My Entertaining Season Begins

[Marlene]

I have whipping cream and will make some up to serve with these. I would normally slice the apples for this dish, but I agree they probably need to be diced for these shells. This should be an interesting experiment.

The potatoes are made and piped. Because I love to entertain you people, I'll post pictures later of my piping skills. There's a reason I don't work in Pastry.

[Marlene]

Whew. Ok, dinner was a little late. My timing was way off on the turkey for some reason. I think it might have still been frozen inside. I did not take most of the pics tonight so there are some missing that I would have taken. However, here we go with Christmas dinner #1.

First I had to make a mustard paste for the turkey to leave it soak overnight:

Then I made the cranberry sauce:

And that's where picture taking fell down. I have neither a picture of the finished turkey nor of the cranberry sauce.

Anway, we started with baked brie topped with roasted garlic:

I had made the potatoes earlier and piped them:

Set the table (interestingly the first thing my son said when he came in today was "what's wrong with our dining room chairs?". He'd never seen the chair covers before. Unfortunately I didn't have time to do anything about getting the covers custom retrofitted for the arm chairs so they remain coverless.

Stuck the carrots in the slow cooker:

The finished turkey, carved

the gravy

Finished potatoes:

And the carmelized apples in the phyllo shells with some whipped cream.

Again, since I didn't take the pictures (not that my picture taking is stellar by any means), there were some shots I didn't get and some that I would have liked to have close ups of. But you get the general idea. I loved the apples in the shells and it was a perfect ending.

Tomorrow's dinner will be baked ham, potatoes au gratin, some sort of veg, probably asparagus and if anyone really wants dessert, I have some left over apples and shells.

[Anna N]

Whew.  Ok, dinner was a little late.  My timing was way off on the turkey for some reason.  I think it might have still been frozen inside.  I did not take most of the pics tonight so there are some missing that I would have taken.  However, here we go with Christmas dinner #1.

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It all looks amazing. I am especially impressed with the potatoes though. They are now on my list as "must do".

[Marlene]

I'm in non stop cook mode with my in laws here. Tonight's dinner was very simple, ham, basted with bourbon mustard sauce, gratin of potato and salad. Well we got pictures of the ham and potatoes but nothing else.

Ham:

Potatoes:

I really need to get back in charge of picture taking. My picture taking skills may suck, but at least I get the shots I want.

Tomorrow night we are taking them out for dinner, whew.

[Jake]

It all looks fabulous, Marlene. Glad you get to take a night off, hope you're going somewhere wonderful. How did you like the potatos? Would you make them again?

[judiu]

I really need to get back in charge of picture taking.  My picture taking skills may suck, but at least I get the shots I want.

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I rather like your photography skills! Your "baked brie with roasted garlic" just became my new wallpaper on the office computer and my boss is drooling...

[Marlene]

Which potatoes? The piped ones? I found them very easy and loved being able to make them ahead. I'd definately make them again.

We are off to the Omega tonight, a local steakhouse here in Oakville that I've written about before. And I've made the pot roast for tomorrow night's dinner!

[Marlene]

I really need to get back in charge of picture taking.  My picture taking skills may suck, but at least I get the shots I want.

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I rather like your photography skills! Your "baked brie with roasted garlic" just became my new wallpaper on the office computer and my boss is drooling...

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lol. You know, I got the idea from Whole Foods. They sell them like that in their cheese section. I almost bought one and then said, hey wait, I can do that myself.

[Marlene]

Last night of cooking for company before I get to start gearing up for Christmas and Boxing dinner extravaganzas.

Kept it more or less simple tonight.

Pot roast (it's almost impossible to make pot roast look good in a picture, but I swear this was fork tender)

Look, a green vegetable. Broccoli:

Cheese sauce and mashed potatoes:

And creme brulee:

[Marlene]

And my entertaining season winds to a close. Whew. Christmas Day was just the two of us so we had a simple beef fondue and some Cristal champagne. No good pictures. Well except for the Champagne bottle.

Boxing Day was my big family dinner. Dinner for 8. We started with a few nibbles:

Brie Fritters with a raspberry dipping sauce. These were simply awesome. Prepare the brie ahead of time and then it takes seconds to deep fry them when guests arrive:

Beef Tenderloin Canapes with Cream Cheese Horseradish Spread:

And the biggest shrimp I've ever seen in my life:

The main event was Prime Rib. I think this is the best Prime Rib I've ever bought. I had an interesting conversation with the "butcher". I got the roast from Whole Foods. My normal butcher biker guy was busy so I got this young kid. He cut a beautiful roast for me and showed it to me. "Perfect" said I. "I'll just go cut the fat cap off" said he. "Well, you could", said I. "except, if you do, I'll have to kill you and since it's Christmas and all, perhaps you should just leave it on. Better for everyone's health that way". In the meantime, my butcher biker guy wandered over and recognized me. "No problems' Mrs. Newell?" "Oh no" I replied. "We were just having a friendly conversation about the fat cap". Mr Butcher Biker guy turned to the kid and said, "do exactly what she wants. This lady knows her meat and knows what she likes". What a guy.

