Christmas Eve/Christmas, New Year's Eve/Day 2020/21

[robirdstx]

 

Table was set.

 

 

Turkey thigh was sliced.

 

 

Dinner was consumed! No leftovers!

 

[Captain]

Some of the stuff. I had to put out another table for the rest of the food.

I hope everyone had a merry Xmas.

[IowaDee]

The food looks amazing but what really fills me with envy is that bare foot. Imagine being able to walk around shoe-less on Christmas...

boggles my mind.

[heidih]

2 hours ago, IowaDee said:

The food looks amazing but what really fills me with envy is that bare foot. Imagine being able to walk around shoe-less on Christmas...

boggles my mind.

Why my Aussie niece liked coming to Idaho for Christmas - got to experience every image in the children's books versus sun & summer for Santa.

[IowaDee]

As a kid growing up in Los Angeles, I used to feel sorry for all those snow bound ones who got new bikes and roller skates from Santa.  I suppose those same kids felt sorry for me because I couldn't build a snowman or have a snowball fight?   The grass is always greener and the snow is always whiter on the other side isn't it?

[heidih]

@IowaDee But here in L.A. you could see the snow on the local mountains and know Snow Summit and Big Bear slopes were just 2 hours away

[chromedome]

My sister posted pics of the greenery in Vancouver, where she lives, with the rhetorical caption "Is it even Christmas if you don't go to the beach?"

(Not to indulge in one-upmanship, but in Vancouver the mountains are right across the harbour and you can catch a city bus to the ski hill...)

[Orbit]

1 hour ago, heidih said:

@IowaDee But here in L.A. you could see the snow on the local mountains and know Snow Summit and Big Bear slopes were just 2 hours away

 

That's one thing I do miss about L.A. (I lived there most of my life). I used to drive all over, down PCH, up PCH, to the mountains.....

[Shelby]

Prime rib for Christmas dinner...pictured with a bottle of wine that I was gifted for a very special occasion, that I saved for a special occasion  

 

 

 

Brussels sprouts with chestnuts in heavy cream

 

 

With lobster Mac and cheese and stewed tomatoes

 

 

Dessert was Italian rum cake

 

 

[kayb]

It was a good-sized Christmas dinner.

 

 

Broccoli salad and potato salad.

 

 

Deviled egg tray. Japanese pickles in rice wine, mirin and soy sauce, center; tomato wedges, cornichons and Castelvetrano olives around the outside.

 

 

Sweet potatoes and mac and cheese. 

 

Ham.

 

 

Baked beans.

 

One of the gifted pecan pies.

 

 

 

And the butter cake.

 

 

Nobody left hungry. And we fixed plates for a few extra and sent them out as well.

 

 

[heidih]

Friends and I have decided on a sip soup all day (interspersed with sweets) New Years. Each of us doing a different good luck type, packing some for freezer to share when we connect in person. So far I am split green pea - kinda covers coin shape and green  Plus some ultra white coconut milk - clean slate allusion.  Another is doing a blended greens soup with a ham hock stock base. Hock meat to be enjoyed shredded and sprinkled on top. Third is uncertain but leaning to seaweed in miso broth.  She is not doing her Japanese traditional dishes this year as no family get together but thinking seaweed speaks to forward thinking climate change awareness. 

[Darienne]

What's this thing I keep seeing...Mac and Cheese as a Christmas dish?

[Duvel]

(Almost) zero prep dinner: Raclette !

 

 

[Shelby]

7 minutes ago, Darienne said:

What's this thing I keep seeing...Mac and Cheese as a Christmas dish?

It's a southern thing down here....I don't make it all the time, but @kayb's family would revolt if she didn't 🤣

[heidih]

8 minutes ago, Darienne said:

What's this thing I keep seeing...Mac and Cheese as a Christmas dish?

@Shelby hit send before me    Not to me but I think it is Southern and often seen when ham is served. Comfort. When it is meat n' 3 the stuff is I think sometimes included.

[Shelby]

5 minutes ago, heidih said:

@Shelby hit send before me    Not to me but I think it is Southern and often seen when ham is served. Comfort. When it is meat n' 3 the stuff is I think sometimes included.

Yeah some folks consider Mac and cheese a vegetable.  

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, Shelby said:

Yeah some folks consider Mac and cheese a vegetable.  

And some of us don’t even consider it food. 

[heidih]

Maybe not in Canada but I'd say the average American considers it the next step up from mother's milk.  https://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/ct-mac-and-cheese-on-malia-and-sasha-obama-christmas-list-story.html

[Darienne]

55 minutes ago, Anna N said:

And some of us don’t even consider it food. 

