Christmas menu 2017

This coat.

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We do an American/Swedish split and I gotta say, I don't think we have a single British thing included in our meals at all, thinking about it now. Its so liberating to NOT have to make a turkey!

Cocktail hour we had Greek olives from Borough market along with various sausage sent in by his mother from the village xmas market (this year we got reindeer, wild boar, and (roe) deer), and some small amounts of cheese. Other half had his herring but yeah, not for me.

Christmas Eve we had a giant steak (I finally figured out how to "do" Smithfield and found a wholesaler/retailer butcher and got kilos of high quality, grass fed meat for cheap on Friday), with a Mexican chopped salad and roasted potatoes. It was meant to be tamales but our Mexika order didn't make it.

Tonight for xmas we had Swedish ham, Swedish meatballs with cream sauce and lingonberries (no, not at all like the Ikea ones!), garlic mashed potatoes, the special Swedish krispbrod for Christmas, a kale and apple salad, and rotkohl (German red cabbage) for me. I don't make desserts for Christmas and neither of us likes Christmas pudding, so there was some Hotel Chocolat choccies/Roses and one last mince pie for me.

Washed it all down with copious amounts of gin and tonics (incl this one small batch Norwegian gin we discovered this year and had to order in special from Germany), Swedish snaps, beer, prosecco, glogg, bourbon and cokes, Baileys, and julmust - the special Swedish Xmas soda (its like a cross between Pepsi and Dr Pepper. Kinda weird but addictive. Discovered it pairs well with super smokey single malts)

This is our second year on this menu so it will be rotating next year to something new. Prior two years we had a lot of fun making beef wellingtons, maybe we will go back to that or try a crown roast or something really different.

We had Christmas Weekend of Awesome Food... four days of nearly-nonstop eating.

* Friday was rather boring because it was "just" turmeric chicken with vegetables.

*Saturday we went to Bristol to see my in-laws¹ and came home to make Mexican Platter -- and it was a good one (we generally cook creatively, rather than by strictly adhering to a recipe, so the spices are never exactly the same ratio twice)!

* Sunday (Christmas Eve), we had taco salad from Saturday night's leftover ingredients for breakfast.  At some point in the day, I know we made a trifle (strawberry, because raspberries suck!), because we had trifle for the rest of the weekend.  I just only vaguely remember doing it... it was still light out when we made the custard, so we probably started it right after the taco salad.  Finally, we had fillet steak with pepper sauce (again, but better!), mashed potatoes, and chopped salad for dinner.

* Monday (Christmas), we started with Irish coffees at 10am, and then roasted a turkey breast crown with parsnips and carrots and stuffing balls (in the pizza oven), had proper roast potatoes done in a cast iron pan in the pizza oven (they were amazing!), sauteed green beans and sprouts with bacon lardons on the single burner camp stove, and made a bit of gravy from the turkey drippings in the saute pan after setting the veg aside to tie it all together.  Then we had a generous glass of eggnog around 4pm.  And, finally, we had a platter of cured meats, cheeses², olives and peppers, which we washed down with wine (I told my husband I probably wouldn't drink enough port to justify opening the bottle, but then I drank much more wine than I expected so we probably could've just had the port).  We had some trifle around midnight.

* Tuesday, we were kind of floundering for what to eat because I didn't expect to still be alive, so I didn't plan this far ahead.  So I did a quick Google search and learned about using leftover turkey to make something other than cold turkey salad or turkey wraps or sandwiches.  We had turkey fricassee with tarragon carrots, and it was really nice.  I used up all of the leftovers in this dish, served with some mashed potatoes rather than rice because rice is boring.  For dinner last night, we just had some pierogi and sausage bites with spicy ketchup and barbecue sauce.  And we finished off the trifle.

