These are a few of my favorite things...

For my first official post, I figured I'd summarzine some of my favorite Christmas presents! Our families know that we spend a LOT of time in the kitchen, and, fortunately for us, decided to assist us in filling our kitchen for Christmas. Thank goodness for them!

First, we spent Christmas Eve with Jeremy's parents and siblings. I got a cookie jar, some measuring spoons and cups (I've decided you can never have too many sets and asked for them) and this really cool Cookie design kit:

I haven't tried it out yet, but I'm pretty excited! Among other things, Jeremy got something he really needed considering all of the knives at the apartment were falling apart... a cutlery set:

Then, we went on to Oklahoma to spend Christmas Day with a pretty good majority of my family. Jeremy, among other things, got this really, really cool can opener. I am fully aware of the fact that I sound really lame to call a can opener cool, but come over for dinner sometime, one of use will show you its awesomeness and you will be impressed:

Our last Christmas was in Bartlesville with my step-grandparents, Terry and Gary. They happen to be some of the best gift givers becauase they listen throughout the entire year, take note and buy you awesome presents you've been wanting and forgot ever mentioning. Jeremy was ridiculously excited about his santoku knife (with a protective case so Jacob keeps all 10 fingers!):

He actually used one the last time we were in Bartlesville, made a comment about how much he liked using it and Santa listened! My last few kitchen-related gifts are displayed here:

Terry gets even more credit for this one because I had really been wanting an apron, but had not mentioned it to her once... now I'm wondering if Santa is psychic? Anyway, how adorable is my (first!) new apron?!

Also, the book I'm holding in the picture, it's called "Baking Illustrated" and it's probably the coolest cookbook on the face of the planet. Apparently, there's this test kitchen outside of Boston where they test every recipe you can think of and determine the absolute best way to make it. They also test ingredients, products, anything. So - the book starts with 18 pages of their favorite ingredients which they recommend you keep on hand as well as their favorite necessities in the kitchen. Then, for each recipe, there's background information: how they went about testing it, their failures and their successes throughout the processes. Some of them are quite funny! So, it explains why you should include or do certain things. There's also pictures, lots of step-by-step pictures showing you how to do some of the most intricate things. It was awesome for me as a beginner, but I'm sure non-beginners could learn quite a bit from this as well!

My last "favorite thing" to mention was actually not a gift, but a really lucky find. While visiting my Grandpa, someone was rummaging through the garage and stumbled upon a 65-piece set of Cuisinart silverware: it's beautiful! It includes place settings for 12 as well as 5 serving pieces. It's literally probably been in his garage for a couple of decades, but I took it home, ripped it out of the box, threw it in the dishwasher, boxed up my old mix-matched silverware and have been enjoying my brand new (old) silverware ever since!

These are the kitchen-related favorites from Christmas 2010. Our families are fabulous for spoiling us so much. We've already used (and loved) most of the items with plans to use up the rest!