar and butter with electric mixer in a bowl until smooth. Add vanilla extract and continue to mix until combined. Add one egg yolk at a time, ensure the yolk is well mixed before adding the next yolk. Finally, fold in the ground almonds.

Pour almond filling into the tart case and stud evenly all over with blackberries and bake in the oven for 30mins or until the filling is golden brown. Set aside to cool and serve at room temperature with creme fraiche or ice cream.

Tips:

• Place tart pan on a cookie tray for easy handling.
• Try not to over fill the tart as the filling may rise during cooking and over flow out of the case into the cookie tray.
• If the filling appears to be undercook, carefully cover the top of the tart with aluminium foil before returning it to the oven for another 10mins or so.

I found that I had to bake my tart for about 45mins as oppose to the recommended 30mins. It could well be that my oven was acting up again or perhaps being a 'fan forced' oven had something to do with it? I haven't quite worked out this bit yet, but another recipe which also uses the frangipane filling also recommended a cooking time of 30mins and theirs looked fine. So, maybe it was another oven mishap, or perhaps overfilling the tart had some dire consequences to it after all.. nevertheless.. it all went into the tummy and we all survived ;)

Alv's mum doesn't believe in placemats. These were made out of some coloured paper I bought from Spotlight in my attempt to make lunch feel a bit more christmassy.

After all was fed and the dishes were done, Alv and I played santa and gave everyone their pressies. wheee......

Merry Christmas

May this holiday season be full of good food, friends and happy returns.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Menu for Hope III - Give a gift this Christmas

You may have already heard about A Menu for Hope.

Guess what? You're going to hear about it again! It's the least I could do since I forgot all about it. (and of course I am going to buy me some raffle tickets!)

Give a gift this Christmas, buy a raffle ticket and support "A Menu for Hope", the Annual World Food Blogging Event organised by Chez Pim. This year, donations raised will go to support the UN World Food Programme the UN body providing food relief to refugees, countries with food crisis and emergency food aid in events of natural disasters. (Remember the earth quake in Kashmir, Tsunami crisis and drought crisis in Niger?)

If your 'good will bank' only credits one good deed per year, this IS the one deed you should be using it on.


What is 'A Menu for Hope'?

A Menu for Hope is an online Food Blogger fundraiser organised by Chez Pim. This is the third year the event has been running. Last year's event raised a total of US$17,000 for UNICEF.


What do I get for a raffle ticket?

Food bloggers worldwide have sponsored a number of gifts to encourage and entice you to participate. A list of gifts can be found here on Chez Pim's website. You may select which prizes you are interested in. (Don't forget to write down the code of the prizes that you are interested in! Eg. EU 07, or AP09)

You can also view prizes from specific regions:

US West Coast: Becks and Posh
US East Coast: The Amateur Gourmet
US (the rest): Kalyn's Kitchen
Canada: Cardamom Addict
Europe and UK: Davidlebovitz.com
Asia Pacific/Australia/New Zealand: Grab Your Fork
Wine related prizes: Vinography

How much is a raffle ticket?

Raffle tickets are US$10 per ticket and and each ticket gives you one entry into the draw for the prize of your choice. Your $10 will feed more mouths than one - so do it!


How can I help?

Tell your friends, in fact tell everyone you know and buy a raffle ticket! In fact buy two or three, even four raffle tickets .. the more the better. Not only are you helping raise money for the UN WFP, you are helping to fight the war on hunger!


Where can I buy raffle tickets?

Go to: http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhopeIII

Don't forget to select a prize and write down the code in the personal message section.

Donations are accepted until this Friday, 22 December 2006. And the prize winners will be announced on Chez Pim's blog on 15th January 2007.

If you think this is a hoax, check out the donations page. They have raised over $24,000 so far and check out the prize's regional blogs. It's the real deal! It's as real as the World Vision ads you see on tv.

So click here now!


Have I convinced you if not bullied you into buying a ticket? ;)

Happy Birthday Uncle Alvin!!

Celebrated on: Saturday, 18.11.2006

Almost a month late, but... better late than never!

