A Christmas Miracle: Hates Everything Cooks Dinner

You know my daughter, the one I refer to as "Hates Everything" because she hates everything? Well wait a second...that's not entirely true. She likes plain pasta, jalapenos, ranch dressing, and buffalo wing sauce. And maybe one or two other equally healthy things, like cheese quesadillas or nachos.

 
Anyway she offered to make CHRISTMAS DINNER this year.
     "Who are you and what have you done with Savannah?" was my first question.  Savannah barely eats, let alone cooks but since we were only coming home for a week and then leaving the day after Christmas I really didn't want to deal with cooking a big meal and then having leftovers so it sounded like a pretty good idea to me. Honestly, I was practically bursting with pride to think that Hates Everything actually wanted to cook. Something. I told her that I'd buy the groceries so to get whatever she needed.

A few days before Christmas I asked her what she was making. At first she was all secretive about it.
     "I am not eating Ramen Noodles!" I reminded her.
I made her fork over the grocery receipt and that's when I saw that she had bought eight packages of cream cheese. I forgot to mention she does like cream cheese.
    So she told me her menu ~ turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, jalapeno corn casserole, sweet potato biscuits, relish tray, cheese ball...
     It must be a really big cheese ball, I remember thinking.

I know she won't touch raw meat so I was wondering how the turkey was going to get into the pan since she couldn't exactly just dump it out of a can or the wrapper.
      "Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked her, giving her one last chance to back out.
      "I got this Mom," she assured me. "You just make the gravy."

Notice the baggies on her hands

 The day before Christmas she called me and said, "So how do you cook a turkey?"
(Author's note: Seriously?) 
     "Put it in your roasting pan, you'll need a baster and then..."
     "I don't have a roasting pan. Or a baster. Can't I just cook it on a cookie sheet? And use a spoon?"
(Author's note again: Are you shitting me?)
     "And what about the ham, what do I do that?"
(Another Author's note:  How did I fail this kid?)

So I told her but really I was still curious about what she was doing with sixty-four ounces of cream cheese.

The Big Guy and I, along with Big's parents and sister showed up Christmas day to a nicely set table, a lovely meat and cheese tray, a relish tray with Ranch dip, and the mother of all cheese balls.

And because there wasn't enough cream cheese in the cheese ball she made cream cheese stuffed  jalapenos and a jalapeno and cream cheese casserole that had a speck or two of corn in it. It was delish! Her sweet potato biscuits were really good, maybe even better than mine and the turkey and the ham turned out great as well.

Maybe there is hope for her yet. 


Oh yeah, and the cheese ball was good too. You'll never guess what her secret ingredient was:  Ranch dressing and then a little more Ranch dressing!  I talked her into sharing her recipe. Go to the "Appetizer" tab at the top of this page to see it but be prepared to 1/2 it. Or 1/4 it. Or maybe even 1/32 it.
(Authors note:  "Shit load of Ranch dressing and Shit load of shredded cheese," are her measurements, not mine and are usually not found on most measuring cups.  Use your own judgement.  Just know it's A LOT!)

We had already eaten a good portion of it by the time I took this picture.