I savored every moment of my annual Christmas lunch with my dad and three sisters. We had several glasses of wine, a great meal and wonderful conversation for more than THREE hours! It's such a lovely time for us to enjoy being together with our dad - to catch up on the year's events - to be dressed up and in such a beautiful and festive atmosphere. Here are a few pictures:
This last picture is Chocolate Bread Pudding with vanilla sauce, my most favorite dessert. Mmmm mmmm!
We woke up on Christmas Eve to find that Lewis, our beloved elf, covered Mimi's car with peppermints. They were all over the windshield, the hood, and the windows. Lewis was in a booster seat in the front seat with his seat belt on. It was a delightfully funny sight. Wouldn't you know that we didn't clean off the car for days and I didn't snap ONE picture!?!!
We had a lovely Christmas Eve celebration - 5:00 church service which finished with a candlelight Silent Night hymn (always brings me to tears - tears of joy - but tears, nonetheless). Then we headed back to Mimi and Papa's for a fun evening full of delicious food, music, and lottery tickets. Mimi and I enjoyed decorating the dining room table this year. We did a sparkly red and silver theme. Champ and I collected pine cones at the farm and spray painted them silver (I bought a can of silver metallic spray paint at Ace Hardware). We then combined them in a crystal bowl with some red sparkly ornaments. We had the table lined with a mirrored table runner, and on top we scattered votives, pine cones and sprigs of fresh greenery. It was beautiful!
As we were setting the table, I hid a lottery ticket underneath everyone's plate, so while none of us were winners, we sure enjoyed the anticipation while we each scratched away on our tickets!
It was a wonderful night with family. Of course, Matt and I were up until about 1:00 AM that night, and the boys were in our room at 6:45 Christmas morning. What a great day it was....
I made a pancetta wrapped pork tenderloin the other night that I've been really excited to share - especially because it would be an awesome dish to serve on New Year's Day!
First I sprayed a Pyrex with Pam and I seasoned two pork tenderloins with salt and pepper. Then I chopped garlic and rosemary (about 3 teaspoons garlic and 3 sprigs of rosemary).
I rubbed this mixture all over both tenderloins and then added three thin pieces of pancetta to each side of the pork. You could tie the pancetta to the pork with kitchen twine but I didn't do that and it turned out just fine.
I set that to the side for a few minutes and began preparing my potatoes. I washed a potato and thinly sliced two potatoes, crosswise - but not all the way through. I wanted the potatoes to stay intact so I sliced them almost but not quite all the way through. I then melted a couple of TBS of butter and mixed that with some garlic and parsley and poured over the potatoes. As you can see below in the second picture, they start to open as they cook and they are just gorgeous when they're finished!
I poured some chicken stock and white wine over the tenderloin and baked it for about half an hour. Look at how gorgeous it is when cooked! (I must have already taken one out to serve because it's missing in this picture).
Even though we just ate this a few days ago, I plan on serving it again on New Year's Day alongside turnip greens, black eyed peas and pickled okra succotash. YUM!
So, click here for the recipe. Thank you, Giada! As you can tell from above, I made a few modifications.
I wish you a safe and happy New Year's Celebration! We'll be doing our annual fondue dinner. We buy Filet Mignon and cook it in peanut oil - I make about 4-5 dipping sauces, a big Caesar salad, crusty french bread and something rich and chocolaty for dessert. This has been our tradition for years!
