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| Our little Christmas Tree |
On Saturday we hosted our annual holiday party. While this
is a small party in size it still does not diminish
the amount of work one must
put into the preparations, since I do the cooking. None of that catering for use everything is
homemade from the ham to the cookies, except the chips (I have to draw the line
somewhere). This year we made ham soaked
in orange rum (it was one drunken pig) with cloves and dried Valencia orange
peel. I also made Swedish meatballs with
ground beef and pork sausage for the sauce I use the McCormick seasoning
package in conjunction with the scratch recipe it makes for a more flavorful
dish. In addition to the two main dishes we had the
traditional vegetable tray with ranch dip, a summer sausage with cheese tray
which included a goat cheese wrapped in cranberries, pita chips, warm artichoke
dip and cheese puff biscuits. I was surprised at the flavor and texture of the
goat cheese, which was similar to a cheesecake texture and the tanginess, went
well with the cranberries. For deserts
we had snowberries (white chocolate chip & cranberry cookies), traditional
sugar cookies, orange rolls (like cinnamon rolls but with orange) and nut roll.
And of course drinks which I’ll discuss later.
I made most of the stuff the day of, and realized when I actually
get a house I want a double oven, even if I don’t use it that often. I also wished I had an industrial dish washer
that can do dished in 5 minutes, because I did dishes around 5 times that day,
while following the adage,
“clean as you go”.
Three other use full items where the disposable aluminum roaster for the
ham (clean-up is so much easier), the crock pot liners (again clean-up is a
snap), and finally the lowly mechanical mini scoop (it holds a little less than
a tablespoon of water). The little
kitchen hand tool made dishing out cookie dough, biscuit dough and forming
meatballs so much easier, provided a uniform size and sped up the process. I love that thing. Oh and the other thing that made my life
easier is my large wooden kitchen board that I can place over the sink to
increase counter space. I so need a bigger kitchen.  |
| The little scoop |
Now on to the that on thing that can make or break a party sometimes,
the drinks. This year we had several
varieties of Scotch out from the not peaty to the very peaty. We also put out
the special Scotch glasses, called the Glencairn glass, which is supposed to
enhance the flavor of the Scotch. (Watch this video if you’re curious about the
glass.) We also had Prosecco out, chardonnay, gin and elderflower liquor. We actually mixed the elderflower liquor with
the Prosecco (suggested on the liquor) to make a cocktail, then moved on to
mixing the liquor with gin and tonic, both were good combinations. So everyone
was in the holiday spirit so to speak.
Overall the party was a success. People liked the video of the Yule log burning in the fireplace on the TV, it added to the Holiday Spirit. Overall people enjoyed themselves
and I had very few leftovers.
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