We were only together for one day this year and decided to plan a no-fuss competition because we were not entirely sure when our newest member, Miss Lucy, would arrive. Luckily, she was early so this ended up being a pleasant and relaxing day. She did this most of the time:
The rules this year were pretty simple: make something that involved a crockpot. Everyone kept asking what the rules were, but really there were none. Just use a crockpot. And there were many!
Most of us prepared at least part of our meal ahead of time and with slow-cookers, competing for space in the kitchen was easier than ever. We decided the order of service on the actual day and things went fairly seamlessly, although we were still stuffed to the gills (haven't figured out how to cure that one yet...)
I was up first, which I really liked and may insist on again, because I had breakfast. But first, a minor incident in which I could not figure out how to get the oven off of preheat. Turns out you push "start":
The Horbals are famous for eating their weight in cinnamon rolls for breakfast when we gather so I went that direction, even using Pillsbury rolls, but I fancied them up a bit with cream cheese fondue and Mema's custom plates:
Jude was instrumental in the plating, meaning he nagged me incessantly about whether or not it was time to take the rolls out of the oven and kept trying to dip his fingers in the cinnamon sugar.
The rolls have a cinnamon stick handle for ease of dipping. I'm fairly certain the peanut gallery used the anonymity of online voting to criticize my minimal use of the crockpot, but I am pleased by how edible and not disastrous these turned out.
Shortly after breakfast came GG's beverage. His prep station was intriguing:
Can you make any guesses based on this? We could not. He made bacon bourbon hot chocolate with whipped cream, hazelnuts, and a side of Bacon Bucks lottery tickets. (I wish we still had the arbitrary points-adding category- I would have given him a few because the Rafterys won $16!) The final product:
Next up was Mema, gunning for the nostalgia vote, but pessimistic even before shopping. Here she is grumbling through prep:
Melissa was quizzed on this during a side game we played later, but does anyone know what Kip used to call this dish? Hungries!
Here we have classic Liz Horbal Velveeta mac and cheese, complete with absolutely unnecessary piece of OCD bread. I appreciated the huge chunks of salt and may have accidentally gone back for seconds. She insisted I feature this picture, which shows the "garnish":
By this time it was hot as... fill in your favorite word here.
The kids were melting, but that didn't stop people from trying to pose them:
Luckily GG came to the rescue and brought Jude up to the roof top deck to try to hear the Ravens fans cheering:
But Jude only cared about the "candy canes" (ducts) which he claimed were funny becasue they were "wrapped":
We made it back downstairs just in time to taste the winning dish, Andrew's chocolate peanut butter caramel cake with salted caramel ice cream. He fully admitted to playing to the audience. It worked. Put those words together and throw them in a crockpot and you instantly get at least half of us, even if poorly executed which this was not:
This thing was stupid good.
We took some breaks around here, I can't remember the exact timing. We took a family walk to a park to play, walk off some calories, pick up some supplies, etc. We also played some silly games, including a Horbal classic coin/snack food guessing game related to birthdays mathematically. The winnings:
Kevin went next with some pork mole cabbage slaw tacos that somehow got less spicy, but no less delicious as the day went on. These things smelled ridiculous the night before at 2AM when Pete was up coughing. Torture in so many ways! Prep first:
Then final product:
Next came Kip and Melissa's woefully under appreciated due to stuffedness of participants Nutella coconut lava cake with vanilla bean ice cream. So. Good.
And last, but not least (in fact, I think she was second or third overall) came Marion's made in early November and almost second-helping worthy despite consumption of nearly 4000 calories each Dad's pasta sauce, cooking:
And cooked:
The sausage was definitely my favorite part on this one.
So Merry Christmas, from our crew to yours. This is the closest we came to a group shot. Clearly I am telling Jude for the 9 billionth time to not talk over me as I talk over everyone else in the family in this picture:
(And it is blurry enough for you to get just one guess who took it...)
Hopefully next year we will be cooking from two kitchens in our new Contest League Headquarters, which could exponentially increase our ability to compete not only on a cooking front, but also possibly on a home decorating front. Stay tuned for more info, but here is a hint:
I may or may not have been distracted from blogging by applying to HGTV design shows. Just sayin'. Till next year, friends!
