Merry merry Christmas and a really big hat

A few days ago I decided we needed to get some Christmas pictures done. It is Pallo's first Christmas with me. He has already choked on an ornament from the tree (he's fine, just spit it back up) and tried to steal the really large ornament ball on the coffee table.

Koira knows how to sit for proper Christmas pictures


She even kind of seems to enjoy doing pictures


At least until I start taking a few too many. Then she gets bored, but still photgraphs very well


Pallo on the other hand hates having to sit still for pictures.


He hates having stuff be put on his head, and does his best to eat it while ruining the picture


My favorite picture of him is when he finally gave up fighting it


And I can't leave out the cats. Martha wouldn't deign to have her picture taken, and Kitty was no where I could find, but Sassy loves all kinds of attention, even if it does involve giant, oversized Santa hats


Silly doggies.

Surprisingly underwhelming

While the spices all smelled amazing earlier while grinding them up, and especially after being tossed in the blender with yogurt, onion, pepper, and garlic, the end product was pretty underwhelming. It was good, just not amazing. Part of it might have been that the elk did not fully thaw out, so didn't accept the marinade as fully as it could have, but I don't think that was the whole problem. If I make it again, I will probably over spice it like mad, cut the meat thin, and sear it quick over a hot heat to get a good crust of flavor on it.





The cheesecake is currently sitting on the counter cooling, waiting to be stuck in the fridge over night. The yogurt became quite firm, which I liked. I mixed up four eggs, some sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove, then added in the yogurt. With no crackers in the house for the crust, I used some cereal with a bit of sugar and spices added to it.

Baking didn't add a lot of color to the cheesecake, but it does look tasty. Top two are before baking, bottom two are fresh out of the oven.



I'm looking forward to getting a good slice of it. Glad I had some cherry pie left over from the flyball Christmas potluck last night otherwise I wouldn't be able to let this sit in the fridge as long as I know it needs to.

Food Post: Tandoori Elk, Raita, and Cheesecake

Somehow we ended up with a ton of plain honey yogurt. I asked on FoodFo for some yogurt using recipes, and Werda suggested doing Tandoori Chicken and a cheesecake. I'm out of chicken, but decided to use some elk steaks instead.

Since I don't have a spice grinder, I decided to do things by hand to make my garam masala. I already had some of the spices powdered, but the cloves and black peppercorns had to be smashed up. Then I added the rest of the spices already powdered and mixed them up.



I roughly chopped the onion, garlic, and half green pepper since they would be going into the blender.



By the time it was blended in with the yogurt and spices, it was smelling pretty damn amazing.



The elk was frozen, so I pulled it out to thaw a bit, then unwrapped it and tossed it into a bowl with some lemon juice and salt, then back in the fridge to thaw a bit more while the yogurt sauce was being made.



It was still pretty frozen, but thawed enough to put a couple deep slits into it for the marinade to get into. Poured the yogurt over the top, then back in the fridge.


While the elk was marinating and thawing out, I worked on the raita that was suggested to go along with it. I used onion, mint, cucumber, yogurt, garam masala, and a bit of tumeric. Diced everything up fine and decided to add some dried mint as well as fresh for a bit of added minty flavor. Mixed it all up and put it in the fidge for the flavors to blend.



I also checked on the yogurt I've been straining out for using in cheese cake. Its a bit gross to see how much liquid comes out of it, but it is firming up really nice.

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Now it is all sitting in the fridge, the elk absorbing the marinade, the raita combining flavors, and the yogurt draining. And I'm off to take the dogs out for some running time, since they have been staring at me sighing the whole morning while I prep the food.