My sis and I had a rare and welcome Christmas alone, which meant parade and movies, lighting the Christmas tree and playing records – no family drama, how sweet is that? But we didn’t want to have just your ordinary, everyday Christmas dinner. We decided to do it the KFC way, the way so many people celebrate in Japan.

Well, we can’t get to a KFC and we don’t know all the recipes, so we just had to find a recipe for corn salad and sort of wing it then buy the chicken and cake at Hy-Vee – here’s how it’s supposed to look:

And here’s what our make-shift Christmas dinner looked like:

Pretty close, huh? Okay, not exactly – but it was fun and tasty!

Long time no see! I’ve been snapping pics of everything, but I haven’t had time to come on and post for a bit – sorry about that! I may yet still be a bit shaky getting back into it, but I’m giving it my best!

We made a couple of hand-tossed crust pizzas the other day, this pic is of the pizza with olives and mushrooms (both canned – which tasted surprisingly great on the pizza). The first pizza has cheese, the second has velveeta because we didn’t realize that Hubby had used up all the cheese in at breakfast – was still good!

I’ve never been a big fan of Ryan’s, partially because I just don’t like buffet style food, but this last year I’ve been there a few times and it’s always been really good. This time was no exception!

I nabbed two big platefuls ( Mashed potatoes and gravy, fried chicken, potato wedges, BBQ ribs, carrots, rolls and macaroni and cheese ) and a little ice cream. I would’ve had more but one of our party got sick (as usual) and decided to be a downer the rest of the time, including freaking out because we were still enjoying the buffet after she had already had her fill and gone to the car. Women!

Ryan’s gets 3 stars out of a possible 5, the food was good but not necessarily great and the atmosphere always leaves something to be desired. Plus our service woman was rude (not just to us, to everyone).

4302 North Belt Highway
St. Joseph, MO 64506
(816) 390-9855

I’d never seen them for sale in the states before, probably because I live in the middle of Buttcrack, Missouri where they don’t sell anything (lol), but we were in St. Joe yesterday at Wal-Mart and low and behold, there they were between the botan rice candy and the Pocky in the ethnic aisle!

This is how long it’s been since I’ve had Yan-Yan – there weren’t messages on the biscuits, or at least that I remember, the last time I had it?

Dough Recipe:

# 1/2 cup milk
# 1/2 cup water
# 2 tablespoons butter
# 3/4 teaspoon salt
# 3 cups all-purpose flour
# 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
# 1/4 cup white sugar
# 1 egg

The Rest at Allrecipes.com

These are a bit dark for cinnamon rolls, as they were in the oven for only 3 minutes longer than they should have been. I didn’t hear my timer go off, but 3 minutes was all it took. They were still delicious, but make sure to watch them carefully while they’re cooking!

This is a microwave contraption comes apart and the two Mickey Mouse head compartments are filled with your batter or cake mix, then little back end plates fit over the mix and it goes into the microwave. When it’s done you take it out and remove the back plates, which have made impressions in the cake for you to spoon filling into. Then you place one side of the cake on top of the other and use the enclosed plastic sealer to seal the the blasted thing – now you should have a finished, stuffed waffle!

I plan on testing it out with some honey wheat waffle batter and cream cheese filling! I have no idea how long you’re supposed to cook these things but I’ll tinker around and let you know what I find out. Squee!