Christmas dinner was just right

It was just the three of us for Christmas dinner this year. I poured through cookbooks, scoured my favorite foodie websites and mulled it over for days. What in the world would we have for dinner? I grew up with this particular holiday being a "thing."

My parents always hosted a Christmas open house, all 22 years I lived at home and even before I was born. It was quite a production. We started welcoming guests about 1 p.m. and sent the last ones home about 2 a.m. the next morning. Both of my parents have large families, and one year I counted -- 72 people came to our party.

The gathering itself was casual, with food served buffet style mostly in the dining room. On the table, Mom used a tablecloth my Dad's grandmother made. It is white with a red embroidery pattern. Mom put a piece of hard plastic down over it that was the same size as the table, which helped keep it white all those years. I'm really glad she did, since now it's mine. The slow cookers with meatballs and sausage and hot roast beef for sandwiches were in the kitchen. We had chairs and small tables set up everywhere and somehow, we had enough room. Usually my Mom's family came in the afternoon, and my Dad's family came at night. Friends and neighbors dropped in here and there.

We cooked for days to get ready. My Mom didn't really like to cook, but she had these party preparations down to a science. She had a folder of recipes we used every year. Some things were added and some we dropped if they weren't popular. There was always ambrosia, jello mold with fruit, coleslaw and potato salad (more on the McGarry potato salad in a future post), macaroni salad, pineapple casserole and petit fours from a local bakery.

We also opened our presents and had our family Christmas at night, usually after midnight mass. Then it was up and at 'em early on Christmas day, chopping vegetables and spooning out dishes we'd made the day before. It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed it.

I knew I wouldn't have to cook for days for just the three of us, but I still wanted to do something special (without spending all day in the kitchen). Hello London Broil.
I marinated the meat for about three hours, in nothing more than equal parts olive oil and balsamic vinegar, a really big clove of smashed garlic and some black pepper. I caramelized some shallots and made a butter with those, salt and pepper and fresh thyme. I sauteed some pancetta and shallots to go with green beans, and I made some potatoes. I boiled small Yukon gold potatoes, smashed them a little and drizzled with a little olive oil. Some salt and pepper and shredded cheddar and they were ready for the broiler after the steak was finished. And that was it. Simple in terms of effort, yet fancy enough to call it a holiday meal. It was just what I wanted for my family. I hope all of you enjoyed your family celebrations as much as I enjoyed ours.

Christmas Cheer and Making Messes

I really felt the need to bake Christmas cookies this year. I knew we didn't need to eat five batches of cookies, but I really wanted to bake. Jeffrey came up with the perfect solution.

The Let's PLAY! children's workshop holiday showcase was this Saturday at Brunswick Little Theatre, and he thought it would be nice to have cookies and cider for the kids and their parents and friends who came to see the show.

I was going to write this blog post about the cookies I made, but I took a picture of the aftermath in the kitchen, and knew this post had to be about something else. So here's the short version on the cookie deal. We (yes, it was a group effort) made pumpkin cookies with a brown sugar glaze, peanut butter blossom cookies with peanut butter-filled chocolate chips on top instead of Hershey Kisses (not what we intended but it totally worked out) and shortbread chocolate chip cookies with cinnamon sugar. 

Our little reception got rave reviews. The kids loved the cookies, and so did the adults. One little girl asked me if I made a certain cookie and when I said yes, she told me I should do that more often. :-) What a nice feeling it was to see everyone enjoying themselves during and after the show. 

So this is what the kitchen looked like after we were done baking. Now, I did my own share of the mess-making, but Jeffrey surpassed my efforts when he was left unsupervised to work on the shortbread cookies. 

There is just so much "us" in this picture. There's a Mickey plate in the background. It's a plate, but we keep it propped up against the backsplash so we can see it because, well, it's Mickey. There's a bottle of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce on the counter. Not cookie related, of course, but we have a long-running joke about Lea & Perrins since I once scoffed at Jeffrey for even thinking of buying something other than "the name" in Worcestershire sauce. There is a pint glass we used to dip in the cinnamon sugar. The bowl of sugar is a baby bowl that the boy has long outgrown but I now use for a variety of things in the kitchen. The flour container, seen behind the pint glass, says "Instant Milky White." See, it was used during BLT's production of "Into the Woods" this summer. They used flour to make the fake Milky White cow and the boy holding it, well, somewhat Milky. There was obviously a mini chocolate chip spill, and there's a new stain on that page of the cookie cookbook. 

