Dinner! 2011

[ScottyBoy]

the vegetable tray with dip- somebody ate the star I cut from celery before I could take the picture

Haha love the veggie platter!

Edited December 26, 2011 by ScottyBoy (log)

[Hassouni]

Christmas dinner:

Roast venison loin with a port/juniper berry pan sauce, roast carrots/fingerling potatoes/butternut squash/fennel/shallots/chestnuts, and red cabbage and apples braised in apple cider. Delicious!

Edited December 26, 2011 by Hassouni (log)

[Franci]

For Christmas it was our family of 4 plus my parents, the beauty it's everything can be pretty informal.

For Christmas eve we got 24 oysters fine de claires, some smoked salmon, huge prawns with vietnamese spicy sauce, scallops and a festive fennel and pomegranate salad.

On Christmas day, for Italians lunch is far more important than dinner. For dinner we had some mussels (that we didn't manage to eat on the eve and we had to cook) and a duck breast that also needed to be cooked and the liver from the goose we roasted for lunch, plus a leftover vegetable cake pomme anna style. No sweets.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Here in Ecuador, we were 4 at the table (me, Mom, Dad, and our fabulous neighbour Clemecia, who is alone at the holiday) and we did the traditional Canadian style early Christmas dinner. Also informal at our house - so no shiny decorations or beautiful place settings here.

Here's the turkey, which, at 16 lbs, was the smallest our butcher received this year, before it went into the oven - I don't have a shot of it coming out all golden, because it was de-stuffed and carved almost immediately, while I was setting the table and dealing with side dishes.

The place setting

Pickles!

Serving it up, buffet-style (I hate big dinners where the host loads your plate for you)

Yummmm. The wine was a fruit-forward, rich Merlot from Pays d'Oc, which I'm really growing to enjoy.

For dessert, a selection of pies - Apple or Peach-Strawberry (the pumpkin ones went to Clemencia's lunch yesterday, and we ran out of pumpkin!).

And of course, what Christmas dinner would be complete without fruitcake?!?!? Please accept this stock photo, which makes it look far better than it did last night (because we just hacked it into chunks and inhaled it )

[nikkib]

What is underneath the turkey on the shot of it on your plate? Looks delicious!

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Nikki - under the turkey towards the bottom of the plate are roasted camote, the local gold and purple veined sweet potato. Under the turkey towards the top is the black bread stuffing.

[djyee100]

Pastameshugana, a fabulous feast for your appreciation dinner. I'll have some bacon-wrapped asparagus, please.

C. Sapidus, I hope your panel of judges has eased up on you, because your recent meals look fantastic.

JMahl, homemade Italian sausage? I see your sausage-making progresses! I like the beef bourguignon too--perfect for this cold weather.

Robirdstx, glad to see you back with your yummy food.

Wonderful Xmas dinners here. I didn't host the Xmas dinner, so I had the energy to cook today. I made a variation of Vietnamese Shaking Beef with Garlic Sauce (Bo Luc Lac). This dish will please garlic-lovers.

The recipe is available online. No pea shoots in the house, but plenty of bok choy, so I subbed some sauteed bok choy. Shaking Beef is delicious over watercress or arugula also. I tossed in some slivered fresno chiles with the beef.

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/shaking-beef-with-pea-shoot-salad

[patrickamory]

As a welcome respite from Christmastime excess, we just had rice and beans tonight.

Good Mother Stollards from Rancho Gordo:

Cooked via the Russ Parsons method... they needed a good two hours plus though. I added sage, bay leaf, garlic, curry leaves and some chopped poblano about 40 minutes in:

The final result:

Incredibly meaty and delicious. They were so deep and smoky it almost seemed like I'd put a ham hock in there - but I hadn't! Highly recommended. Served with white rice, chopped jalapenos, red Yucateco hot sauce and... leftover Christmas ham. But I swear I tasted the beans before I added any ham to the plate.

[Jaymes]

the vegetable tray with dip- somebody ate the star I cut from celery before I could take the picture

How clever. And beautiful. I'm totally stealing this idea next year!

Thanks for posting it.

[Norm Matthews]

Thanks everyone. FYI the asparagus was slightly cook crisp tender so it would not have a raw taste. Everything else were crudités.

[Jaymes]

Thanks everyone. FYI the asparagus was slightly cook crisp tender so it would not have a raw taste. Everything else were crudités.

You say that somebody ate the star. But I see a star. And you say that's the relish tray "with dip." But I see no dip.

Where is the dip?

[Franci]

I feel I had more for dinner tonight than on Christmas Eve.

We had oysters fine de Claires n. 1, spaghetti with mussel alla Tarantina (one of my hometown specialties, the mussels are open by hand before cooking, huge difference), oven baked sea bream, roasted potatoes and some puntarelle alla romana (they are too time consuming, I should get the "tool" to prepare them).

I'm attaching just the spaghetti and the puntarelle, nobody is interested in roasted potatoes I suppose (although Jennifer Mclagan recipe rocks)

[Paul Bacino]

Four Cheese Stuffed Shells:

Sheep Ricotta, Asiago, Reggiano, Mozzarella , La Quercia Prosciutto, White Pepper,

Sugar( yikes ) Parsley

[Norm Matthews]

Thanks everyone. FYI the asparagus was slightly cook crisp tender so it would not have a raw taste. Everything else were crudités.

