(no subject)

I spent a good part of yesterday morning cooking for the Christmas party that evening.  For some reason I got it into my head that there would be far more people at the party than actually showed, so I cooked enough to feed a small army.  I briefly considered making something unusual for the party, but in the end I fell back on a couple of old standbys and cooked up candied yams with browned marshmallow topping, and slow-cooked ribs.  Not surprisingly, I brought home about 2/3 of the yams at the end of the night, but virtually all of the ribs got snapped up.

atara also prepared a couple of dishes; she whipped up a batch of her green bean casserole (yum), and she made a plate of interesting appetizers.

They described this appetizer on the radio while we were out driving a few days ago, and it sounded so good that we decided to make some for the party on Saturday.  The next morning I did a Google search and managed to find a recipe that, while not an exact match of the one described, was close enough by my reckoning.  Although it doesn't sound very fancy on the surface (chicken and water chestnut wrapped in bacon), the result was astoundingly good.  I suspect the marinade had a lot to do with that, though one can hardly go too wrong when it includes garlic, ginger and sherry.  =9

If I'm feeling a bit less lazy tomorrow (and if anybody is interested) I'll post the various recipes up here.