I dare say, I am all food’ed out from the holidays and am now nursing a bad cold. We had more social gatherings than usual to attend this year, which all included fabulous food spreads. One after another… I gave up feeling guilty about the eating during the festivities, but I really need to kick this cold so I can even attempt to work off all the calories I consumed.

 

I think we officially kicked off our holiday celebrating when we were invited to a group of friends’ wine club that has been going on for a couple years. This time they were doing a champagne tasting and a gift exchange a few days before Christmas. 

 

 

That segued nicely into me preparing a family holiday feast for Christmas Eve, starting off with grazing on snacks hors d’ouevres all day and ending with a full meal at 6pm. All this interspersed with gift opening and exchanging.

 

On the 26th of December we went to a Boxing Day party at our friend’s place. Full of food and coq au vin we squeezed in a round of the game, Apples to Apples. The night was so fun we think it’s gonna be added to our traditions. It’s an English Holiday, but who cares we had our token English friend there.

 

Then we rang in the New Year at a friend’s intimate get together, also with an incredible spread of food from Joan’s on Third and more than enough to drink. 

 

 

 

This year for Christmas Eve, my boyfriend, Jason and I were hosting a much smaller group than last year. Of course this allowed me to go a little nuts. There was a total of five adults so I planned the following meal.  As the years progress, the menus seem to get more elaborate because I have to include things from previous years that people loved but also I want to use opportunities to try out new recipes too.  This menu is after i did quite a bit of self-editing. We usually celebrate on xmas eve and leave Xmas Day for being lazy, having brunch and seeing a movie. This has been our tried and true formula for years.

 

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Christmas Eve Menu: 

 

Day grazing snacks:

 

Chicken liver pate with fried sage and guanciale

assorted cheese and salumi

Citrus Marinated Olives

Spiced almonds

 

 

 

Starter:

Cauliflower Saffron Soup

Shrimp Sauteed in anchovy butter with tarragon aioli

 

  

 

 

Main:

Herb rubbed Standing Rib Roast with Bordelaise sauce

Wild mushroom brioche bread pudding

Mashed potatoes

Green Beans and shallot butter

Cumin Carrots

 

 

 

Dessert:

NY Style Cheesecake with meyer lemon zest

“port” red wine from Mauritson Winery.

 

 

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MENU DO AHEAD:

Chicken liver pate can be made a couple days before

Toast points can be made ahead, then toasted before serving 

Standing rib roast should be rubbed with herb mix about 24hours ahead

Clean / devein shrimp

cut up all herbs, shallots, onions, garnishes you will need and set aside in ramekins

Mashed potatoes were made the night before

Cheesecake should be made a day ahead as well to allow time for setting and chilling

Bread cubes for bread pudding were cubed up and set aside in ziploc bags.

Olives and nuts can be made ahead. They both keep for a few weeks.

 

 

 

 

SERVING PREP:

Set table

polish silverware

steam wine glasses

fold napkins

get out serving ware and trivets

Create a simple centerpiece of ornaments in a pretty bowl

get candles ready 

open and decant wine several hours ahead 

 

 

 

Lucky for me, Jason’s mom is quite the helper in this area. When I’m busy in the ktichen, she’s bustling around getting the table ready. There’s that extra set of hands I always wish I had when getting ready for a party. 

 

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As you can guess, we had leftovers for days.  Fine by me, when you got house guests and don’t want to cook every meal from scratch, it’s a good thing.  I made a ribeye shepard’s pie out of the mashed potatoes and the ribeye was cut into small pieces. Talk about taking it up a couple notches….It was a good thing I didn’t make the mac and cheese I wanted to.

 

So while everyone is tightening their spending belt, this holiday season was so luxurious and bountiful, that I barely noticed it and probably have to loosen my clothing belt a few notches as a result of it. I hope riding out this recession will come with ease among the generous, resourceful friends we have. We have all started looking to home entertaining as not just an option, but the first option of venues to have a great party at. Cheers to that.