Christmas Dinner Recap
The holidays for us are less about gifts and more about the food. (To the point that adults don’t exchange gifts) After a rough quarter, it was a relief to get back in kitchen and do some cooking. I thought I’d share my menu and how it worked. No pictures, as I opted not to photograph the food.
I woke at 7:30 or so and headed up to make breakfast
- Baked Eggs & Sausage casserole from Simply Recipes.
I used stuffing mix for the day old bread, choosing some that was unseasoned , it worked perfectly. I used a little too much sausage but the end product was good. The baked french toast was just better.
- Baked french toast
I picked a recipe from about.com that basically worked like this:
Mix 2 cups of brown sugar with 1 stick melted butter, place in bottom of 9×13 pan. Add maple, almond or vanilla flavoring on top. Dip Challah or thick french toast bread in a custard of milk and eggs. Place on top of browned sugar. Pour remaining custard over the top. Sit 10 min, or overnight. Bake at 350, turning 20 minutes in, bake till custard is cooked enough, and sugar is carmelized. (45min-60min total)
This was amazing. Leah tasted it and said “This is covered in candy!” I’ll be making it again.
- Orange juice
- Mimosas
Christmas Appetizers:
- Chex Mix - Julie’s Extra Special Chex Mix. With Bacon!
- Cheese Puffs- Pâte à choux with cheddar cheese. It was ok, but not amazing
- Vegetable Tray - We skipped this. vegetables are for the weak.
- Deviled Eggs
- Smoked Sausages - Little smokies in barbecue sauce. So low class, but so tasty.
Christmas dinner:
- Roast Beef - Beef rib roast, turned out well. I pulled some off so it would be rare, then popped the rest in the oven to cook to everyone else’s standards.
- Roast Pork - A little dry, I should have brined it.
- Yorkshire Pudding - Tasty, but not amazing as usual.
- Sauteed Mushrooms with Garlic - Yum
- Roasted Carrots - A little overcooked, but good.
- Brussel Sprouts - Very happy making, cooked with bacon
- Mashed Potatoes - Easy and rounded out our plate
Christmas Dessert:
- White Chocolate Cranberry Trifle
The inspiration for this came from a cake found here . I saw it and new Aron would like it, but he had asked for trifle. So I made the cake, a white chocolate custard, and the cranberry filling. I layered cake/custard/cranberries and mandarin oranges. I let it sit overnight, then to the remaining custard i stirred in whipped cream and mandarin orange juice from the can. It turned out really well . Next time I will cut the cake bits smaller, and mix whipped cream with all the custard.
- Hot Cocoa Cake
This came from Fine Cooking. Initially I decided to convert it to cupcakes, but the cake was so moist they wouldn’t hold up. So I ended up making one large cake, cut and layered with frosting and homemade marshmallows. It was good, but very rich, as with every piece I heard “Omg this is soooo rich”
Originally published at Originally posted at Fatandcrafty.com. You can comment here or there.