Holiday food pics

I suppose there are some people out there who would like to see our Christmas Eve and Christmas dinners, so without further ado:

Christmas Eve must be Swedish food, kind of like my MorMor (mother's mother aka grandma) used to make.  We start out with herring, cheese, smoked salmon, and crispbread.  The main course is ham,

Swedish meatballs, Jansson's temptation (a potato, cream, and onion gratin with...shhhh...anchovies),

Homemade Limpa, which is a rye bread with molasses, caraway, orange zest, and anise seed, 

And braised sweet and sour kale.  Dessert is cookies and rice pudding- oops, no pic.

On to Christmas Day:  a few simple seafood hors d'Oeuvres:

This is terrible but there was a third appetizer, a puff pastry palmier filled with fig jam and prosciutto.  They were on the baking sheet to cool down enough to plate them- that fig jam is like molten lava out of the oven- and people just started eating them right off the pan.  Whatever- one less dish to wash

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Our first seated course was parsnip and leek puree garnished with a drizzle of heavy cream, chives, and chopped smoked almonds for a little textural pop as well as an interesting additional flavor.  It was quite good and light enough not to cloy the palate.

For the main course, I bought some big-ass pork shoulder roasts, seasoned them up really well the night before with salt, pepper, and Penzey's Bavarian Blend, and then seared them off and roasted the heck out of them.  I believe they were in the oven for about 5 hours at 325'  The awesome thing about pork shoulder for a party, is, well, number one it is super cheap, especially compared to prime rib or goose.  Two, is it simply cannot be overcooked.  These are the cuts they use in real BBQ where the things smoke for upwards of 24 hours.  You can under cook it, but not if you're paying attention!  Third, it's a breeze to slice and serve.  No elaborate and messy carving ritual.  Four, these days pork is so lean, people are really surprised and pleased at the fatty succulence and fall-apart tenderness of the shoulder.  Five (!) leftovers are versatile.  Great for Cuban or shredded bbq sandwiches.

The pork was served with a luscious gravy, spaetzle, braised red cabbage with bacon and nice warm spices, and simple steamed haricots vert and julienned carrots.

To end on a lighter note, a cranberry orange Bavarian.  That's a jellyroll filled with homemade cranberry jam around and over an orange cream filling, with Grand Marnier and juicy orange segments.  This is kind of an old fashioned dessert- it has gelatin in it (not jello- eeeew)-  but I was happy with it because it not only can, it has to be made the day ahead, and it's a refreshing conclusion to a heavy meal, with seasonal flavors.

A handful of cookies...

The traditional Gingerbread house- this year my 5 year old did the decorating all by herself!  It's hard to see but there's a Christmas tree inside.

I honestly didn't go overboard on the cookies this year.  Kind of sad to skip tradition.  Here's peanut brittle, lemon squares (Mom's recipe), and Rose Levy Beranbaum's Chocolate Walnut Chews...a base of oatmeal cookie dough strewn with walnuts and dark chocolate, then blanketed with caramel and melded in the oven to something greater than the sum of its parts.

Close up on the chews...these are good keepers, too.  Good for about 2 weeks.

The brittle.  

Well, guess I didn't get a pic of the decorated cutouts-- but if you ever need a third hand to fill a piping bag with icing, use this trick (it's in a pint glass, before the end is snipped off).

One of my personal favorites are Vanilla Buttercreams.  It's a melt in your mouth (but crisp to the bite) vanilla scented shortbread round, sandwiched with luxurious vanilla scented butter cream filling- kissed with rum.

The dough is:  process, roll, chill, slice, and bake.  Easy peasy!  They don't look like much, but if you like sticking your finger in the bowl after creaming the butter, sugar, and vanilla...these are for you.

The Family Tradition:  Mormor's Swedish Pepperkakor.  They are subtle but everyone loves them.  They have to be thin.  So thin that you seem to have as much dough left after cutting the cookies as before rolling it out.

Baked, with minimal adornment.

They are molasses spice cookies.  So crispy and tender you just shatter them on the roof of your mouth with your tongue.  Goes great with coffee, tea, milk, red wine...  They are the cookie that eats like a chip.

My Aunt Carol gets them even thinner.  Don't ask me how!

Perfect cookie baking weather, eh?

Pork loin with prosciutto, figs, and bleu cheese

Served with garlic sauteed rapini and roasted acorn squash.

I used a piece of boneless pork loin, about 2 lbs.

First I butterflied it by slicing into the bottom third horizontally with a thin fillet knife, 

Then folding the flap back like opening a book, and continuing the cut into the rest of the meat: 

I seasoned the pork with salt and pepper, spread a thin layer of fig jam and laid a few slices of blue cheese on there.  I used a double  creme blue because that's what I had, but a better choice would have been a harder blue. For those who eschew blue, a firm aged Gouda would do, too.

I folded it back up and wrapped it in some prosciutto.

Then in plastic to firm up before sauteing.  It's not necessary to tie or otherwise secure the roast as long as you treat it with tender, loving care.  Until you slice it up and devour it, anyway.

