The "Holiday Family Time", edition.

Good Monday morning. Still the holiday and will be a holiday until Shawn is headed back to Illinois.  So. Let's start with Christmas dinner. Most of the meal items were prepared or purchased before Friday.  Dinner was at 2:00.  I know. You say, hey that's rather early. And it was, but for a reason. Dad has to pick up Carl from his assisted living residence. It's literally across town.  If you're familiar with the area, we live near The Westgate, formerly known as The Las Vegas Hilton.  Carl lives very near Red Rock Casino and Resort.  It's listed as a 13 mile trip, about 30 minutes each way. There is no freeway to take there and the lights here are extra long.  As long as traffic is moving, 30 minutes sounds right.  Anyway. The point is Dad wanted to make sure he returned Carl before it got dark. And he did. We were pretty much done by 5:00. And that allowed me to do treatment that  evening. It was a win all around.  

Now. What was left to fix on Christmas Day?  The banana pudding was done.   The cucumber salad and potato salad were done, the candied corn needed to be heated up.   Put it in a pot on low and let it go.  The tri tip was put in oven on low and was going well. The turkey breast was also in the oven. So I needed to do my fancy rice.  What is fancy rice?  I sauté a package of sliced mushrooms, an onion, 1/2 a green pepper and 3 stalks of celery for about 5-7 minutes. I seasoned the veggies with kosher salt, pepper and garlic powder. That day I used 3 tbsp of butter, but I have used olive oil.  Then I added  the rice and sautéd it with the veggies for about 4 more minutes. Then, instead of water, I used low sodium broth. Friday I used beef broth to complement the tri tip.  But I've also used chicken broth or even vegetable broth. I added a teaspoon of beef boullion and then cooked according to the directions on the package of rice. Yum. Yum. And did I say yum?  I also made some gravy. 

The final dish was the oven roasted brussel sprouts. They were perfection. The trial run ended up too salty. I followed Ina's directions, but she just had too much salt. We seasoned before roasting and that was enough. As always there was too much good and as always, we sent our seniors home with goodie bags. We had a great Christmas Day!   

So Sunday is our regular brunch day. Yesterday we went to the House of Blues Gospel Brunch at the House of Blues in the Mandalay Bay. I thought Dad might like it. And he did. Remember, he attends the Episcopal church, so the music nowhere near gospel!  Also, the brunch buffet is pretty extensive. There were several stations.  The main knew had 3 Salads, shrimp, scrambled eggs, sausage gravy and biscuits,  Mac and cheese, sausage links, bacon, catfish and bbq chicken. There was a carving station, a chicken and waffles station and the ever ubiquitous omelet station.  And of course deserts. You can purchase mimosas and bloody Mary's .  I know at the Disney World venue they offered fresh squeezed orange juice...but that's Florida!!  

They give you 45 minutes before the show starts, but you can get food until the end.  I won't tell you about the show, but we enjoyed it. The gospel groups are different each week. The group we saw here in Vegas performs every 4th Sunday. The singer was Pat Pennington and she was from Detroit!  How about that?  Dad enjoyed it. Brian, Shawn and I enjoyed it again. I recommend the gospel brunch not only for the food, but the singing is good. 

That's it for today.  I need to reiterate that I am feeling much better. The problem really was too much fluid. Isn't that something. That could have killed me. I guess I was slowly dying. But now I'm not!!  Whoo hoo!  I betcha I'll be more vigilant about fluid accumulation!  Take care. Be careful if you're in bad weather areas. It's just chilly here. So much whining!  They don't know what cold is!  Lol. Have a wonderful day!!!