The Christmas table:

The beef:

Hard to tell from this, but it was delightfully med rare to rare in the middle:

Roasted potatoes:

Yorkshire Puddings:

and a Tomato Onion Salad. I made a bleu cheese dressing to go with this, but no picture, alas.

Dessert was a chocolate mousse cake and special coffee for which I also have no pictures.

Not too bad for a woman juggling a sick child, dinner for 8, and and elderly mother.

This pretty much concludes my entertaining for 2005. Normally, we have a New Year's Eve bash here, but this year we are spending two nights in Niagara Falls with my brother and his fiance celebrating his life and the wonders of the past year and the hopes for the coming year.

[Anna N]

And my entertaining season winds to a close. Whew....

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WOW! It all looks absolutely delicious.

[snowangel]

Thanks for the report, Marlene! Sounds like you deserve a break.

Good on you for establishing such a great rapport with the butcher, and I bet you taught the young lad a thing or two about fat, which is essential! My butcher positively cringes when the women ask for him to trim all of the fat off of everything.

Have a wonderful New Year's.

[rjwong]

The season is over? Sigh ...

Marlene, does that mean you're going to hibernate and eat vegetables for the winter??

[Marlene]

The season is over? Sigh ... 

Marlene, does that mean you're going to hibernate and eat vegetables for the winter??

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Well, I won't exactly hibernate. We do entertain throughout the year, but not like this. As for vegetables, well there are several changes in store for me this year. Give me a month. I think you'll be surprised. Stay tuned.

[judiu]

Marlene, I am SO jealous! Where did you find wonderful tomatoes like those at this time of year? I'm in south Florida and all we get are wooly, nasty, flavorless, half-ripe, pale pink tennis balls. (Can ya tell I really love a GOOD tomato? ) They look gorgeous!

[Marlene]

We got them at Whole Foods. Yes, we pay a little more for them but they were really good.

I thought I was mostly done, but I'm holding a birthday party this weekend for a close friend of ours. I guess this means I need to bake a cake.

[Marlene]

I do in fact have the makings, and I was considering that one!

[snowangel]

I have included a mighty fine Chocolate Cake recipe in RecipeGullet.

As a side note, I made the beef tenderloin canapes for New Year's Eve and know they will become a regular on the menu here. They were outstanding.

[Marlene]

Truly, most of this meal I could do in my sleep. But when you're doing a party for 10, sometimes that's helpful.

Nibbles:

Brie fritters and raspberry sauce

Mini Celriac potato pancakes:

Prime Rib, yet again

Whole roasted potatoes:

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Roasted asparagus with balsamic and parmesan:

The most amazing Yorkshire puddings:

The wine with dinner:

And a really really bad picture of the birthday cake.

[rjwong]

And a really really bad picture of the birthday cake.

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Such a pity, Marlene, that the cake photo wasn't taken before the eating, ehh? Mind you, your shooting is getting better. But how did the cake TASTE?

As for the prime rib, who helped you this time? The biker butcher or the young man?

[Marlene]

I didn't take any of those pictures. My husband did camera duty while I cooked. I made such a mess of the writing on the cake I wouldn't let him take a "before" picture! However, the cake was really good. Devil's Food Cake was the first cake I learned to bake oh so many years ago, and it never fails me.

The biker butcher cut this roast for me, and it was beyond tender. That was a 9 pound, four bone Prime rib.

The mini potato pancakes are from Martha's Hor D'ourves book. They are supposed to be served with an apple-red onion compote, but I just didn't have time to make it, but they go well with applesauce and sour cream too.

[Marlene]

This is a period we don't entertain a lot in, but we do some. Tonight a dinner for 8.

Starting with apps:

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Janet's nuts

Potato chips dusted with parmesan:

Beef tenderloin canapes (yes we were having beef for dinner, whats' your point? )

On to the roast:

Crock pot carrots

Yorkshire pudding:

Onion strings and gravy

Plated, with mashed:

A really bad picture of creme caramel:

[snowangel]

Beautiful, Marlene! What did you drink with dinner? With dessert? After dessert?

And, you really should change the title of this topic to something that reflects that your entertaining season never really ends!

[Marlene]

With dinner was a 1996 Barolo. After dinner was port or liquers depending on peoples choice

[Anna N]

This is a period we don't entertain a lot in, but we do some. Tonight a dinner for 8.

...

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This all looks amazing. The potato chips dusted with Parmesan are especially intriguing. Are they home made chips?