It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

January 5th, 2010

Well, really, Christmas is over. Happy New Year! We really did celebrate practically 12 days of Christmas – with 12 houseguests, attended 3 parties, hosted another 3 parties, and had another 4 houseguests.

In 7 days we went through the following:

24 pounds of prime rib
24 croissants and Danish
24 spanakopita
20 bottles of wine
18 slices of Canadian bacon
16 cups of flour (I didn’t have time to bake cookies)
9 English muffins
9 loaves of bread
8 pounds of ham
6 dozen eggs
4 pounds of sausage
4 cups of arborio rice
4 cups of oatmeal
3 pounds of butter
2 quarts of heavy cream
2 quarts of chicken broth
2 pounds of asparagus
2 pounds of linguine
2 pounds of shrimp
2 pounds of ground turkey
2 cups of cocoa
1.5 boxes of clementines
1 quart of plain yogurt

…and 1…pound of peas!

I have to owe my sister a lot of the credit for the cooking, as I caught a cold from the other sister after Christmas and was rather incapacitated for our niece’s 1st birthday party.

The menus (what we made)

Christmas Eve:

Creme brulee with vanilla sugar (we brought to hubby’s uncle’s house, while my sister entertained 10 people back in our townhouse with sausage and peppers, and meatballs)

Christmas Day:

Brunch – Eggs Benedict, fruit salad, local pastries, homemade cinnamon rolls

Dinner – Rosemary prime rib with horseradish sauce, red wine risotto (Giada de Laurentis), salad with pistachios and clementines, glazed carrots, molten chocolate cake with strawberries

Niece’s 1st Birthday/Family Christmas:

Ham & cheddar pretzels, thinly sliced prime rib, glazed ham, shrimp and pea pasta salad…and oh yes, we served a Costco chocolate mousse cake. Yes we did.

Pictures: Molten chocolate cake, 30% of the giant roast (which I expected to be 15-18 pounds and they gave me 24), perfect prime rib with rosemary, eggs Benedict (my Hollandaise was terrible – or rather, the recipe was), homemade ham & cheddar pretzels

What I learned

You can poach eggs ahead of time and keep them in ice water – reheat in simmering water for 30 seconds before serving
It’s worth the extra money ($1.70 per lb) to get a rib roast from the local butcher versus Costco
Anticipate you will be gifted with lots of wine and cookies over the holidays if you are hosting so you don’t necessarily need to provide your own
Catching a cold will slow you down – back up reinforcements are necessary!
If you insist in homemade everything, make things that can be frozen and reheated (i.e. pretzels were baked and then frozen couple of weeks early, cinnamon roll dough and icing were frozen unbaked and later thawed)
It’s ok if you mix fine china with paper napkins…really

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Home for the Holidays

January 1st, 2010

Ok, we were actually at 2 homes for Thanksgiving (not to mention 4 homes for Christmas…but that’s the next post). This will be the last time we travel 1.5 hours between dinner and dessert – we’re just too tired taking dessert for 35 over at 8PM!!

I don’t have any pictures, but we also made mini toast crudites and asparagus wrapped with prosciutto, asiago, and phyllo (Martha Stewart) for hors d’oeuvres.

The dessert rundown:

Linzer cookies (butter cookies filled with jam that I reduced with some lemon juice)
Chewy gingerbread men and trees
Buche de Noel (Yule log) – this one was a chocolate flourless cake filled with whipped cream and topped with ganache – tore pretty easily and mine was very sloppy when cutting
Chocolate covered strawberries
Mini pains au chocolats (chocolate croissants) – Epicurious recipe that is simply puff pastry wrapped around a bar of chocolate and glazed with cinnamon sugar (I used turbinado sugar so it was less sweet)

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More Good Eats

January 1st, 2010

Homemade Philly cheesesteaks:

The story on this is we had a pack of buffalo short ribs which I had braised perfectly the night before. I set it out to cool and neither of us remembered to set an alarm to get up and put them back in the fridge! To make up for it, hubby made cheesesteaks with some awesome steak rolls and thinly sliced steak from the local Italian and farmer’s markets. Forgiven.

My first cherry pie:

I have been very unsuccessful making double-crust pies. They tend to tear, and when I make apple pies they sink. This one came out well though – my first sour cherry pie, fresh picked from the local orchard. Apparently lattice tops are more difficult than the normal crust, but I found it easier. Follows my pattern of being able to do difficult things and executing poorly with simple tasks. Pretty, no?

French toast with fresh peach topping:

Yet another celebration of the local orchard and weekends – yay for summer peaches! I thickened the sauce with a typical roux of flour and butter. I think I may have snuck in some brown sugar in too but I can’t remember. The light is great on our deck this time of day (but boiling hot).

Grilled shrimp skewers with brown rice and swiss chard:

The shrimp was marinated in ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, and other Asian flavors. We’re still getting used to eating Swiss chard – the first time I didn’t rinse it enough and got the unpleasant sand pieces. My dad stated this shrimp was “awesome”, a word I don’t think he’s ever used before. Too bad I forget the recipe.

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Year in Review

January 1st, 2010

Yes, it’s been quite a long time since I’ve updated this blog. Partly because I keep forgetting about it, partly because I haven’t decorated a cake since January!

We did manage to eat a lot this past year, though. I’ll be posting quick recaps to get you caught up.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Vanilla cupcakes filled with peanut butter frosting, topped with chocolate ganache (and of course more frosting)
Chocolate covered strawberries (Dove dark makes an awesome melting chocolate)