The Brotherhood of Good-Dip Santas

I'm sure you're wondering: what is good dip? What is the Santa brotherhood? Why are there so freaking many of them? What's up with the creepy blue pinwheel-eyed one? Why does this warrant a post?

One question at a time.

What is good dip?

It's the most magical of fruit dips. If you haven't tried it you honestly have not lived. I don't use that phrase lightly. I'll give you the secret recipe.

1 part entire package of cream cheese, 1 part entire jar of marshmallow creme.

Use a mixer to combine until smooth. Witness the changing of your life. See rainbows and butterflies and unicorns and MAGICCCCC 

Moving on.

What is the Santa brotherhood?

I don't know. Adam started screaming about it when I drove around curves too fast and he was the keeper of the tray of Santas.

Why are there so freaking many of them?

Why NOT? My family ate every last one.

What's up with the creepy blue pinwheel-eyed one?

They're not pinwheels. They're flowers. Easter flowers. Adam's mom was so excited to make a blue eyed Santa with Easter flower eyes that we allowed her to make one. It creeped us out too. Strangely enough, it was the first one eaten. 

Why does this warrant a post?
They are the most adorable things ever. Right up there with big-eyed floppy-eared puppies. (with the exception of the Santa I accidentally put four eyes on... that wasn't really adorable at all)

I hate to admit that I didn't invent this recipe... I saw a version of it on Pinterest (a wonderful time-waster if you ever would like to check it out). I made some modifications, though--mainly a toothpick to hold everything together, chocolate chip eyes, and the good dip instead of whipped cream. All improvements, as far as we could tell. Warn people about the toothpicks, though. They hold everything together but can be a bit of a sharp surprise.

And just in case you wanted some assembly tips...
Slice the strawberries about 1/3 of the way down from the tip for the "hat".
Fill a zip-top bag with the good dip mix and snip the corner to make for easy filling. It's like a frosting dispenser! Or a piping bag.
Use mini chocolate chips for the eyes. Not blue creepy sprinkles... unless you're into that sort of thing.

Enjoy! Merry Christmas to all! (a little late)

Meat and Potatoes, Rustic-Style

It all began with an elaborate dream of short rib paradise. Adam had long dreamed of it (at least, that was all I could assume from the way he rambled about it for hours). We were preparing a grand feast for the parental units. (This post's parenthetical asides brought to by no one in particular... we'll just co-write this one).

It turns out beef short ribs are not easy to find in Minnesota. Strange... considering the large number of cows around (and we only assume they have ribs).

Preparation. We peppered the raw meat to death, along some salt and olive oil. Then we seared them in a large cast iron pot we had preheated on the grill (apparently it's important that the pot is really hot. No rhyme intended. You really just want a quick sear on them then take them off).

In the meantime, we prepared a plethora of vegetables to accompany the beef. Onions, carrots, celery, rosemary and garlic were thrown in to cook with the rendered (melted) beef drippings.    

Oh... and we also made a side dish of potatoes. They weren't too involved. We mixed wedges with olive oil, garlic salt and pepper in a cake pan and baked them.

Once the onion started to turn translucent, we added the seared short ribs back into the pot. Then we let it cook on low heat (300 degrees) for 6 hours. No kidding. Allow a day for this. Or until the meat is falling of the bone (which for us, took 6 hours).

It was worth the wait, though. The beef turned out tender and juicy, and vegetable pan sauce (below) made a great side dish to the meat! It was most excellent.

By the end of the evening, Adam had sufficiently redeemed himself in the eyes of my parents from the notorious eggless raspberry skillet cornbread incident of last summer. But that's another story. All you need to know is... add eggs to cornbread. They're essential.