MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Wendy & I woke up early to celebrate our Christmas together with the pets. Once done with that, we headed over to Wendy’s family’s home to celebrate with them before being joined in the evening by Wendy’s extended family and my parents to celebrate some more. Dinner was chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, salads, and additional items (which we wolfed down — in the course of our celebrations, we neglected to eat anything substantial, so we were HUNGRY!). Wendy made a beautiful fondant cake for dessert, and it was well-received.

Christmas was very nice this year. The cooperation of the weather made it just that much nicer. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

As you saw in yesterday’s blog post, here is the menu we served for Christmas Eve. Here, I’ve expanded it to include the wines we served.

My mother & father joined us, along with Paul, and Deb, two close friends. After Wendy & I went shopping Wednesday evening, I worked much of Saturday on preparing for the meal. Prep was pretty easy because I’d thought out a timeline, and everything went according to plan.

Goat Cheese & Marinara, Crostini
de Marques Gelida Sparkling Wine, 2001
I made the crostini at home, so they were crunchy and peppery. Delicious. The richness of the goat cheese and marinara were a nice foil for the sparkling wine.

Jonah Crab Salad
&
Asparagus and Cream Cheese in Puff Pastry
Verget Pouilly-Fuisse, 2005
This was a pretty presentation — on a small rectangular plate, I built the crab stack, pretty with the red salad, white crab, and green avocado cream, on the left side and put two discs of the asparagus & cream cheese puff pastry on the right.

Apple and Chestnut Soup, Spiced Cream
Crios de Susana Balbo Rose of Malbec, 2005
Our only ‘miss’ of the evening with wines — the 2005 Verget Pouilly-Fuisse we’d planned to serve just did not pair well with this soup — all the warmth was taken away from the soup by the wine. Wendy pulled the Rose of Malbec and it paired nicely.

Shrimp, Mushroom Ravioli, Sage Browned Butter
Verget Pouilly-Fuisse, 2005
When Wendy tried one of these ravioli while I was preparing it, she thought they were plain and somewhat boring. However, the addition of the sage browned butter seemed to bring this dish alive for her.

Seared Foie Gras and Poached Pears on Brioche, Moscato Glace
Mondavi Moscato d’Oro, 2005
My personal favorite dish of the evening. I poached Bosc pears in Moscato, sugar, orange rind, and spices. Once they were soft, I removed the pears and chilled them while I strained and reduced the poaching liquid by about 80%, down to a nice glaze. At service, we cut and toasted brioche rounds, cut thin fan-shaped slices of the pears, and seared the foie gras briefly on a very hot griddle. Assembly was putting the foie on top of the brioche (so it could soak up the foie juices), fanned the pears out around, and topped with the warmed glaze.

Pork Tenderloin with Spiced Port Sauce
All-Crust Potato Gratins
Brussels Sprouts with Pecorino and Walnuts
Tres Picos Borsao Garnachia, 2004
Three new recipes, and three successes. The pork tenderloin was seared, wrapped, and marinated overnight before it was cooked sous vide. Having the pork cooking on its own with no chance of overcooking allowed me to turn my attention to other items and was really a load off my mind. Plus, the flavors were top notch and the meat was exquisitely tender. The spiced port sauce was a wonderful compliment. The gratin was a thin layer of potato gratin that was flashed under the broiler at service to make it hot and very crispy. Really tasty and good textural contrast with the tender pork. Wendy & I really like Brussels Sprouts prepared well, and this preparation was very nice — toasted walnuts provided a crunchy counterpoint to the salty tang of the pecorino.

Cheese course — Epossies, Manchego, Pont-L’Eveque, and Cambozola.
Jonsey Old Tawny Port
I served individual cheese plates with brunoise of macerated pear. The Epossies is Wendy’s favorite cheese and it looked very nice on the silver spoons we used to present it.

Petit fours, white chocolate raspberry mousse in chocolate cups
Elio Perrone Clarte Moscato d’Asti, 2005
Wendy worked very hard to make beautiful petit fours and, boy, did she succeed! She also made a white chocolate raspberry mousse using a raspberry coulis I made for her, and the mousse was really good. Paul brought some sinful chocolate chip cream-cheese chocolate muffins that we added to the plate to take it over the top.

Chocolate-covered grapes
Elio Perrone Clarte Moscato d’Asti, 2005
These grapes are easy to churn out and are really a fun way to end an evening. Everyone thinks they’re being served rich, heavy chocolate truffles, but when they bite into one and get the squirt of flavor, they’re delighted and manage to find room to eat a few, even after the preceeding courses.

