A brief recipe...

So, tonight was our night to go get the Christmas tree--it's currently hydrating in the appropriate corner, but not yet decorated.

I thought I'd share our goofy little tree adventure--and my recipe for Instapot Chicken Bake, which I started before I left and was done when we got back.

So...

A. The Christmas Tree lot we've gone to (when we haven't gone to Forresthill, was closed. Like, forever closed. But the guy--apparently a good guy, left the address of two other lots in the area as a recommendation.

B. We drove to Roseville for one of the recs, and I told the guy at the counter that he'd been on the banner in front of Abe's. He told me that apparently the guy in charge of Abe's was also in charge of supplying things like tents and portajohns and water stations for firefighters--that was his other business. Scarily enough, business has been really good, which is why he decided that this was the year to retire the Christmas tree operation altogether. FTR, the banner said, "It's been a good 60 years" so I'm going to assume this is a family business.

C. There is a business supplying the heroes who are currently saving our state. That is something you don't think about a lot.

D. There is also a business renting guinea pigs in Switzerland. No, I'm not kidding. It's illegal to only have one--apparently they die of loneliness. But I digress.

E. After choosing a really expensive Christmas tree (because hey, ALL THE TREES BURNED UP this year, so they were super duper pricey!) we stopped at Starbucks for hot chocolate. Now, Starbucks has seasonal hot chocolate, in four new flavors.

F. My family, being my family, we all ordered a different flavor and sat down for ten minutes and drank each other's hot chocolate and discussed the pros and cons of each one in depth. Because we're dorks.

G. For the record--cinnamon. It's a thing that should be in all hot chocolate. This was the consensus. Now you know.

H. We got home and Mate found the extra speshul laser light reflector that he bought two years ago, lost last year, and found again during a recent table excavation. FTR, it looks AWESOME.

I. And we got the tree settled, sat down, watched Lucifer, and ate.  Lucifer was STUNNING. And the chicken bake was awesome.

So here's the recipe:

This worked in the Instapot, which is like a crock-pot/pressure cooker and stuff gets done really fast. In a crock pot, I'd say give it about two hours. The Instapot is about 45 minutes.

So...

Fill Instapot with the following things:

One bag of frozen chicken parts (we like boneless, skinless thighs)

About five large potatoes, skinned or not, chopped or not, up to you

One medium bag of baby carrots

One cup of condensed mushroom soup

2 extra cans of water

One package of turkey gravy powder.

Close pot. Set on poultry. Come back when it's done.

Very simple, very tasty, and not even my kids wanted butter on the potatoes.

There you go.

Enjoy while watching devilish excitement while sipping your choice of hot chocolate.  Make sure there's cinnamon.