Next weekend is going to be pretty high on the social scale. Friday night is our Christmas party with JEM, which I will have to leave early because of the open house for my 3.5 hour dance class. Saturday during the afternoon is the Christmas party for the refugee families that arrived this year in Joliette, a party that we are organising in collaboration with another Non-Profit organisation. There will be around 70-90 people attending. Following that, I am attending the dance troupe Christmas party in the evening, and on Sunday we are holding a Christmas potluck with activities for the families from the neighbourhood where we run our kid’s club QL. Not bad for one weekend, if I do say so myself.
I am excited for all these festive occasions to enjoy good company, tasty food and share about the Nativity story during our two King’s Kdis activities. Except I am partly responsible for the tasty food, which meant A LOT of cooking and baking during this past weekend 
I am supposed to bring two dishes for JEM’s Christmas party, another for the troupe in addition to what I am preparing for my secret santa, and another dish or two for the Sunday potluck. Let’s just say I started early because I couldn’t prepare all these dishes (and for this past weekend) on Thursday night.
Eggplant lasagna
Brownies…
It was a hard choice to figure out what Christmas-y baking I wanted to make, and this time around I am trying some new recipes. I opted for the classic Apple Cheese Cake (a family recipe…it’s not a cream cheese cake, but with grated cheese mmm), gingerbread cake with lemony icing, an apple galette (gluten-free! 
), and a large batch of sugar cookies (which were lovingly – an perhaps excessively for some – decorated by my housemates). My sugar cookies were made with regular flour, so that they would be more successful with others who are unaccustomed to gluten-free cuisine. Let’s just say I left a plate on the counter to thank my housemates and the next morning, our new cat friend was trying to get her paws on them
Sugar cookies, well decorated 
Apple galette
Apple Cheese Cake
Oh! News! The litte cat, which you saw from my last post, has been let in to the house. Last week when the temperatures dropped quite low (i.e. -16 degrees), we finally convinced G. that she should be pitied and let inside. So now she plays with the rocks in the planted pots, has reserved her special spot on the sofa, and is otherwise somewhat cautious around us humans. Sadly I must say that she is not in my good books, as she did her business on my bed – much to my chagrin – and the following morning proceeded to re-decorate my down duvet which was on the floor in the laundry room. I wasn’t too impressed, so she got a good smack and was sent to the litter box. I think she got the message though, and now we respectfully co-exist in the house :p That being said, I don’t leave my bedroom door open anymore when I leave the house.
All my baking has gone into the freezer in the theory that it will stay fresh enough to eat for next weekend. Never really done that before and I am not too certain what will be the results. Hopefully all will be edible and enjoyable! Any tips on how best to defrost a cake with icing, a pie, and cookies would be appreciated
Last night we finally had our first real winter storm of the season, which soon became freezing rain :s Nothing like a sheet of ice covering your car, covering the stairs, the windows, the roads. Makes for a nice skating rink, but not one that is good enough to wear your skates on. The funniest thing I witnessed today was Bobette (our dog) going outside this afternoon. The porch was covered with snow and was not slippery, but then she jumped on to the stairs, which being uncovered had a nice coating of ice and suddenly Bobette found herself on the ice covered snow sliding around with a rather panicked look. Normally Bobette has way too much energy, and I think the icy ground encumbered her style a bit. Alas! Hopefully tomorrow it will be less so.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!! À la prochaine
I’m impressed, sister! You definitely were productive!
As for defrosting frozen baked goods, I think you can just leave cookies in the counter to thaw and same with the pie. Although for the iced cake, I have no idea as I’ve only frozen UN-iced cakes before. Usually I think with pies you freeze them uncooked, but I’ve never done it before, so who knows.
By: Bean on December 11, 2012
at 10:27 am