Wake Up!
There've been too many cookies around here, so it's time to move on. Still, this is the time of year for special foods, so I have to bring something unique to the table.
Although breakfast on Christmas morning was never a big deal when I was growing up - my creators weren't big on anything but victims dinner that day - I have cultivated my own festive daybreak meal traditions over the past couple of years.
I'm not a pancake and waffle girl - and not big on sweets full stop - so donuts, danishes, cookies, and such do not appeal when I'm bleary-eyed and snapping photos of the gargoyles as they shriek wildly and flitter about the rooms in gleeful excitement over what Sinterklaas has brought.
It probably goes without saying that I'm not a morning person. So, I'm content with only good Columbian coffee, brewed strong, and tenuously diluted with half-and-half. This usually gets me through the first round of flapping wings, banshee screams, and the manic happiness that even I feel on the big day. After all the hubbub has subsided and even the 'goyles are settled, we begin a mini feast fit for a special morning.
The pups get to choose what they have - usually gigantic muffins from a local bakery (which we'll buy today - Xmas Eve - to insure maximum freshness, considering its closed on the 25th). DL and I go for sesame bagels from the same place. Again, gigantic, perfect bagels, of which even a New Yorker would approve. These bready wheels are sliced, toasted, and slathered with my homemade caper-and-onion whipped cream cheese, tomato slices, black pepper, and copious amounts of smoked salmon.
A nice accompaniment, and something we all love, is a citrus-pineapple-pomegranate fruit salad I concocted a few Xmases ago to balance all the yeast-based carbs. It's been added to the holiday AM roster.
Maybe you'll enjoy it too. I'll make it today, chill it overnight, and it will be ready Christmas morning, when all I'll want to do is eat, drink, and lay around in my sleeping shroud.
Gorey's Xmas Eye-Opening Citrus Salad
3 large navel oranges (I'm partial to Sunkist 4012's)
3 texas Ruby Red grapefruits
1 large, ripe pomegranate
about 2 cups pineapple with juice (fresh is great, but canned in only its own juice is fine)
1/8 c. halved marachino cherries, with their juice
The most work in this recipe is done in sectioning the citrus. The cooking term for this is called supreme, as in to supreme the orange. To cut out these juicy, pulpy gems in the most efficient manner, see this valuable resource.
Combine the supremed oranges and grapefruit, with all their juice you can retain, with the pineapple and cherries in a large bowl.
To retrieve the gems - aka arils - from the pomegranate, see this.
Add the arils to the bowl and mix gently. Refrigerate for at least an hour, but overnight is better. Serve cold, for maximum awakening and/or reviving.
Although breakfast on Christmas morning was never a big deal when I was growing up - my creators weren't big on anything but victims dinner that day - I have cultivated my own festive daybreak meal traditions over the past couple of years.
I'm not a pancake and waffle girl - and not big on sweets full stop - so donuts, danishes, cookies, and such do not appeal when I'm bleary-eyed and snapping photos of the gargoyles as they shriek wildly and flitter about the rooms in gleeful excitement over what Sinterklaas has brought.
It probably goes without saying that I'm not a morning person. So, I'm content with only good Columbian coffee, brewed strong, and tenuously diluted with half-and-half. This usually gets me through the first round of flapping wings, banshee screams, and the manic happiness that even I feel on the big day. After all the hubbub has subsided and even the 'goyles are settled, we begin a mini feast fit for a special morning.
The pups get to choose what they have - usually gigantic muffins from a local bakery (which we'll buy today - Xmas Eve - to insure maximum freshness, considering its closed on the 25th). DL and I go for sesame bagels from the same place. Again, gigantic, perfect bagels, of which even a New Yorker would approve. These bready wheels are sliced, toasted, and slathered with my homemade caper-and-onion whipped cream cheese, tomato slices, black pepper, and copious amounts of smoked salmon.
A nice accompaniment, and something we all love, is a citrus-pineapple-pomegranate fruit salad I concocted a few Xmases ago to balance all the yeast-based carbs. It's been added to the holiday AM roster.
Maybe you'll enjoy it too. I'll make it today, chill it overnight, and it will be ready Christmas morning, when all I'll want to do is eat, drink, and lay around in my sleeping shroud.
Gorey's Xmas Eye-Opening Citrus Salad
3 large navel oranges (I'm partial to Sunkist 4012's)
3 texas Ruby Red grapefruits
1 large, ripe pomegranate
about 2 cups pineapple with juice (fresh is great, but canned in only its own juice is fine)
1/8 c. halved marachino cherries, with their juice
The most work in this recipe is done in sectioning the citrus. The cooking term for this is called supreme, as in to supreme the orange. To cut out these juicy, pulpy gems in the most efficient manner, see this valuable resource.
Combine the supremed oranges and grapefruit, with all their juice you can retain, with the pineapple and cherries in a large bowl.
To retrieve the gems - aka arils - from the pomegranate, see this.
Add the arils to the bowl and mix gently. Refrigerate for at least an hour, but overnight is better. Serve cold, for maximum awakening and/or reviving.