This is actually my second attempt at writing this post. My first attempt was after the party on the day of his birthday. 3/4 into writing the post, I was greeted by the my old friend the 'blue screen of death'! After that, I just threw my hand in disgust and gave up.. until now.

The reason: well... my friend M (who's currently at home enjoying motherhood) reads my blog fairly regularly. In fact she tells me that she checks out this place almost everytime she logs on to check her emails etc. I was strictly advised last Thursday when I saw her at the office xmas party that I "need to update my blog more regularly" so that she has something new to read.

So M, if you're reading this... I updated today.. just for you!! :D

For Alv's birthday, we had some friends and family over for the occasion. As usual, the family arrived first, the friends, an hour later. Alv's Mum and I had a bit of a misunderstanding about the food. I was under the impression that I was taking care of all the food for the day but it turned out that she went out and bought some meat as well the day before so we ended up eating "leftovers" for about 3 days after the bbq.

In typical bbq at Alv's fashion, (we had a bbq last year for his 25th birthday) he does all the cooking and we do all the eating. These were some of the things we served up that day:

BBQ Fare:

Sausages: Plain BBQ sausages, Organic Lamb sausages,
Organic pork sausages and some Kransky

Chicken tenderloins marinated w/ Sumac and Paprika
Scotch steaks
Grilled pork balls
Rocket, sundried tomatoes and goats cheese salad w/ balsamic dressing
Cheese, Cucumber and cherry tomatoes platter
Potato salad

For dessert:
Raspberry Semi Freddo
Black Forest cheesecake

The chicken, pork patties and salads were my contribution to the bbq. The pork patties (not pictured) were from one of Jill Dupleix's recipe on The Times Online, Food & Drink section. It is absolutely delicious! I've made it once before and had the lot with rice paper, mint leaves, lettuce and the sauce. I love how the fish sauce brings out the sweetness of the pork and the fresh taste the mint and lettuce brings to the meal. Plus it smells heavenly when grilled on the barbie. It's probably better when served as per Jill's suggestions, but I still enjoyed it despite the lack of mint, lettuce and the sauce. Kinda brings something different to the whole bbq affair. You can find the recipe here.

The chicken tenderloins, (also not pictured) here was a bit of a disappointment, they were from the AWW Low Fat cookbook that I purchased a few months ago when I was really gung-ho about low fat eating. (Not anymore now, can't eat low fat food because I haven't been doing the cooking.. Alv's mum has been doing all the cooking since I moved in, and (I'm generalising here but..) asian mum's don't really do low fat cooking..?) It looked pretty good and the ingredients were fairly simple to make. It looked so good that I marinated about 1kg of them.

The disappointing thing was the taste, it ended up leaving a sour taste in my mouth. Had to lace it with sweet chilli sauce for some extra flavour and zing. Guess who had to eat it all up?? Sigh.. maybe it just wasn't well marinated enough? After all, I was making like double the amount the recipe suggested? I might give it ago next time, in smaller dosage. (SOMEONE suggested that I had a case of dyslexia that day and couldn't read recipes properly!) Humph.. the nerve..

Rocket, semi dried tomatoes and goats cheese salad.

Looks kinda oily here, but I assure you it wasn't. A packet of rocket leaves (approx 150g), a small tub of semi dried tomatoes from the deli (approx 1 large scoop) and fresh soft goats cheese (as much as you like); a few splashes of good extra virgin olive oil, a generous splash of balsamic vinegar (because I like balsamic vinegar); tossed together and served.

Someone ate all the cheese on this platter! Just plain old cucumber and cherry tomatoes, but I love the colour contrast on the plate, so I took a photo of it (Can you see the 'Made in Australia' kanga symbol on the top right corner?)

The potato salad is one of my favourite "throw everything together" recipe. Boiled baby potatoes, pan fried bacon, boiled eggs and parsley. Chop them up into small pieces, throw everything together and mix with some mayo (about 1/4 cup), sour cream (about 1/4 cup), 1/2 tbsp of dijon mustard, salt, pepper (to taste) and lots of parsley. I don't really have a proper recipe for this, it's just something I throw together with whatever's in the fridge. I sometimes add dijonaise into the lot too if I have any in the fridge.

