Holiday Dinners

We have three people at our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners, but make food enough for many more.  We won't need to cook again until 2023!

Christmas Eve we start with a few appetizers:  some interesting cheeses and crackers, Dots homestyle pretzels (from North Dakota), and beef jerky from Buc-ee's Travel Center on I-30 between Dallas and Austin.

Appetizers

For dinner, we have crab cioppino, with shrimp, mussels, and rigatoni as extra benefits, using an old family cioppino recipe that includes onions, garlic, tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, red wine, clam broth, and a few seasonings.  To accompany the cioppino, we pull together a persimmon salad with pomegranate seeds, radicchio, Fuyu persimmons, and sugar roasted walnuts, accompanied by a dressing of shallots, sherry vinegar, and walnut oil.

Making the cioppino

Dinner is served

Christmas Day we have sweet and spicy smoked turkey breast that was wet brined for one day, then dry brined for another day, prior to slowly roasting over cherry chips.

Sweet and spicy smoked turkey breast

To accompany the turkey, we make stuffing, balsamic-roasted brussels sprouts (with pancetta and pomegranate seeds), creamed onion gratin (with parmigiano-reggiano and gorgonzola, no picture), and scalloped potato gratin (with alternating layers of sliced potatoes, shredded gruyère and a sauce of cream, sage, garlic, nutmeg, and eggs).

Stuffing, brussels sprouts, potatoes

Dinner is served

We truly enjoy this collection of treats and will be dining on it until New Year's Day.  Our January 1, 2023 dinner will be surf  and turf, with lobster tails and filet mignon.

We hope you have enjoyed the blogs this year and wish you all a Merry Christmas, Wonderful Holiday Season, and Happy New Year.  We look forward to sharing more new sights and locations with you in 2023 and revisiting some of our favorites (Paris, Cinque Terre, Saint Martin) as we return to places we love and find new ones to explore.