We had two Christmas feasts this year. Talk about abundance and over indulgence! Today I barely cared to eat. No wonder people make food related resolutions for the new year, Christmas does them in. Friends Chris and Tina invited us to theirs on Christmas Day and then we cooked on Boxing Day. Shane was off to his girlfriends house on the 25th so we opted to do our meal the day later. Back to back turkey might be nice for some, but it's not my favourite food although I love all the dressings and veggie dishes that accompany the feast.
Tina's stuffs her turkey and I learned this thing called a dressing bag. All the ingredients are placed in a double walled gauze bag and stuffed in the bird for easy removal after the cooking. I wasn't prepared to do that to our turkey yesterday with the stores closed and no way to purchase cheese cloth, but it will be great for next year. I never liked the dressing sticking to the walls inside the cavity as it took forever to scrape it all out, so I usually just make the dressing and use some of the pan drippings to add the turkey flavour and just bake it in the oven casserole style.
The table below is set with our plaid Christmas cloth with navy place mats and willow dishes. I could have hauled out the Moonlight Rose china but I love the blue and white willow for special occasions as well as everyday. We had blue plaid Christmas crackers that are always fun and I did bring out the silver cutlery for a bit of extra shine. Blue and white ceramic candle holders scattered around the floral centerpiece added a charming ambiance to the meal.
Tina's stuffs her turkey and I learned this thing called a dressing bag. All the ingredients are placed in a double walled gauze bag and stuffed in the bird for easy removal after the cooking. I wasn't prepared to do that to our turkey yesterday with the stores closed and no way to purchase cheese cloth, but it will be great for next year. I never liked the dressing sticking to the walls inside the cavity as it took forever to scrape it all out, so I usually just make the dressing and use some of the pan drippings to add the turkey flavour and just bake it in the oven casserole style.
The table below is set with our plaid Christmas cloth with navy place mats and willow dishes. I could have hauled out the Moonlight Rose china but I love the blue and white willow for special occasions as well as everyday. We had blue plaid Christmas crackers that are always fun and I did bring out the silver cutlery for a bit of extra shine. Blue and white ceramic candle holders scattered around the floral centerpiece added a charming ambiance to the meal.
Despite the amount of food needed to feed the masses of family and friends, Christmas dinner is not a difficult meal to prepare. The turkey cooks itself needing only a few bastings, and after the dressing is made and veggies are peeled and cut, there doesn't seem to be any panic. I've made more elaborate meals that take a lot of planning and executing, so in comparison a Christmas feast seems a cake walk.
We made Moose Milk for before dinner whistle wetters. I'd made the cranberry ring for the Hook-in Christmas party that got cancelled, so we decided to use it or loose it to frost bite. Moose Milk is a combination of 1 part Vodka, 1 part Kahlua, 1 part Dark Rum, 4 parts milk and 4 parts Vanilla ice-cream. Simple to prepare and despite the white mustache, goes down like velvet and tastes heavenly. The silver plated punch bowl was a purchases at The Bombay Company years ago, and still shines brilliantly after a polish.
Dessert was an embarrassment. Maybe I've lost my touch because I ruined the butter tarts with over cooking. I filled the pastry too much so the filling bubbled up and ran out over the pan and burned to a caramelized crisp. I had to perform operations to cut away the sticky mess to release the pastry from the pan. Yummy of course to pick off and crunchy to eat, but a dogs breakfast to look at. They weren't the beautiful tart I usually make so I announced dessert would be ugly. Thankfully, the flavour was there or I wouldn't have been able to serve them and that would have meant throwing some overripe bananas at the crowd. No one seemed to care, especially the guys. What is it about men...they just love tarts.....
I'm very lucky to have a domestic, handy hubby who doesn't mind rolling up his sleeves to peel and cut veggies or wash dishes. I call out the orders and he did my bidding....like a PA in the kitchen. He came well trained so I didn't have to do any of the breaking in myself. I'm a lucky woman!
We made Moose Milk for before dinner whistle wetters. I'd made the cranberry ring for the Hook-in Christmas party that got cancelled, so we decided to use it or loose it to frost bite. Moose Milk is a combination of 1 part Vodka, 1 part Kahlua, 1 part Dark Rum, 4 parts milk and 4 parts Vanilla ice-cream. Simple to prepare and despite the white mustache, goes down like velvet and tastes heavenly. The silver plated punch bowl was a purchases at The Bombay Company years ago, and still shines brilliantly after a polish.
Dessert was an embarrassment. Maybe I've lost my touch because I ruined the butter tarts with over cooking. I filled the pastry too much so the filling bubbled up and ran out over the pan and burned to a caramelized crisp. I had to perform operations to cut away the sticky mess to release the pastry from the pan. Yummy of course to pick off and crunchy to eat, but a dogs breakfast to look at. They weren't the beautiful tart I usually make so I announced dessert would be ugly. Thankfully, the flavour was there or I wouldn't have been able to serve them and that would have meant throwing some overripe bananas at the crowd. No one seemed to care, especially the guys. What is it about men...they just love tarts.....
I'm very lucky to have a domestic, handy hubby who doesn't mind rolling up his sleeves to peel and cut veggies or wash dishes. I call out the orders and he did my bidding....like a PA in the kitchen. He came well trained so I didn't have to do any of the breaking in myself. I'm a lucky woman!
After dinner we removed the leaves out of the dining table and played a game of Mah-jong, a tradition in the Little house. Shane and Ashley had to leave so Chris and Tina played with us. It's similar to gin except with tiles instead of cards. You need runs and multiples of three of a kind. There is a great wall that you draw tiles from and place discards in the middle. Hubby learned to play with Chinese co-workers back in the seventies and would play three to four games during coffee breaks. It's fun to play and we've spread the game to all our friends. Tina on the right, was the big winner of the night, taking three in a row and then leaving after midnight on top of the Mah-jong throne.
I loved my table centerpiece, a gift from Deanna from Seaside Flowers in Lunenburg. She's a good friend and one of our Main Street Rug Hookers that meet at the studio on Wednesday evenings.
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