Play like a Peterson!

"Hardcore....and a little dirty." 

A wonderful family motto. Next year Derek and I are making shirts.

Exciting things happened this weekend involving an epic family reunion eating fest, baking in Grandma's kitchen with legit baking equipment and yummy leftovers.

Nancy's Kitchen!

Complete with a stand-mixer older than me and a real double boiler for melting chocolate!

I was responsible for dessert and you never want to experiment in situations like this so I chose two rock solid recipes. Because it was a family reunion I opted for my Rum Cake (which was great with coffee on the dock the following morning) and Uncle Craig requested something chocolate so Double Chocolate Peppermint Crunch Cookies made an appearance. I woke up at the bright and cheery hour of 6 to begin my baking. Everything went well and came out tasting fine with the exception of my horribly burnt rum cake. Psh. Okay so it wasn't black burnt but it's darker than I like so I just threw in some more rum. Plus licking the rum batter bowl at 6:30 made dealing with a burnt cake a little easier (Salmonella be damned Grandma!).

Some lovely cookies and a disfigured rum cake.

And onto a real recipe! (sort of)

The great part about trips to any set of parental units is the fact that you always come home with leftovers. This trip we were lucky enough to score some of Melissa's delicious (and made on a whim!) veggie salsa and random bits of cheese/salami/olives. Because we had all of these random things and we weren't too hungry we decided on a munchie platter for dinner. My personal favorites included Cabot horseradish cheese spread and Wagner's Sled Dog Doppelbock Beer.

The spread.

Melissa's Veggie Salsa

(from the kitchen of Melissa)

Ingredients:

Corn

Zucchini

Yellow Squash

Red Onion

Black Beans

Jalapeno Pepper

Cilantro

Directions:

1. Prepare veggies and mix them all together.

Sidenotes: I'm not sure if there was any salt or pepper to taste or if it was dressed in anything lemon/lime juice or some sort of vinegar....I'll have to check. There was definitely some elbowing for the last couple of bites which I obviously won because I.....played like a Peterson!