For dinner sometime in the next week or so, I am going to make a meal using (but not limited to) the first 7 ingredients that show up as comments on the blog. So if you’d like to participate, just leave an ingredient as a comment and if it’s one of the first 7, then it’ll be in the meal in some form! I’m just hoping, for my family who has to eat it sake, you go a little easy on me. We shall see and hopefully I’m not posting a recipe for something that looks like this.
Thanks for playing!!!
Santa Came!
And delivered requested goods for the girls. Crazy enough, the girls both got the EXACT same things. Santa must know that if one gets something, the other wants it and is keeping our house as peaceful as possible. Thanks big guy!
Breakfast is ready.
Table is set.
My mom and dad, Julie, Ben, Bryan, Noni, and Grandpa Coco came over for stockings, presents, then Christmas lunch.
I do have pictures of people from Christmas, but all of my pictures look something like this
Hopefully Julie and Ben got some good ones, otherwise looking back years from now, Christmas 2010 was the year all I have pictures of is food and tables. It was a great Christmas and started off with a bang, literally. Christmas commenced with the above folding table crashing down making this crazy loud noise. Luckily no food was on it or kids sitting at it. After that it was all family, gifts, food, and relaxing in comfy clothes. I asked Lauren if she had a good Christmas when I was tucking her in and she said “It was even better then I thought it would be.”
It’s beginning to look alot like Christmas. Everywhere you go.
We had many things to accomplish, but definitely took time out to play in the snow!
Our snowman I named Leaf. Guess which family didn’t do due diligence when it came to raking leaves this fall?
Lauren gave herself a huge project for the day. She wanted to make Toy Story 3 paper dolls for Sydney.
It started with Woody and Bullseye.
It kept her busy all day and was proud of herself when it was done. Then Lauren and Sydney played with them. The whole thing worked out great, because Trent and I were able to tackle the house and get it ready for hosting Christmas.
Chocolate Croissants I made for dessert for Christmas. Found the recipe in the St Louis Post Dispatch, crazy easy!
Lauren wanted to make sure Santa knew the reindeer were welcome to all our buffet we set out.
We went to the 4 o’clock children’s Mass.
Then went to Macaroni Grill for dinner.
Good thing their dresses are dark colors! Next stop is Cherry Pie party at The Ungers. There is much food at the Cherry Pie party, but no Cherry Pie. It’s a tradition in my dad’s family we all get together on Christmas Eve, but I don’t know why we call it the Cherry Pie Party. I’ve heard a couple vague reasons, but none of them really make sense. I just googled Cherry Pie Party thinking I would get some sort of Italian tradition history, but the only thing that came up was recipes for Cherry Pie.
Lauren and Aunt Mary
Grandpa Coco!
Big Cesare handing out gifts for the kids. Gotta love the Christmas Tree!
Successful Christmas Eve, fun had by all and now it’s time to go to sleep so the big guy can visit the house.
Today is the B-day, as in Braciole day. My dad comes over for the afternoon and we get to cooking.
It starts with making the sauce the day before. I then make the breadcrumbs in the food processor. It kills me I had to buy the parsley, basil, and thyme when I had more than I knew what to do with just last month in the garden. But the rosemary I picked before the big snow and stored in the frig, so at least I can say that’s homegrown. In the blender I put herbs, parmesan cheese, garlic, salt, pepper, and breadcrumbs.
So it is flank steak, pounded out, topped with the herb breadcrumbs, prosciutto, provolone, more breadcrumbs, and hard boiled egg. Now what?
Roll up the steak and secure with twine.
Sear on all sides in a big sauce pan. My dad has a great old school copper ring one that I love and he brings it over for the task. This year I made a crazy mess of his pan, thank goodness for SOS brillo pads!
There they are all seared and ready to go in the oven. I top each flank steak with a couple ladles of Bolognese sauce and a cup or so of beef broth. Put in a 375 degree oven covered for a good hour, transfer to frig. On Christmas we take it out of the frig, slice up, and then cook it in the combined sauce/broth for another hour.
This is what it looks like ready to serve on Christmas.
After my dad and I finished all our cooking and cleaned the kitchen, I was in no mood to look at or cook any more meat. So Trent came home with the house smelling like a steak restaurant and was then served this for dinner.
Wheat bread, ricotta cheese, spinach and edamame salad, topped with an egg. It hit the spot. It was a far cry from what was on the table hours ago.
8 bracioles waiting to be topped with Bolognese and put in the oven. We make extra and my dad and I keep them in the freezer for meals throughout the year. But we learned the hard way do not put eggs in any of them you plan to freeze. Frozen, then reheated egg does not look good, nor taste good. Trust me. Happy B-Day!
I needed to make a big batch of Bolognese sauce for the baked pasta and braciole for our Christmas meal. I don’t think I’ve ever made a pasta sauce the same. I don’t measure or use the same amounts of ingredients and it especially varies in the summer if I have lots of herbs and tomatoes to use up. I only bought a pound of lean beef for a big batch, so I decided to add more carrots and mushrooms to even it out. I also started it with a little pancetta I had in the freezer.
Added two diced onions and 5 cloves of garlic. Then pureed mushrooms, carrots, and celery.
Add to sauce, sauté, add meat, brown, then add a couple glugs of red wine until it evaporates. To that I added 3 big cans of crushed tomatoes, good amount of salt and pepper. My rule of thumb is however many pounds of pasta I plan on cooking, I add one big can of crushed tomatoes and it works out every time.
And there’s the sauce.
In the big boy pot. Apparently I finished cooking it at precisely 3:50 pm and the oven was at 167 degrees. Good to know!
I had the oven on to bake some buns with some leftover dough I had in the frig. Trent was still in KC and wouldn’t be back until around 8 pm.
So the girls had the buns with peanut butter and honey, some apple, and craisins. Peanut butter and honey is pretty huge in our house.
I had leftover spinach and artichoke pizza. It’s pretty rare for me to cook dinner if Trent’s not home. I don’t know why that it, but normally it’s just a night where I open the frig and pick random things to go on a plate. It can get pretty interesting. Back in the day when I lived by myself, my go to for dinner if there wasn’t anything worthy in the frig was a banana…with peanut butter and honey of course.