First thing I learned to cook at about 8 years old.  Taught to me by my best friend, and we are still friends more than 70 years later, who was 9 years old.  Kraft Dinner it was and I quit eating it when I was about 15 years old.  

 

 

Edited December 26, 2020 by Darienne (log)

[kayb]

There would be open revolt at my house if I did not serve it. I don't like it, don't eat it, but the kids go berserk for it. 

[Kim Shook]

I was too rushed on Christmas Eve and day to log on, but I hope everyone had lovely, if different, holidays! 

 

@gfweb – I always love seeing that beautiful home of yours.  And your tea looked so good. 

 

@Shelby – your Christmas eve meal looked SO good.  I would love to have had that.  I think that the whole Italian seafood/fish meal makes so much sense.  It is such a different meal than the ones folks tend to have on Christmas day.  And I confess to loving that Snickers salad, too!  And, OMG, that beef and the sides to it!  That meal was the perfect contrast to the night before.  I had to giggle at your statement that some people consider mac and cheese a vegetable.  When Mr. Kim was in grad school, I worked for a private social service agency as a USDA daycare meal reimbursement coordinator.  Just like public schools, state licensed day care centers and private providers can be reimbursed set amounts for the meals that they serve children in their care.   My job was to train the private providers and do inspections and to go over their records of each meal served to make sure it met the requirements. If it didn’t, they didn’t get paid for that meal.  So, they had a stake in things being done right.  No matter how many times I explained that macaroni and cheese was a starch and a protein, I would still get menus every month that included mac and cheese as vegetable.  Some people just refused to believe that a sidedish wasn’t the same thing as a vegetable. 

 

@robirdstx – I love that snacky set up.  We would devour that.  Was that a boneless turkey thigh?  If not, it was really well carved!  Everything looks delicious. 

 

@kayb – I would like to sit down to your dinner tonight.  Your ham is so moist looking.  I did those same sweet potatoes and your mac and cheese is exactly how I like it. 

 

My report will be kind of piecemeal.  We had a lovely couple of days, but it really wiped me out.  I did almost nothing today and my knees are rewarding me for the rest! 

 

On Monday, the 21^st, I picked up the pork roast for Xmas Eve from our butcher shop.  Kind of a snafu.  I had asked for advice from them when I ordered about how much I should get and told them it would be three people plus some leftovers.  He said 3 lbs. should be enough.  I had requested skin on so that I could try to get some cracklings and didn’t think about how much of the roast would be a fat cap.  When I picked it up, it turned out to be 2.4 lbs., not 3. 

 

I freaked out a bit and we stopped at Fresh Market and picked up a tiny little roast (1.7 lb.) to SV alongside the other one.  I freaked out a bit more when I opened the package and saw the skin:

 

After a public eG freak out, I called butcher shop, as advised by rotuts, and was told that this particular local breed has very dark hair and there is no way to get all of the roots out.  She said if they had missed getting any to just burn them off very quickly.  Hours of plucking recalcitrant hair narrowly averted.  Rubbed both roasts with Penzeys’ Ozark seasoning and vacuum sealed them, ready for their bath.  More later!  I haven’t even finished uploading all of the photos from my phone. 

[robirdstx]

1 hour ago, Kim Shook said:

I love that snacky set up.  We would devour that.  Was that a boneless turkey thigh?  If not, it was really well carved!  Everything looks delicious. 

Thank you! The thigh was bone-in. There was still some meat on the bone when the photo was taken, but that was corrected shortly thereafter! 😋

[Darienne]

A friend posted this menu and I thought some of you might get a chuckle out of one of the side dishes.  This restaurant is in Ontario, Canada.

 

[Tri2Cook]

On 12/26/2020 at 1:38 PM, Shelby said:

Yeah some folks consider Mac and cheese a vegetable.  

 

On 12/26/2020 at 3:13 PM, Anna N said:

And some of us don’t even consider it food. 

And some of us give it a place among the great reasons for cheese to exist. 

[Porthos]

Just dropping to post that the protein for Christmas dinner was roast leg of lamb. After the meal my son-in-law commented that he doesn't actually care for lamb. He thought the lamb was ok. The big shock was that we've served him lamb a few times over the last several years and he's never told us he doesn't care for it. In our family we like knowing food preferences (which he knows) so his never having mentioned it before was a surprise. 

 

My Sweetie made chunky apple sauce using a recipe where you bake the apples.  It was very good. Everything else was dishes that we all like, including a sesame green bean dish we've done for ren faire for several years but never fixed at home before.