That's the Stites life in a nutshell. There's always a story, and though sometimes it's messy, it's always full of love and joy.  

Breakfast fit for a Princess

We recently went to Disney World for a quick weekend trip. It's only a nine or ten-hour drive, so why not? One of the highlights of the trip, for me at least, was the Princess breakfast at Akershus, the restaurant in Norway at Epcot. One of our Disney secrets is that we make breakfast reservations at a park before the park opens -- then we can be in the park when it is empty!

Breakfast was actually really good. It was a buffet for breads, muffins, fruits, cold salads and four kinds of cold fish. I did not try any of the fish, but Jeffrey said they were good. I did have the lingonberry cream cheese, which was delicious. Eggs, potato casserole and breakfast meats were served family style at the table. It's an expensive breakfast, but you do get to see a lot of Princesses.

Once everyone is seated and drinks are being served, it's showtime.
The day we were there, we had visits from Cinderella, Ariel, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. We also had our picture taken with Belle before we entered the dining room; an 8x10 is brought to your table during breakfast. I loved Cinderella's dress. Snow White looked perfect and she even had the Princess voice down pat. Sleeping Beauty and Belle were breathtakingly beautiful. But Jeffrey was right -- Ariel was the best. She looked the part, as they all did. But the woman playing her nailed Ariel's personality. She was friendly, bubbly and she giggled.

Naturally, I wore my tiara, which all the Princesses complimented. It was truly a royal feast, and I didn't even care that we might have been the only family there without a little girl.

Cranberry Sauce -- Nothing this good should come from a can

One of our staple items for holiday dinners now is Cranberry Sauce, and I don't mean the solid block that makes a squelching noise when you pour it out of a can. I mean good, tasty, whole berry cranberry sauce. Made with actual cranberries.

It's really easy to make, and I can almost guarantee that once you make it from scratch, you will never buy the stuff in a can again. Now, don't get me wrong...we have all used the can, and in a pinch, it's ok to substitute. But give this recipe a shot. It's one of those recipes that will make everyone think you put in a lot more effort than you really did.

Here's how simple it is. The recipe is even on the bag if you get Ocean Spray Cranberries. That's the only brand my stores in the middle of nowhere carriy anyway, so I just roll with what I've got.

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 12-ounce package Ocean Spray® Fresh Cranberries

Directions:
Combine sugar and water in a medium saucepan. Bring to boil; add cranberries, return to boil. Reduce heat and boil gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Cover and cool completely at room temperature. Refrigerate until serving time. Makes 2 1/4 cups.

And that's it. Pretty much if you can boil water, you can make this recipe. We have leftovers of course, and I think I'll try this recipe for oatmeal cranberry bars.

Time to end the blog hiatus and 'thyme' to make some soup

I have been neglecting my blog. I sort of have a halfway real excuse, but not really. I hurt one of my knees in March, and the other in  August. I've been doing lots of physical therapy and then I had surgery and now I'm doing physical therapy again. I am making huge progress but I still have a ways to go.

I've just been so tired.

And I've been struggling with the idea of not actually being invincible.

And did I mention I've been tired? This healing business is tough work. My energy is sapped some days. Not exactly ideal conditions for the creative juices to be flowing, but I think I am over feeling sorry for myself. It's time to reset and regroup. Sometimes things happen that knock you off your course for a bit, and it can be tough to get it back on track. I guess what I am trying to say in a really long roundabout way is that I may have been off my game but I am ready to get off the bench.