You say that somebody ate the star. But I see a star. And you say that's the relish tray "with dip." But I see no dip.

Where is the dip?

Yes the star is there. It had slipped when someone moved it and I did not see it over on the side and thought it was gone. After I posted, I noticed it was still there. The dip had not been moved with the dish and did not show up in that picture. I had the dishes arranged to take a picture, then the kids came in and started setting the table and moved everything while I was busy in the kitchen with some last minute detail or other, so in my last minute attempt to take at least some pictures, I didn't notice everything was not where it had been. I was somewhat hurried at that moment. Sorry for the confusion.

[C. sapidus]

Franci – nice to see you posting again. Those oysters look divine!

C. Sapidus, I hope your panel of judges has eased up on you . . .

Thank you! Judges have been lenient lately, unless I inflict seafood on their delicate palettes.

Vietnamese Shaking Beef with Garlic Sauce (Bo Luc Lac). This dish will please garlic-lovers.

That looks and sounds fantastic! Must.Make.Soon.

We hosted a Christmas open house for about 20 adults, and (somewhat to our surprise) another 10 of elder son's friends. On Christmas Eve Mrs. C and my mother baked 7-layer bars, almond-lemon shortbread, and some delicious ginger snaps. For the party, Mrs. C baked artichoke-filled puff pastries and set out various vegetables, dips, cheeses, and finger foods.

One of our friends runs a restaurant and brought her killer cream of crab soup and equally killer layered espresso brownies. Other friends brought pound cake, lots of wine, and very pleasant company.

I made huge batches of beef curry, spice-infused basmati rice, mulligatawny soup, and butternut squash crescents baked with garlic, chiles, and curry leaves. Accompaniments included seared ginger raita, red chutney, green chutney, and onion kachumbar. The crab soup, beef curry, rice, and (surprisingly) baked squash disappeared quickly.

The mulligatawny soup went untouched, so for Monday night’s dinner I jazzed it up with chunks of potato and chicken thighs, some coconut milk, lime juice, and brown sugar to balance. Boys approved. Mrs. C baked Brie in puff pastry, served with cut-up strawberries. She also made a spinach salad with strawberries, bacon, walnuts, and balsamic vinaigrette.

No pictures of anything, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

[Paul Bacino]

I have this Vintage Vertical rotisserie unit.. makes absolutely fabulous chicken with left over holiday mashers!!

[Jmahl]

JMahl, homemade Italian sausage? I see your sausage-making progresses! I like the beef bourguignon too--perfect for this cold weather.

Thanks for the kind words - where did you see the sausage-making process?

[djyee100]

Thanks for the kind words - where did you see the sausage-making process?

Ooops, I misread one of your posts upthread. Sorry!

Vietnamese Shaking Beef with Garlic Sauce (Bo Luc Lac). This dish will please garlic-lovers.

That looks and sounds fantastic! Must.Make.Soon.

Hope you enjoy it. This recipe is a work in progress for me. I have cut the meat in cubes and sauteed them in a wok, per the recipe, but the meat can quickly burn because of the sugar in the marinade. This time I cut the meat in thick-ish strips and sauteed them all at once in a 10" skillet with a generous amt of oil. A few tosses and the meat was seared and caramelized. I was happier with the results.

[robirdstx]

Robirdstx, glad to see you back with your yummy food.

Thank you, djyee100. Glad to be back.

Dinner tonight used up the last of the turkey thigh meat from Christmas dinner in the form of turkey, onion and pickled jalapeno enchiladas with a sour cream/salsa verde sauce, and topped with lots of jack cheese. Sorry no photo, but DH pronounced it good.

[Franci]

Tonight we had Red lentils soup with chards and lemons (Ottolenghi), not bad but I prefer the more classic lebanese version with brown lentils. Then steamed turbot chinese style and chinese steamed flower rolls

Edited December 28, 2011 by Franci (log)

[mm84321]

Sunchoke Roasted with Watercress and Mustard.

Quail Roasted with Endive, Dates, and Juniper.

[ScottyBoy]

Beautiful stuff.

[Keith_W]

mm84321, you are making the rest of us look like hacks. Your food is simply stunning - I love the contrast of colours and textures. Please keep posting - you are an inspiration!

[percyn]

Nice meals all!

mm84321, that is some amazing looking dishes - are you practicing for the Bocuse d'Or?

On the other end of the spectrum, I picked up some handmade pasta from our local Wholefoods.

Ricotta Stuffed Rigatoni w/Braised Shortribs

Also got some great looking organic boneless shortribs, which I made a version of Korean BBQ with the following day.

[percyn]

Tonight we decided to open the paletta de pata negra 5 jotas we got for Christmas, so we got that for appetizer and then breaded sweetbreads and artichockes.

Pata negra is definitely on my top ten (or maybe five) highly rewarding foods. Very happy. I'm going to miss that when we move back to the US

That is a thing of beauty!

Franci, I have purchased slices of pata negra bellota in the US. Not sure if it is exactly the same as what you get in Europe, but tasted pretty close.