Christmas Cooking in the bathroom!

So you are probably looking at that title thinking, "what the heck?!" Well, it's true. I made buckeyes (thanks to A. Martha making them for years) and I had to make the chocolate and dip them in the bathroom! It was a funny experience. There were a few challenges in addition to lack of space. One of the major challenges was finding powdered sugar, they don't sell it in China! So, thanks to Zach's good advice (lots of practical knowledge pays off sometimes!) and the ideas of one of the mom's here I made my own powdered sugar. It was a major success. So what I did was get regular granulated sugar and cornstarch and ground it in a blender. For every 1 1/2 cups of sugar I added 1/4 cup of cornstarch. I could have added more but that's the amount I had on hand. The only thing I didn't do well enough was grind it. I could have ground it much finer than I did but the buckeyes still turned out really good. So with some innovative thinking, lots of other's advice and the best use of my resources, I made some pretty good buckeyes.

I used Dove dark chocolate which added a nice kick. It wasn't the cheapest recipe to make, but it was well worth it. I kind of feel like Monica on the episode of "Friends" when she made candy for her neighbors and they all came pounding on her door and called her "candy-lady". Except, I won't stay up till all hours of the morning! Anyway. that was the highlight of my Christmas.

OOH, another fun trick I tried and learned....My Aunt Martha always makes sour cream sugar cookies every Christmas and I wanted to try them, except it's impossible to find sour cream here. So, the girl I was making cookies with suggested we use yogurt, there's plenty of that here. So we made them and iced them, they turned out fantastic once again. :)

Many of you know about our crazy card game called Hot Rum... no, there's no alcohol, just lots of competition which brings out our best side! (sarcasm added) I taught the kids how to play and I won with 200 points (I would have beat Mom's record of 45 if I had laid down on Pat Hand)

So I am super happy and I have managed to bring a little bit of the Kaehr Christmas to China! (I also taught everyone how to play dirty bingo for a gift exchange, which would be from the Schini side!)

So, if you are wondering how we celebrate Christmas in China... we like to call it China-Style!

Anyway. Thanks for reading as always.

Merry Christmas Everyone!