WHEW! IT'S OVER

Well, it is officially over. Christmas that is. We had dinner this evening at my aunts house, 14 of us, my cousins and their kids, my uncle and us plus various friends and other family members. It is about the only time we see each other, other than funerals or weddings. It's good to catch up on what's been going on during the year. One cousin and his wife were headed to Paris tomorrow, how lucky is that! My other cousin has the cutest kids.. 61/2 and 3 the most precosious little girls.. just adorable. My other cousin is my age and we exchanged aches and pains and retirement wishes. Dinner was fun and good, Rib roast, done to a perfect rare, baked potatoes and sweet potatoes, salads, tamales, ham etc. You get the picture, plus lots of wine, champagne and what ever else you wanted to drink. I contributed a Green Bean Salad W/Warm Bacon Dressing, a Pumpkin/Pecan Pie, Chocolate Cherry Whipped Cream Cake and left over Christmas cookies. My aunt made an Oreo cookie Cheesecake and of course the requisit Jello Mold.

I love getting together with all the family. We will again get together come New Years for Japanese New Years...more to come on that. We are headed to San Diego to see my daughter, SIL and the grand kids tomorrow evening.. I can't wait!

Haricots Verts with Goat cheese and Warm Bacon Dressing

3lb Haricots Verts or thin green beans

1/2lb thick sliced bacon cut crosswise into thin strips

1/2 C chopped shallots (about 3)

2 cloves garlic chopped

1/4C Sherry Vinegar

3Tbsp Dijon Mustard

1tsp dry mustard

1/2C extra-virgin Olive oil

1C crumbled goat cheese (about 4oz.)

1/2C fresh pomegranate seeds or dried cranberries-Cook beans in large pot of boilning salted water until crisp-tender. Drain, rinse with cold water and drain again. Pat Dry. (Can be made 1 day ahead) Wrap in paper towels, and chill. Bring to room temperature before continuing..place in large bowl.

Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp, about 25 min. Transfer bacon to paper towels. Add shallots and garlic to drippings in skillet. Saute over medium heat until beginning to soften about 1 minute. Add vinegar, and mustards; whisk, scraping up browned bits. Whisk in oil. Season dressing with salt and pepper.

Toss beans with dressing. Sprinkle with cheese, bacon, and pomegranate seed or cranberries;

Makes 12 servings

courtesy of Chris McKone- Sacramento Food Co-op classes.

CHRISTMAS DINNER

ok, after all the cooking for the catering job, I had to get ready for chrismas dinner.. luckily there were only going to be 8 of us. The planned menu was Beef Wellington, Honey Baked Ham, Veggies, Salad and rolls plus desert. I couldn't work on the wellington early since I was cooking for the catering job and Christmas eve dinner, it all had to be done on the 24th and 25th. Acturally if there is time it is a very easyy dish to make. The mushroom duxelle can be made ahead of time, the sauce can be made a couple of day days ahead and the meat can be seared and stuffed a day ahead. Since I didn' have much time the mushroom stuffing did get made the day before but everything else was done on Christmas day. I also made a Triple cholcolate mousse cake and a pumpkin cheesecake. My aunt provided the veggies (green beans and asparagus) and a shrimp salad and rolls. Normally this would have been easy ( it wasn't all that hard really, just lots of stress). But, besides cooking I had to make sure my mother wasy functioning... she's 85 and her memory is deteriorating. I think it gets worse during the holidays because of the stress. I had taken her her flatware over on Monday, by Tuesday she had put it away and coudn't remember where so I had to get my silverware out to take over there. She had the table set, but couldn't remember for how many ( I think I told her 20 times) and she didn't clean up any of the other dishes she had taken out or the kitchen or any other part of the house. I decided since the table was set, that was good enough. I got most of my cooking done in the morning of Christmas and headed to her house around 2 (dinner was around 5-6pm). My mother had a pot of water on to boil and an artichoke sitting on the counter. When I asked what that was for, she said she was having it for dinner... OK>>> what about Christmas dinner? Today is Christmas?? Oh brother! I was going to seriously loose it and I didn't want to do that. I asked what she thought the table was set for and she said for Christmas dinner but she didn't know it was today.. here the TV was on and all day they had Christmas things on.. she said she wasn't paying attention.

So, anyway, I put the ham in the oven to heat, cleaned up the kitchen and the living room, wrapped my fillet in puff pastry and put the sauce on to simmer. Got out the appetizers (hummus and Nan bread, and the lumpias got fried and plated). I even ran to the liquor store to buy some Patron tequila (I needed it by this time) and some ice.

Everyone showed up, all the food was put out on the table, the Beef Wellington was sliced and it turned out perfectly cooked, we all got our food and sat down to a very nice Christmas dinner and I could finally take a deep breath and relax. Everyone loved the Wellington (it was good, if I do say so myself) the salad was great, the ham as usual was good and desert was excellent. My cousin brought a bottle of Shiraz and I had bought a bottle of bubbly and a couple other wines.. I chose the bubbly all for myself plus some of the Shiraz..I figured I needed a lot of each for medicinal relaxation purposes. We all had a good time, my mother finally got it together and enjoyed herself. I think my aunt got to relax also, since she did Christmas eve for her side of the family the night before.

There are a couple of pictures, but we dove into the food and I forgot to take pictures of the main course and deserts.. well, the pictures of the appetizers and a cake is all we have.

I'm glad the holidays are over, I've been catching up on my sleep and having a good time with my granddaughter..