Before I head to bed...

Well, I'm happy to say today's cooking of the tourtierre filling went quite well!  Aside from tormenting my eyes with a dozen onions, everything went quite smoothly.  After peeling the onions (and keeping the skins for dying eggs at Easter) I had to take a break.  Eldest was kind enough to premeasure all the spices and herbs for me while I did, then youngest took care of putting the 24 cloves of garlic through the press for me.  I prefer the pressed garlic over the minced garlic for these.

The cooking was actually done by about 6 pm, though it took quite a while longer before it was cool enough to set the pot outside.  It was still quite warm, actually - warm enough that I think it would have melted the snow I put it in and we'll be having to yank it loose from ice tomorrow - but it should be okay. 

You know, we'd never be able to do this sort of thing any other time of year!  For the number of pies we make (I got 24 pounds of meats this year, which should be about 20-22 pies), unless we had a chest freezer, we'd have some serious concerns about safely storing the filling until it cooled down completely.  Being able to put the entire pot (or pots, as we've done in the past) outside in temperatures below freezing works out rather well.  Then, on baking day, the pies get moved through a series of cooling areas before finally ending up outside.  In the end, after they're wrapped up in foil, we put them outside to freeze, leaving them stored in a sealed bin.  Without a freezer bigger than whats on our fridge, outside is the only place we can freeze and store them!

We need to decide on our menu very soon.  Aside from a goose and tourtierre, we haven't really thought about it.  It should be fun!

Before I head off to bed, though (seeing as how it's past 2:30 am as I write this), here are a few photos of this year's Christmas decorations on our tree. 

This one was made using glow in the dark yarn and some gold metallic crochet thread twisted together as I wrapped it.   The centre is a mostly hidden flower cut out from some scrap booking paper.  The stamens are highlighted with gold glitter glue, applied with a fine tipped paintbrush.

This one is made with some leftover alpaca yarn and silver metallic crochet thread.  The centre is some blue card stock with a glittery finish, a self adhesive gem and some silver glitter glue to add some extra sparkle.

We made a total of about 30 of these, each one different from the other.  Three of them were wrapped "backwards" for an effect I think I actually prefer.  I wish I'd thought of it earlier.  As it was, I seriously considered cutting out more forms (rather than gluing two squares of cardboard together, as per the instructions at the site I linked to, I cut the start out of foam core) to do more.  In the end, I decided we already had more than enough.

We've got so many decorations now, even considering how many we give away every year, we can't fit them all on the tree!  I really like our busy, eclectically decorated tree. :-D