This might go down in history as the dumbest Mommin’ It Up post ever (and seriously, that’s saying something) but I have a VERY REAL quandary that’s plagued me for years and I need your help.

How do you drain the grease when you brown hamburger?

See? I told you it was stupid.

But I am completely serious here! Last Friday I made a quadruple batch of chili for a school event, which required browning eight pounds of hamburger. I cooked two pounds at a time, and it required both me and Andy to drain the grease each time. Our method was to attempt to hold the skillet up and rotate it just enough for the grease to come out. We aimed for the grease to flow into a glass jar.

Needless to say, we had a giant mess on our hands. And we spilled a lot of hamburger. And Andy almost caught his sleeve on fire. Four times.

There has to be a trick to this. Clue me in, people!

Topics have been a little heavy around Mommin’ It Up this week, so today I want to talk about something happy…

Green smoothies! Woo!

I came across green smoothies about a year ago, and while I loved them, I had a hard time figuring out the best way to make them fit into my lifestyle – I am always running out the door in the morning, and chopping fruits and vegetables doesn’t work well with that scenario. A few weeks ago, though, I decided to make packages of the ingredients and freeze them, and it’s worked out really well. I grab a couple of them out of the freezer every morning, run hot water over them, and blend them up. Voila, breakfast and lunch!

Green smoothie recipes are all over the internet, but my go-to site is IncredibleSmoothies.com. I like them best with just fruits and vegetables – no milk/yogurt/whatever. Dr. Oz also has one, but he and I aren’t on speaking terms after the $25 bottle of raspberry ketones he told me to buy didn’t melt fat off my body. Anyway, my very favorite is spinach, apple, pear, banana, and celery.

Try it! You’ll love it, I promise!

I think Jenny and I should get a copyright on “(verb)in’ It Up,” don’t you? We’ll have to work on that in our spare time.

Anywho, Christmas is almost here, and I would say the one thing I’m MOST excited about this season is baking. I have a google doc all set up and ready to go, with links to the recipes and a matrix matching each type of goody to the intended recipient. You know why I like baking? Because there are RULES. And I might be a little Type A.

The kids and I did a baking process last weekend that was more for fun than anything – we actually ended up pitching most of the results (my kids don’t have a future in cookie decorating, I don’t think), but we enjoyed doing it. We made “Grinch” cookies, which I had seen online but put my own spin on (and by that I mean figured out how we could do it with the stuff we had at our house). I made sugar cookies (using this recipe) and colored the dough green. Then I made some royal icing, left some white and dyed some yellow, and I used red candy melts. Here’s the one I made:

The next thing on my list are these chocolate cookies with peppermint buttercream from Sally’s Baking Addiction.

I made the dough last night and will bake and ice them tonight (tomorrow’s my day to bring in something for Pie Friday at my office) – I hope they turn out to be as good as they look!

I’m also going to attempt to make a flourless chocolate cake for Jenny, basically because she has ordered me to make her some salted caramel buttercream icing and I need something to put it on! The last time I attempted to make a flourless cake it didn’t turn out so well, but I hope this will be better! I’m planning to make cupcakes with it… do you suppose that would work? I don’t see why not, but really I’m not familiar with anything flourless so what do I know!

Let’s see… what else am I going to make? Oh, I’m going to try these Christmas Peanut Butter Candies from the Lady with the Red Rocker, because I know my grandma likes them (and it’s also gluten free, Jenny!).

And the Red Velvet Whoopie Pies I made last year.

And finally…

I think I’m just going to call it “Really Good Chex Mix,” though.

We’ll see how all this goes – me being in the kitchen generally turns into a rather bloggable event, so stay tuned!

What are you making for the holidays?