It was a great night. Wendy & I had a lot of fun preparing the meal for everyone!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

After cooking all day for the dinner we’re hosting tomorrow, Wendy & I met up with Dave for dinner and some last minute shopping (we needed to find plates for the ravioli course and the cheese course and maybe the dessert course, and some more table decorations (since the decorations we’d previously accumulated no longer fit on our new, larger dining room table!)). Robin didn’t join us because of an ongoing battle with a nasty sinus infection. Sleep it off, Robin!

We went to OLD TIME POTTERY (which was closed), to Meijer, and to Garden Ridge. We found something suitable for the ravioli course and plenty of decorations, but no luck with dishes for the other two courses.

We stopped at IHOP for dinner — Wendy was craving it! While we were there, Dave asked me to go over the menu for tomorrow, which I did. Two ladies sitting near us asked, “What time shall we be there?!” and commented that the menu sounded great.

Here’s the menu… Comments and thoughts about the event will be published later.

Christmas Eve 2006

Goat Cheese & Marinara, Crostini

Jonah Crab Salad
&
Asparagus and Cream Cheese in Puff Pastry

Apple and Chestnut Soup, Spiced Cream

Shrimp, Mushroom Ravioli, Sage Browned Butter

Seared Foie Gras and Poached Pears on Brioche, Moscato Glace

Pork Tenderloin with Spiced Port Sauce
All-Crust Potato Gratins
Brussels Sprouts with Pecorino and Walnuts

Cheese course

Petit fours and raspberry mousse in chocolate cups

Chocolate-covered grapes

We went for dinner tonight with Robin and our friend Doug. We decided to go to the IRON HORSE INN for dinner (and to pick up some wine we bought at the last wine dinner). Doug had never eaten there, so we were excited to introduce him to one of our favorite places.

Dinner included Lobster Bisque and their “Stuffed Risotto”, and Wendy & I split a piece of their bread pudding.

After dinner, we all went to Garden Ridge to get a new Christmas tree. We wanted a fake one that was pre-lit and looked better than my old fake tree (think wire hangers with a few pieces of green plastic). We found one and got it home easily. It was remarkably simple to get it set up, too, much to the delight of our cats. The still-unnamed Little White Cat had never seen a Christmas tree (this being his first Christmas) and was delighted to play under, around, and in the tree.

We completely forgot to pick up the wine, too.

We left the hotel at 9:00am (their time) to travel back from Kentucky.

In the evening, we attended the fourth annual craft party at Dave & Robin’s house, attended by Dave, Robin, Cheryl, Danny, Holly, Wendy, and Drew. We made candle cozies, little beaded Christmas trees, and beady candy canes. It was fun, but if you ask me about it in front of people, I’ll lie to your face. It’s just not very macho.

Dinner was at their place, and consisted of pizza rolls, bagel bites, and holiday snacks.

We did a bunch of yardwork today, building on some initial work that Wendy had done earlier in the week. We replaced the old-n-busted pavers along our sidewalk with lovely new ones. This involved a trip to Home Depot for the new pavers, all 22 of them. Those things get heavy, and Wendy’s car looked like a lowrider with all that weight in the back. But we got them installed and they look great.

Then it was time to clean up and head over to Jo’s, a regular site visitor, for a Memorial Day cookout. It was a lovely time and the party was well-attended. Jo cooked burgers, hot dogs, and chicken breasts on her grill, and I had a couple tasty Vadalia Onion Burgers.

After the party, we came back to the house to finish up the yardwork projects (I trimmed the bushes in the front — something they desperately needed — and a few other odds-and-ends) before collapsing on the couch to watch the season finale of LOST. Finally some questions were answered, but in true LOST fashion, several more questions were posed. I enjoy the show, but find myself wishing some of the ‘dots’ they’re drawing for us would finally be connected. Maybe in season three.

After dark, we went out to our back yard to do battle with the carpenter bees we’ve been hearing in our eaves. We located a bunch of holes — probably 15 in all — and sprayed some toxic chemical in there. It was gratifying to see the dying bees tumbling out of those holes! We know we dealt a serious blow to the colony, but feel like we’ll probably have to attack them again.

UPDATE: Bad news from Carson Williams… He’s shut it down. Read all the details here.

After seeing this amazing video (and this one, too) of a house with a synchronized light show, a little research revealed that the house is located near where we live!