A Christmas commentary, part 2
Dec. 30th, 2008 03:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mellymellI love, love, LOVE cooking for special occasions like holidays, birthdays, what have you. It's always a chance to try something new and really make something over the top. I think I need to start finding one obscure holiday to celebrate every month as an excuse to cook an elaborate meal.
Here's the menu for Christmas dinner:
Good Eats turkey - Chris was going to smoke it, but we had gotten home at about 1:30am the night before and still had to throw the brine together at that point. In order to smoke it, he would have had to get up at like 5am to get it going in time for a late lunch/early dinner. So, we roasted it traditionally. We should have trusted our thermometer, because the breast turned out just a bit on the dry side. It went off after just an hour and a half or so of cooking to indicate the bird had reached the target 161 degrees. But we threw it back in for another 10-15 minutes, not believing it only took that long to hit the temp. It was still good, just maybe not quite as good as it's been in the past.
Prosciutto wrapped, bleu cheese stuffed sweet potatoes - For the past couple of years, we've made these candied "yams" gone wild from the same food blog. While I was looking up the recipe to make my grocery list, I was feeling a little disappointed that I couldn't come up with something new to make. But over on the left hand side, I noticed what looked like another sweet potato dish, the one I wound up deciding to make. Now that I've tried it, I'd say we have a winner! They're awesome! I'll be looking for excuses to make these more often.
Cauliflower and broccoli goat cheese gratin - I've made this before, sans broccoli and with cheddar instead of the parmesan. It turned out watery that time. This time, we steamed the veggies first and I switched the cheddar for asiago, since I thought it was drier and might help with the moisture problem. This time, it turned out fantastic and I have the approval from Chris to make it more often (he was skeptical, since the first attempt didn't turn out so great). I'm always looking for other ways to cook broccoli and cauliflower other than steamed with some sort of sauce. I think it would be just as good if not better to saute the veggies in butter or oil instead of steaming, but I definitely think they need to be partially cooked before being baked in the casserole.
My mother-in-law's stuffing - She complained that it turned out badly through most of the meal, but I think she was just being overly critical of herself. She likes it to be all uniform in taste and texture so you don't know when you're biting into a piece of celery or green onion or cornbread or whatever. This time, each ingredient sort of stood out and gave it's own unique taste and texture. I really liked it, better than usual even. She was happy with it leftover the next day.
Pumpkin cranberry yeast rolls - These have become a holiday staple. My mother-in-law enjoys them so much, she asked me to bring them to Thanksgiving. I guess this is the only thing I haven't looked into changing every year. Though this time they turned out more like yeast scones than rolls like they usually do. I've given up using muffin tins for them and bake them on cookie sheets now, but this time the dough was a little stickier than normal and I think as a result they didn't rise quite as much as they normally do. I really need to go Alton Brown on this recipe and weigh the flour until I get what I'm looking for from them.
Salad - Spring mix and baby spinach with dried cranberries, apples, walnuts, bleu cheese and a spiced balsamic vinaigrette that I just sort of made up on the spot and will definitely be making again. It would have been awesome with some gingerbread croutons.
Cranberry tangerine relish - The recipe makes so much, we had a big bag in the freezer from last year's batch. It's best served warm and that's a good thing since we didn't remember to thaw it until the last minute. Thank you microwave! This stuff is equally good on a leftover turkey sandwich.
Dessert - My mother-in-law brought both a pumpkin pie and a tasty apple cake.
Here's the menu for Christmas dinner:
Good Eats turkey - Chris was going to smoke it, but we had gotten home at about 1:30am the night before and still had to throw the brine together at that point. In order to smoke it, he would have had to get up at like 5am to get it going in time for a late lunch/early dinner. So, we roasted it traditionally. We should have trusted our thermometer, because the breast turned out just a bit on the dry side. It went off after just an hour and a half or so of cooking to indicate the bird had reached the target 161 degrees. But we threw it back in for another 10-15 minutes, not believing it only took that long to hit the temp. It was still good, just maybe not quite as good as it's been in the past.
Prosciutto wrapped, bleu cheese stuffed sweet potatoes - For the past couple of years, we've made these candied "yams" gone wild from the same food blog. While I was looking up the recipe to make my grocery list, I was feeling a little disappointed that I couldn't come up with something new to make. But over on the left hand side, I noticed what looked like another sweet potato dish, the one I wound up deciding to make. Now that I've tried it, I'd say we have a winner! They're awesome! I'll be looking for excuses to make these more often.
Cauliflower and broccoli goat cheese gratin - I've made this before, sans broccoli and with cheddar instead of the parmesan. It turned out watery that time. This time, we steamed the veggies first and I switched the cheddar for asiago, since I thought it was drier and might help with the moisture problem. This time, it turned out fantastic and I have the approval from Chris to make it more often (he was skeptical, since the first attempt didn't turn out so great). I'm always looking for other ways to cook broccoli and cauliflower other than steamed with some sort of sauce. I think it would be just as good if not better to saute the veggies in butter or oil instead of steaming, but I definitely think they need to be partially cooked before being baked in the casserole.
My mother-in-law's stuffing - She complained that it turned out badly through most of the meal, but I think she was just being overly critical of herself. She likes it to be all uniform in taste and texture so you don't know when you're biting into a piece of celery or green onion or cornbread or whatever. This time, each ingredient sort of stood out and gave it's own unique taste and texture. I really liked it, better than usual even. She was happy with it leftover the next day.
Pumpkin cranberry yeast rolls - These have become a holiday staple. My mother-in-law enjoys them so much, she asked me to bring them to Thanksgiving. I guess this is the only thing I haven't looked into changing every year. Though this time they turned out more like yeast scones than rolls like they usually do. I've given up using muffin tins for them and bake them on cookie sheets now, but this time the dough was a little stickier than normal and I think as a result they didn't rise quite as much as they normally do. I really need to go Alton Brown on this recipe and weigh the flour until I get what I'm looking for from them.
Salad - Spring mix and baby spinach with dried cranberries, apples, walnuts, bleu cheese and a spiced balsamic vinaigrette that I just sort of made up on the spot and will definitely be making again. It would have been awesome with some gingerbread croutons.
Cranberry tangerine relish - The recipe makes so much, we had a big bag in the freezer from last year's batch. It's best served warm and that's a good thing since we didn't remember to thaw it until the last minute. Thank you microwave! This stuff is equally good on a leftover turkey sandwich.
Dessert - My mother-in-law brought both a pumpkin pie and a tasty apple cake.
