[The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind] The Eats!

Here's a little run down of what I served to the many family and friends wandering in and out throughout this Christmas Day. I'm actually kind of impressed with myself, and I just want to give myself a pat on the back...

First, for the morning crowd, along with bloody Marys, I made some strong Alterra coffee (Sulawesi Toraja. I strongly recommend it) and, from the fryer, two dozen beignets kept warm in the oven (not a great idea, but it worked well enough) and dusted with powdered sugar and Saigon cinnamon.

It was an awesome start to a great day of eating...

After that, for the afternoon crew, I made four dozen wings and a small prime rib, then I sliced the prime rib and served it on little triangles of toast with a slathering of a blue cheese-shallot dressing (that I also served up with the wings), or a zippy little horseradish sauce that I made for yesterday's batch of wings but decided on not using (or forgot to take to my brother's house). And, a little au jus of thyme and red wine.

Oh... And more bloody Marys. Lots and lots of bloody Marys.

The dinner rush got the best, but easiest.

I made a simple ham. In fact, the only way to make it any easier would have been to make someone else cook it. But, since I am the one doing the cooking on Christmas day as this house becomes the epicenter for family activities, I decided to go with easy since I knew I'd be cooking all freakin' day and, contrary to the scribblings within this blog, I do want to sometimes spend time with my family.

Here's the ham recipe:

One good sized bone-in ham (the one I made was around twelve pounds or so)
Two liters of Coke
One onion....

That's it. Just dump it all into a roasting pan, cover with aluminum foil, toss it all into a 350 degree oven for around 3 or 4 hours, baste occasionally, and that's it.

Along side this easy, yet delicious creation, I served baked sweet potatoes and roasted asparagus.

It was a good day, and as far as leftovers go, there really aren't many. Some people took a bunch home, but I do have three wings left, about four little prime rib sandwiches --which I plan to do away with for breakfast tomorrow--, and a few pounds of ham (some of which will be used in tomorrow's bean soup project. Apparently, the left over juice from cooking the ham also makes a great base for the bean soup (and yes. The ham bone will be used as well).

As for tomorrow, after I whip up my soup (which I can't even think about eating at the moment), I have a feeling I'll be calling my friends at my favorite Chinese restaurant here in town.

I suppose the point of it all is, it didn't take a lot of effort cooking, really. Most of the stuff required lengthy baking times and nothing challenging with regards to preparation (in fact, the most difficult thing was the beignet dough, and I made that the night before since it's supposed to sit for a long time anyway), and that allowed me to goof around and spend time with my guests. Once I was in the kitchen, it was nothing more than just simple slicing and whatnots.

I think that's the way to do it, really. Years ago, I used to muck around with wickedly complicated things with wild sauces, reductions and side dishes to really make some sort of statement with my food, but I realized that I was missing out on a lot of the holiday. So, I simplified it with easy things that spend more time in the oven than on the stovetop. In fact, while the ham was cooking in the oven, I actually managed to sit down with some popcorn and watch The Simpsons movie that my brother got as a gift.

So, really, you'll thank me for this, but if you keep things simple (especially if you've got a lot of people showing up at all sorts of different times), it makes a huge difference, and no one should spend their Christmas Day chained to their stove cooking like mad. Yes, it is nice to blow people's minds when you cook something absolutely awesome and complicated, but during the holiday's it doesn't pay off. Yes. You eat well, but you wind up missing out on a lot of fun.

Perhaps if it was just me and a small family, things would be different. But, I had probably forty or fifty people show up throughout the day (some even made return trips).

Anyway, this is just me patting myself on the back. I do hope you all had a great Christmas Day filled with smiling faces and enough presents to spoil you for a while.

As for me, I suppose if anyone should ask me what the best present I received this year was, I'd have to tell them that it was Time. I actually was able to put my feet up, eat, have a glass of wine (or many), watch a movie, play with my nieces and nephews, tell dirty jokes with my brothers, and that is something I rarely get to do, and being able to do it all in one day is a tremendous rarity.

So yeah. I had a great Christmas. And, I'm pretty sure anyone who walked through my door did as well.

Still... A Playstation 3 would have been nice, dammit!

-Dan

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Posted By Dan to The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind at 12/25/2007 10:00:00 PM