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Raspberry semi freddo, from the cover of the latest issue (Issue 30) of Donna Hay magazine. It doesn't look as good as the cover, but tastes awesome! Awesome like, Bulla Frozen Yoghurt because it tastes like ice cream, but is yoghurt and it's 97% fat free! So says the packaging anyway.

If you read the current issue, Donna serves her in a small cup and wraps baking paper around the cup to give it an extra height. I couldn't be bothered with that, found these takeaway tubs at a party stall in Prahran Market and in typical takeaway container fashion, they even comes with a cover for easy storage! So I can just stick them all in the freezer, covered and not have to worry about odour contamination. Imagine your ice cream tasting like frozen fish..(eww)

Raspberry Semi Freddo
*Issue 30, Donna Hay Magazine, 2006

Ingredients:
3 eggs
2 egg yolks (extra)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup (225g) caster sugar
500g frozen raspberries, crushed
1 + 3/4 cup single/pouring cream

Place eggs, egg yolks, vanilla and sugar in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Whisk the ingredients with a hand-held beater for 4-5minutes or until heated, thick and pale. Remove from heat and continue whisking until cool. Gently fold in crushed raspberries through the egg mixture and set aside.

In another bowl, whisk cream until soft peaks form. Gently fold in the egg mixture into the cream until just combined.

*Donna suggests that you wrap a piece of bnaking paper around 6 x 1cup capacity serving glasses, ensuring that it stands at least 1cm above the rim of the glass. Secure paper with sticky tape.

The containers that I used were less than 1 cup, probably about 2/3 cup and I ended up filling about 14 of them up to 0.5 cm before the top.

Spoon mixture into glasses and freeze for 4-6hours until firm. (Remove the paper before serving.)

Serves 6 x 1cup glasses/containers.

Actually, my only criticism of Donna's recipe was that she didn't mention that it needs to be thawed slightly before serving. Otherwise the texture becomes that of 'ice-cream' not semi-frozen which is what a 'semi freddo' is suppose to be. So I suggest you remove it from the freezer and leave it in the fridge to thaw a bit (say 15min?) before serving.

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This Black Forest Cheesecake is from the Australian Women's Weekly (AWW) Food We Love cookbook. For his birthday cake, Alv wanted a strawberry cheese cake (like the ones at Cafe Greco at Crown) from The Cheesecake shop. Now, I don't know about you, I am not that big of a fan of the cakes from The Cheesecake shop and I don't think paying $20+ for a cheesecake is worth it when your girlfriend/boy-friend (*wink* I am talking about you TH!) can make you one for less than the price and effort to drive all the way to Clayton from Glen Waverley to get one. Plus, it would be even more embarrasing for 'the girlfriend' if the friends go, "How come you didn't make him a birthday cake, like how you made one for V??"

No, I wasn't really looking out for my reputation LOL. I just thought it was silly and was very insulted when he "suggested" that I "couldn't" possibly make a cheesecake that is like the ones at Cafe Greco. (ie. unbaked cheesecake with a layer of strawberries and gelatiney topping)

I went home and stuck about 10 different cookbooks with various similar cheesecake recipes under his nose the day before until he gave up and picked this Black Forest Cheesecake because it was: a) Black Forest and b) resembled the cake that he wanted the most. *rolled eyes*

Nevertheless, it was fun making this cheesecake. It's a fairly simple recipe and has easy to follow instructions. My only obstacle was pressing the crushed biscuits into the tin to form the crust and mould for the cake. I modified the recipe for the crust a bit.

The original recipe asks for chocolate biscuits, but I substituted the chocolate biscuits for digestives and maltesers. I saw one of Jamie Oliver's live stage shows on tv once when he made a New York Cheesecake where he crushed a packet of digestives biscuits and a packet of maltesers and used them as base for the cheesecake. Always wanted to try that combo since I saw it done on tv and I finally got the chance to do so.

Funnily enough, I have never really made a cheesecake before this cake... ever! Especially not the unbaked kind. The only cheesecake I have ever made was a Japanese cheesecake recipe I got from a friend's mum. I'm not sure it even qualifies as a cheesecake if it wasn't for the cream cheese that was in it. The texture of the cake is so light and fluffy that when I first tasted it it, I racked my brain for a whole 10minutes trying to figure out what was in it.