Browned the prosciutto exterior in some olive oil, in an ovenproof pan.

Then it roasts at 350 until 150' or so- about 50 minutes for this one.  The roast and juices were removed to rest.   I cooked some sweet onion in the roasting pan until soft,  then  added some not-quite-ripe figs.

Deglazed with white wine when the figs  started to soften,

Finished up with some chicken stock mixed with just a touch of cornstarch and a few drops of decent balsamic vinegar (always seems to go well with figs).

Dinner for us plus a special guest.

4 dinners

Christmas season.  My least favorite time of the year.  I try to like it, but I guess it's just not in my nature to enjoy running around in the crappy weather, shopping under pressure, hauling out decorations knowing they just have to be put away in a few weeks, keeping the house neat with 2 little kids- my birthday- etc etc.  Thank goodness I actually like cooking and baking or I'd be in even more of a funk.  Anyway. Just to catch up, here's what we've been eating:

Red wine beef stew,
Tofu stir fry with black bean sauce and chicken,
My birthday dinner- my wonderful husband cooked!
This dull looking plate is a little NY strip steak with mushrooms and cauliflower cheese gratin.  We had a salad, too.  

Appetizers and Desserts for Wine Club!

The second Friday of the month is my favorite Friday.  Wine Club!!!

Ready.  Bring on the wine!

Citrus curd meringue tarts.  I have been so lame!  Can you believe?  This party was early December.  No posts in weeks and I was doing a lot of cooking, too.  And cleaning, shopping, hosting, wrapping...you know.  But it's time to get back into it.

So, for the "Holiday Extravaganza" wine club we were doing a mix of different, unusual, and highly recommended wines from Tom at Waterford Wine Co on Brady St.  Thanks Tom!  I didn't know what to really plan for so I just did some old standbys and tried a few new things, too.  My wine buddies don't mind being guinea pigs  (or so they say).  So:  clockwise from the top- crab tarts with cream cheese and chives, Italian sausage stuffed mushrooms, a quick bread with bacon, dried pears, and Gouda cheese (not that good- a bit dry IMO), and a really nice, easy flourless chocolate ganache cake.  I'll post the recipe for that later.

I served (from top) a 2 year old Gouda, double creme blue, and a white Stilton with dates and orange (from Trader Joe's).

Here we have those citrus tarts, and roasted fingerling potatoes with sour cream remoulade and smoked salmon.

The cookies: Swedish Pepperkakor, cranberry white chocolate shortbread, and raspberry almond butter bars.  

Here is the savory Apple- Cheddar galette and the pineapple bread puddings with warm caramel drizzle.  A big bowl of freshly whipped cream for the Ganache cake.  Wasn't there something else?  Maybe not.  This was like my third day with the new camera so sorry about the photo quality.

OK- this picture is some the most fun, stylish, and interesting women in the greater Milwaukee area.  We had 16 ladies but I couldn't get them all in!  I had a great time and sampled some very offbeat yet traditional wines.  I'm sorry I can't review them or even tell you specifics but I just wanted a nice, relaxing time drinking and chatting with my crew, so I didn't take notes.

Friday morning 2 am

Friday was my wine club's Holiday Extravaganza, at my house.  I tried to do as much as possible the days before- cookies baked,

Tart shells baked, caramelized pineapple bread puddings (and their caramel sauce) done,

A bunch of other cooking I got done early, too.  The gateau (chocolate cake), the mushroom stuffing, the citrus curd for the tarts, the sour cream mixture for the smoked salmon things...

Here's a good tip:  Set your table the night before.  Get out all your serving pieces (those scraps of paper on them say what will be on that dish), your utensils ready, etc.  This always takes me longer than it seems like it should.  There's always something I can't find, or something that needs polishing.   I hate being crunched for time so I always get set up the night before if possible.

The kitchen is somewhat cleaned, though still not ready for inspection.....

I'm going to bed.

Thanks Mac!

So I remembered my laptop has a built in camera.  I'm not exactly getting the hang of using it to take pictures of food, though- this is the best of, like, 10 pictures of the Red Beans and Rice:

It's cold and snowy here.  I made a big pot of rib- sticking New Orleans style Red Beans and rice.  First, I sauteed the "trinity:"  onion, celery, and green bell pepper.  Then I added garlic, one Usingers Andouille sausage (diced), tomato paste, Tony Chachere's Cajun seasoning, and half a pound of red kidney beans.  Cover with water and cook until the beans are soft- about 2 or 3 hours on simmer.  Mash some of the beans with a potato masher, and serve over rice.  I also browned some smoked Polish sausages and some shrimp to garnish the top- and a scattering of scallion greens (but everyone else polished off the Polish before I got home from Zumba).

That's me, tasting the broth.  Can you say "Cheese?"

I am getting a camera in 3 days; and I am hosting our Holiday Extravaganza Wine Club Party this weekend- so hopefully I'll have some good stuff to post about coming up soon!!