all of these various elements came together on Saturday, for our annual

family & friends Christmas gathering here at That Old House.

Thank you, Martha of Lines from Linderhof, for your pizza dip recipe.  (Recipe at end of post.)

It was a smash hit; my sister sat down right in the middle of the pie plate to get her share;

ruined her slacks, but she left here a happy woman.

And the corn chips?  The perfect, albeit unlikely, accompaniment.

 On Friday, I featured my mother-in-law's easy but amazingly delicious Cranberry Onion Brisket recipe.

As the pizza dip was the hit of the hors d'oeuvres spread, so the Brisket was the hit of the dinner buffet.

There was enough left over for lunch the next day.  Here it is, reheated, on Sunday,

and mostly it has fallen apart into small chunks so it looks messy, but tastes . . . oh, yeah, it's good.

Tender, with a delicious sauce . . . and no one will guess what's in it, unless they have had it before,

or they rummage through your trash and find the cranberry sauce cans and onion soup mix packets.

I always make sure there are child-friendly foods on a buffet table,

so we had oven-fried chicken cutlet strips.

I don't like fussing with raw chicken, so my daughter Alida and I traded chores;

I dusted, and she cut up all the chicken, dipping the pieces in olive oil, and then in seasoned bread crumbs.

 Into a 450-degree oven for 20 minutes, and you have Chicken Fingers

that are many notches above the fast food variety; even grownups like them.

These are the leftovers, ready for their re-run on Sunday.

 Desserts were simple; cookies and cheese cake slices.

Alida's friend Alyssa baked the cookies in the top left.

The ones in the middle of the plate are amazing; light as air!  I can't pronounce them, but I can appreciate them.

Now where, you may ask, did those lovely young ladies obtain those striking and flattering fake moustaches?

Why, from our cutthroat, down-and-dirty, no-holds-barred Annual Grab Bag, that's where.

All year long, family and friends search for the ugliest or goofiest or most useless items

to lovingly wrap and tag "Grab Bag" and put under our Christmas Tree on Party Day,

to lure the unsuspecting pigeon.

This year's gifts ran the gamut from a box of cartoon-printed Duct Tape, to a car sign

in the shape of a ribbon that reads "Support Farting," to a "Doomsday 2012" day-by-day Calendar and

a "Goats in Trees" Calendar, to a toilet paper roll cover crocheted to look exactly like a roll of sushi.

Brilliant stuff.

Mr. Dion DiPoochy was mystified and a little goggle-eyed by all the people --

36 of them -- and all the food.

Yes, he ate well yesterday; kids and soft-hearted adults can be (on-purpose) messy eaters,

and it's a lucky dog who gets in on that!

According to Mom, Romance Cookies are so named because they are made with two layers.

One on top, and one on the bottom, in a close and cozy arrangement.

Get it?  Yup, that's exactly what she meant.

(Recipe at end of post.)

I've got four nice sized briskets, flat cut, and using just two other ingredients, dry Onion Soup Mix and whole berry Cranberry Sauce, I'm going to transform these 4 slabs into deliriously delicious buffet fare.

INGREDIENTS:

Brisket (duh!) -- any size, any quantity.  Costco sells them and they are usually larger and less costly than the supermarkets.

For each Brisket, one can of whole berry cranberry sauce, and one envelope onion soup mix (the stuff you make onion dip with).  I usually make more sauce than the minimum, as people love it.

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix the cranberry sauce and the powdered soup mix.  Loosely and casually, no perfection needed.

Line a big roasting pan with two sheets of foil, criss-crossing one another like a + sign.

After rinsing and trimming the brisket, put it (fat side up) into the pan, and ladle on the cranberry mixture.

Be pretty generous.  Cover the meat, and have some around it and oozing in underneath.

******************************************************

Wrap up the meat & sauce with the foil and cook for 2-1/2 hours if under 3 lbs of meat, adding a half hour after that for every pound above 3.  The more you cook it, the more tender it gets, so don't be shy with oven time.  Near the end of the cooking time, unwrap the top of the foil so air can get in, and put it back in the oven.  This thickens the sauce, and darkens (caramelizes) the meat.

Slice the brisket across the grain, and serve with the sauce.  I usually make this beforehand, and reheat the slices in the sauce, with extra sauce in a ... well, sauce boat.  This dish can make you famous.  Trust me.

(No pictures of the finished product yet; all our briskets are merrily roasting away in the oven!)

INGREDIENTS:

(Bottom Layer)

1 cup butter

2 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

(Top Layer)

2 eggs

1-1/2 cups brown sugar

2 TBS flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 cup sweetened flaked coconut

1 cup chopped nuts -- traditionally walnuts, but pecans can be used

And . . . powdered sugar for the finale

METHOD:

1.  Cream the butter and blend in flour, sugar and salt.  (This will make a loose crumbly mixture.)  Spread it in an ungreased pan -- you can use a smallish jelly roll pan or, for thicker cookies, a 9 x 13 pan.  You will have to smoosh the mixture with your fingers.  Bake this for 10 minutes; the top will not brown.

2.  Beat the eggs until light and frothy.  Stir in the brown sugar, then add the flour, baking powder, and vanilla.  Beat it all up till it screams "UNCLE!" and then fold in the coconut and the nuts.  Spread this layer over the hot crust, and pop it all back into the oven for about 20 minutes; it should be golden brown and not moist looking on top.  But if you overcook, the cookie gets too crunchy.