a gratuitous self-promotion . . .
One of our photos from Italy has been entered in a photo contest.
Our photo is currently number 12 out of 467 photos.
You can vote by clicking here
Remember a 10 is good!
Feel free to e-mail the link to friends and loved ones!
*smile*
Wow - did we ever have a great day yesterday! Thank goodness we have today to recover (actually I have until January 7th to recover, poor Paul has to return to work tomorrow - bah!
Once Paul finally crawled out of bed (I woke him at 8:40), I made another pot of coffee and we enjoyed coffee with Bailey's Irish Cream while we opened up our stockings.
The cats wanted in on the action. They had some help opening their stockings. Once they had their new catnip toys in paw they were in kitty heaven!
Of course, the drug takes its toll, after awhile Victor and Beckett started to slow down.
After opening our stockings and watching the guys make fools of themselves, it was time to move into the living room to open up presents. Apparently we were very good this year because we got wonderful gifts!
This will be known as the 'year of Riedel'; we received a decanter, a set of Champagne glasses, and three sets of wine glasses. I will now need to clear out the old, chipped wine glasses I bought at Ikea eons ago to make room for these amazing new ones.
I also received cologne, books, three cooking classes at the LCBO, cook books, a gift certificate for Linens and Things, a T-shirt, a woolly fleece shirt, a great Christmas tie, Christmas candle holders (with candles), ornaments, a bottle of champagne, five bottles of wine, a guided wine tour, a hand-held Kitchen Aid mixer, three beautiful pieces of pottery, lots of gourmet sauces, dips, and cooking ingredients (I can't wait to try the porcini and truffle oil my sister sent!), enough candy and treats to cause an instant diabetic coma, the cutest Bristol Farms bear, a party planning pad, and some great wine and food trivia games! I don't know what I did last year to deserve such goodies but on January 1 I officially resolve to do it all again!
In fairness, some of the gifts listed above were to both of us, however MY rule is if I'm the one who tears open the package it is mine, darn it! LOL
Paul and his pile of treats
Half of my gifts (they wouldn't fit in one picture) :-)
Palma sent this wonderful Italian flag ornament to 'commemorate' our upcoming trip to Italy in the spring. It will be a BLAST!
Victor and Beckett reminded me that we need not spent money on expensive cat toys. A box with tissue and any old piece of ribbon will do just fine, thank you very much.
We were getting hungry after having spent a few hours unwrapping and playing with our gifts. We generally have a large brunch and then don't eat again until dinner later in the day. Paul had asked for eggs Benedict and a hash brown casserole. Good plan, I thought.
I decided to make a recipe that I had seen in the Williams Sonoma breakfast cookbook, marked 'for future eating', but never actually got around to making. Instead of resting on the normal English muffin, these eggs Benedict are sitting on a savoury waffle made with Gruyere cheese, chives, and mashed potatoes. WOW They were amazing!!!! Breakfast was rounded out with cut up fruit and mimosas (which went right to my head! LOL).
I was tidying up after breakfast while Paul was sitting in the family room flipping through a magazine. I had a wee 'mimosa induced moment' and barked 'we don't have time to lounge around you know!' From then on we were busy, but not crazy, cleaning up, cooking, wrapping more gifts, showering, and getting everything ready for dinner with mom, Doreen, and Ed.
We set the table early so that we could concentrate on cooking. Of course, some of the napkins we wanted to use were dirty from our dinner with Elise so we had laundry to do! We have lots of other napkins we could have used but Paul insisted on the Santa ones. Who was I to complain because he does all of the laundry - if he wanted to clean the santa napins so be it.
We prepared most of the food in advance so that we had little to do when our guests arrived.
By 3:30 it was all done. The roasts (we did two, because Doreen and Ed like their meat very well done, while mom, Paul, and I like it rare) were prepped and in the fridge, all of the veggies were cooked, and all of the nibblies were arranged on platters. All we had to do was breathe in and out a few times before our guests arrived.
We had made arrangements for mom to come early, she is notoriously slow at unwrapping gifts and thought that if she had an extra hour we might just finish in time for dinner. Of course, true to form, she was 45 minutes late! Once she finally arrived we enjoyed a chocolate mint martini (I know, I know. It was a cocktail NOT a martini) which we served in martini glasses which had been rimmed in melted chocolate and them dipped in crushed candy cane.
Here she is opening a native painting of a blue jay we had bought her back in 2001. It got stuck in the 'gift closet' and I had not got around to framing it until last year, she finally received it this year. The 'gift closet' is a bit of a black hole at times! *smile*
When Doreen and Ed arrived we moved into the living room to nibble on sausage rolls, cheese and veggies, open the gifts that mom and they had brought, and to open stockings.
We either need fewer nibblies or a bigger table. I vote for a bigger table. Remember, everyone puts on 10 pounds over Christmas, just go with it!
Once we had opened up our gifts it was time for dinner. The first course was lobster ravioli which I served with a very simple scampi sauce. Just before serving we sprinkled on some diced roma tomato and Italian parsley for colour. In keeping with the Italian tradition, there was no cheese served on this ravioli (No self-respecting Italian would ever serve cheese on fish!)
Next up was the main event. We served a thick slice of pancetta wrapped beef tenderloin on an individual yukon gold potato and gruyere galette. The beef was drizzled with a port-balsamic reduction. On the side were honey-thyme roasted carrots and parsnips, and the amazing chippoline onions with apricots and chestnuts that Palma made for the Palm Desert GTG back in October. Mom even had to admit that although it wasn't turkey (traditions RULE our family), it was still 'all right'.
I don't have a pic of dessert. We served a cranberry pudding that we had purchased at the One-of-a-Kind Show. They are made by a company from BC and we have had one every year for the past 8 years. Happily the pudding is low-fat . . . because apparently we really care about low-fat on Christmas Day! (There, I said it, I know that you were thinking it! LOL) We had an assortment of cookies that we had made, some of the Christmas cake, and mincemeat tarts. Paul and I both had a sip of our ice wine - YUM!
Once everyone had left there was very little clean up to do. We try to wash as many dishes as possible as we go along and had run the dishwasher while everyone was eating their main course. We just had to empty out the first load of clean dishes, put them away, and fill it up again.
It was a nice, quiet close to the busy day. Paul and I sat in the family room with the cats, sipping one last glass of wine (a 2001 Viansa Cab Sauvignon that we had bought during our trip to Sonoma with mom and Rose a few years ago - it had aged nicely), enjoying the fire place, flipping through books and magazines. I briefly contemplated heading across the border to do some Boxing Day shopping but the look I got from Paul said, 'NO'. We will spend a quiet December 26th at home.
Whew!