Black Forest Cheesecake
*Adapted from AWW Food We Love cookbook.

Ingredients:

Biscuit base:
250g plain chocolate biscuit**
or
250g digestive biscuits
200g maltesers (feel free to use more if you like maltesers ;) )
125g butter, melted

Pre-heat oven to 180 deg C. In a food processor, blend/crush digestive biscuits until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Crush maltesers in a glad bag or sealed plastic bag. Combine butter, maltesers and crushed biscuits in a large bowl and mix well. Press mixture into the bottom and sides of a 25cm springform tin. Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. (this is so that the chocolate melts into the mixture)

Cheesecake:
3 tsp of gelatine powder
1/2 cup (125ml) water
250g packet cream cheese, softened
3/4 sup (165g) caster sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
300ml thickened cream
425g can pitted black cherries
3/4 cup of reserved cherry syrup

Sprinkle gelatine over water in a small heat proof jug and stand jug in a small saucepan of simmering water. Stir until gelatine dissolves, remove jug from the saucepan and let cool.

Beat cream cheese, sugar and juice in a small bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Transfer mixture into a large bowl. In another bowl, whip cream until soft peaks form and fold the cream mixture into the cheese mixture in two batches. Then fold in the gelatine mixture.

Drain the pitted cherries and divide cherries into two portions.

Spoon 1/3 of the cheese mixture into the biscuit base and top the first layer with cherries. Repeat with the remaining cherry and cheese mixture. Refrigerate for about 20 - 30minutes until the mixture is firm.

Topping:
1 tbsp corn flour
1 tsbp caster sugar
1 tbsp dark rum (optional if not using rum, replace with 1 extra tbsp of cherry syrup)
3/4 cup reserved cherry syrup
Remainder of the cherries

Blend cornflour and sugar with reserved cherry syrup (3/4 cup) in a small saucepan. Stir mixture over low heat until it boils and thicken, stir in rum, turn off the stove and let it cool for about 10minutes.

When the cheesecake mixture is firm, spread cooled topping over cheesecake, swirling gently into the cheese mixture. Top with remainder of the cherries. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Note: The original recipe uses all of the cherries in the cheesecake mixture. I decided that it would look prettier with some cherries on top, so I divided the cherries into two portions. Feel free to do otherwise :)

**As suggested in the original recipe

The digestive + malteser combo makes a lovely crust for the cheesecake. I probably should've put in the whole bag of maltesers because you could only taste some of the chocolate and malt in the crust. Definitely worth trying. :)

So, I stayed up til 3am on Saturday night making desserts and marinating the food and woke up at 8:30am the next day to do the salads and last minute pressie shopping. Totally plastered by the time everyone left at 5:00 - 5:30pm. Without any alcohol assistance, crashed on the bed and slept til 8pm that night.

The things we girl friends do for them boys. Hummph!


>>Some photos from that day

I love the place where I work....

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the area where I work??

My office is in the same area as the Organisational Development Unit (OD) and they hold staff training workshops on this floor all the time. Most of the workshops are uncatered for but occasionally we get ones that they cater food for and whenever there are those workshops, there's always bound to be leftovers. There's a meeting room here that gets booked for use all the time too, and sometimes those meeting are held over lunch, so lunch is catered for. Hehe.. when there is catering, there is leftovers... So we basically get free food all the time. (I should mention the bikkies tin too.. but it's only Arnotts Bikkies, the standard workplace fare)

Today they had like two huge leftover platters of food from one the events that the OD organised. It was the Vice Chancellors Awards for Excellence. Everyone was too busy taking photos with the Vice-Chancellor after the ceremony and forgot all about the food. So where does it end up? Right here in our office tea room.

I love my workplace. I may not always like the work that I have to do/am doing. But I love my office.

View from my desk

ps. Have been busy lately that I haven't blogged much. Three more weeks til our office shuts down for the year, so hopefully I'll have more time to catch up with blogging. :)