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Footnotes

¹ Shortly after arriving at my in-laws, my FIL was talking about dinner and asked if I liked steak and applesauce, "because that's what we're having" (my husband has led them to believe that I'm an incredibly picky eater because I'm allergic to onions and peanuts).  I hadn't really been paying attention to what he said before that, and I'm hard of hearing, so I asked him to say it again.
    "Steak and applesauce."
    I thought about the flavour combination and was confused, so I said, "Oh... I don't know... is the sauce cooked?  Because I like it when it's cooked, but I don't like it straight from the jar.  I find it a bit too... gritty... when it's not cooked."
    He looked at me in slight confusion and said, "No, it'll be cooked."
    I said, "Oh, that should be okay, then, I think.  I've never had it on steak before, but it's really nice on pork."
    He said, "You could have it on pork, but on steak is reasonably common."
    I said, "Well, I'll give it a try.  But maybe go a little light with it for mine."

Fast-forward about an hour, my husband and I were sat around the table just before his dad brought out the food, and I said something about steak and applesauce, and my husband looked at me like I had two heads.  I said, "That's what your dad said we are having...?"  Keep in mind that they not too long ago served us unseasoned ham with gravy made from the "drippings" of the unseasoned ham.  To my mind, anything is possible with these people and food.
    So my husband said, "Nooo....!  Steak and pepper sauce!  Steak and applesauce would be weird!"
    I said, "Ohhh!  Pepper sauce!  *laugh*  Yeah, I know nobody normal would have applesauce on steak, but I honestly heard applesauce.  Twice!  And, to them, ham & gravy is a thing!  But I did say it sounded unusual, but I was willing to try it...  Your dad must think I'm mad."  And then I started laughing slightly maniacally.
   My husband said, "Oh, I have to tell him...!" with a huge grin on his face. I said, "You can't!  Then they'll know that I think they're capable of steak and applesauce!"

He told them.   
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² Whoever it was recently who suggested I try comté cheese when I was looking for recommendations was so right!  My husband and I both loved it.


EDIT:  Also, I love steak with pepper sauce, and I was really sad when he brought my plate out and there was hardly any on mine because I thought it was going to be applesauce and was afraid. 

My stomach is in food envy.

We had our turkey for Christmas Eve. We ate cheese and crackers and leftover turkey almost all day Christmas. Lovely cheese. All sorts of cheese.

I'm still having leftover Turkey. That was a really good deal, buying just the turkey breast.

Our Tesco order came tonight, so tomorrow we're having curry, when I get around to being productive.  I have come to love curry - it takes the place of Mexican food, which (other than at Topalabamba) we cannot find the same flavors for.

The grammar police are going to come for me for this post, so I'll wish all a Happy New Year early!  Enjoy those nibbles while they are there, for tomorrow we diet!

We had our turkey for Christmas Eve. We ate cheese and crackers and leftover turkey almost all day Christmas. Lovely cheese. All sorts of cheese.

I'm still having leftover Turkey. That was a really good deal, buying just the turkey breast.

Ooh, what sorts of cheeses?  Anything interesting?  We traditionally do cheese and port on New Year's Eve, so we'll have another tray of cheeses Sunday night.  The comte was a success, so now I'm feeling adventurous.

Buying just the turkey breast gives enough food for two people for two days, but it's all white meat.  If you like dark meat, it might be a bit dry.  Buuuut, you can always buy a turkey leg to go with it.  So you have one leg and one breast crown, and roast them together to give you a mix of white and dark meat.  I actually bought a leg before Thanksgiving for this purpose, but my husband thought it was a ridiculous amount of food (*wistful sigh for the leftovers I will never have because he just doesn't understand*), so we only cooked the breast.  But one day, when we have a smoker, I'll smoke that leg for hours and hours, and then I'll scarf it like I just spent $15 at an amusement park.

Yeah, it works for us because neither of us like dark meat poultry.

Cheese. [Insert the little hands-gesture thing here that Wallace of "Wallace and Gromit" does when talking about cheese!] Wooky Hole Cheddar (from Waitrose). Some smoked cheddar that we got at the Christmas Market in Edinburgh.  Daughter recommends the Compte and the Manchego. Some Havarti. A Wensleydale with carmelized onions. Another Wensleydale with red pepper and some kind of fruit. A pre-selected tray also from Waitrose. (Not sure what was what, but there wasn't much on it I didn't care for.  I can't eat the blue cheeses - ones with fungi running through them - unfortunately.) Had a tin of crackers of various types from Tesco that we demolished in the process.