So today we are making chicken and rice soup. I feel a cold coming on and it is frigid outside and rainy. Soup is just the thing today. My trusty sous chef John jumped right in to help, and he chopped the celery and carrots. I chopped the onion and chicken. I cooked the chicken a little in a skillet first, because I really wanted it to have good flavor. I used a little olive oil and salt and pepper. Just before I took it off the heat, I added dried rosemary, mostly because we were out of thyme. But rosemary goes great with poultry too. We sweated the veggies in some butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. We added low-sodium chicken stock (you won't miss the salt, trust me) and it is happily bubbling away on low heat. We're going to let it cook for a little while before we check for seasoning. We're not going to eat until I get home from cantata practice and Jeff is home from the theatre, so we're going to cook the rice but add it to the soup later. We also got some Pillsbury crescent rolls just because they're good.

We don't have a recipe for this one, but here's what we used: one bag of baby carrots (cut into halves or thirds) one bunch of celery diced to match the carrots in size, half a large onion (diced), three chicken breasts and three boxes of stock. I won't know until later if this turns out ok, but I can say that it smells amazing in out kitchen right now.

I'm glad I am writing again and I hope you are too.

Missing My Kitchen

It has been a really busy summer. Somehow it just got away from us and before we knew it, it was back to school time and the summer was over. I have also been nursing one and then the other knee with injuries, and will actually have surgery soon. I haven't been able to stand for long period of times and walking around a lot is also difficult. Long story short, I haven't been cooking, really cooking, much. Oh we've had dinner at home a lot. But nothing that sticks out. No new recipes. No complicated dishes and no hanging out in the kitchen to cook elaborate meals.

I didn't realize how much I would miss it.

I really do enjoy trying new things in the kitchen or even making some of our tried and true favorites. I am cooking tonight, though dinner will be late. Jeffrey had a long day after a long week and is asleep on the couch. John is watching YouTube videos and I am blogging while the meat is cooking. We're having lemon garlic chicken thighs (with thyme, olive oil and salt and pepper). Next I'll get started on the mashed potatoes and cook some carrots. Nothing super fancy, just a good old-fashioned home cooked dinner. I am still hurting, and I'll get John to help me if I need it, but I just wanted to cook since we are all actually home tonight.

Can't wait until it's time to eat!

Date Night Part 2 - Cooking with My Sweet Baboo

Boy have we been busy. The three of us have been working as backstage help for Brunswick Little Theatre's production of "Into the Woods" and I haven't had much time to write. But I do want to share our other recent date night story.

You may have already read about our fabulous dinner out at Mr. P's Bistro while John was visiting his grandparents in PA. Another night we had a date night of sorts at home. We love to cook together, and risotto is the perfect couples dish to cook.

Risotto takes time to cook. Not a long time, but enough that we can have a glass of wine and take turns stirring (that's Jeffrey's thumb in the picture). This night, I tried a new chicken dish with garlic and lemons. Check out the recipe here. As usual, I used it as sort of a guide and made some tweaks. I didn't use a whole bulb of garlic because that seemed a bit much. And I used dried thyme because that's what I had. I also used just chicken thighs. So I got the chicken going and then Jeff and I cooked risotto. We made Parmesan risotto that night. We have made risotto enough times that I don't look at a recipe anymore. And I don't really measure anything besides the stock and the rice. When we first started cooking risotto, we used this Rachael Ray recipe. Now when we make it, we usually start by cooking some diced Pancetta. (Look for a future blog post on why Pancetta makes everything better). We take the cooked Pancetta out and cook the shallots in the pan (we add a little butter to the Pancetta grease). I also put in a little salt and pepper at this stage. Then we pour in the rice and get it nice and toasty. Then we add wine. Risotto is traditionally made with white wine, but sometimes we like to be rebels and use red instead. We also do the "add wine and reduce it down" step twice. If once is good, then twice is better, right? Then we add the stock (chicken with white wine and beef with red wine) little by little until it is all gone and the risotto is creamy. And then it's time to eat.

We do like a good risotto. But that's just part of the reason to cook it. We also like having some wine and good conversation. Our attention is focused only on the task at hand and each other. We don't mind that it takes a while to get dinner on the table. The journey to the dinner table (or TV trays in the living room so we can watch a good Disney movie while eating) is easily half the fun.