And bits of the leftover cheese go into a frying pan in the mornings to melt and cook a little bit, before adding eggs for scrambled eggs. Ohhh, cheeeeeeese! 

My sister-in-law once called me a cheese-hater.  That was in America, and it was because I said I don't like cheeseburgers (a sheet of rubbery American "cheese" on an over-cooked patty of meat).  But I love cheese!  Cheese is the stuff that brings food together.  And people.  Cheese brings people together.

Havarti is nice.  I always forget about it, but I love it once reminded.

I love blue cheese (some varieties more than others), but my husband won't touch it or anything that has touched it.  He feels about blue cheese how I feel about brie.  (And vice versa!  He loves brie, and I hate it!)  But we agree on pretty much every other kind of cheese, so it's fine.

Now I'm hungry. 

Ya know, with all our leftover cheese... when I was a teen/young 20s it was popular to have fondue parties. You'd have the cheese fondue in it's special little copper pot, bubbling away, in the middle of the table and plates of little nibbles to dip in it - crutons, bits of veg, etc., with long forks especially for the purpose. Have friends or family over and all sit around a pot and dip and nom. Lots of good chatter in between as well. Somebody would bring a bottle of wine, and someone would put a record on and everyone would get comfortable and just have a nice time.

Jeez, some days that seems like such a long time ago. There was a war going on...ok, a war where there was an active draft so it "mattered" to everyone, because if your kid wasn't going to college and was male, they were going to 'Nam. And possibly not coming back, and definitely not coming back the way they were when they left. No computers. No cell phones. No VCRs (unless you were rich). Long distance calls sometimes still needed an operator to put through. People wrote letters on paper to each other and you had to wait, and wait, and wait to hear the news back from your correspondent. If a kid needed to do research, it was off to the library and rummaging through stacks of books for hours on end. You could run into an airport, plunk cash down on the counter, grab a ticket and board a plane with no further questions. And your family/friends could mob you when you got down the ladder off the plane and through the gate at the side of the runway on the other end.

Sigh. Things have changed SO much since the fondue parties. Some nights I feel, well, antiquated. 

But better antiquated than dead, really. 

VCRs were still for rich people going into the early 80s!  I remember my best friend in 3rd grade telling me her dad had a machine that could play any movie any they wanted, and I said she was making it up.  She wasn't allowed to touch it, because it was so expensive, but she swore it was real.... but she couldn't prove it, could she?  That little liar. 

But man... I've been thinking of fondue a lot lately.  There's a fondue restaurant chain spread across the US, Canada, and Mexico called The Melting Pot.  I've only been there twice (one in Tacoma, WA, and one in Baltimore, MD), but I had thoroughly enjoyable experiences both times.  The second time, my friend and I brought her little boy for a last-day-of-kindergarten treat after picking him up in the afternoon, and we just had cheese fondue, followed by a chocolate fondue.  That's where I learned that apple chunks do go with cheese, and those people who put cheese on their apple pie might not be crazy (but they probably are).

Yeah, there was a fondue place in La Jolla (part of San Diego) that had been around for a while, and it was definitely the place to go for chocolate fondue!  So now I'm craving fondue and crusty bread. At midnight. Jeez, it used to just be craving a bowl of corn flakes!!!

The Daughter and I, if there are no polar bears outside tomorrow, are going to go look in some of the shops. We were in a charity shop recently that had the full rig - little pot, stand, the forks, the thingy that holds the candle underneath. And we'll have a fondue evening if we find it again. I still have some cookbooks from the era, and at least one of 'em has to have some recipes. (Or I'll find them online.) The cheddar is soooo good here in the UK that there's bound to be something to do with it. Not sure I've had cheddar fondue before, I think it used to be the white cheeses (swiss?) mostly.

I'm hitting the hay and I'm sure I'll now be dreaming of bacon and fondue all night.

Apples and cheese, yum!!!!! (Just not American Processed Cheese Food on pie!!!!)