Pre-Christmas Dinner

Tonight saw a pre-Christmas dinner with my parents and with the Forsythes, my second family in Ottawa. Toni Forsythe brought some lovely Irish Soda Bread (great stuff) and a lovely bottle of Inniskillin Riesling. I already had a bottle of Inniskillin Pinot Grigio open (man, is that ever a nice wine!), so the Riesling will be for the next event.

Appetizers were light this time as everyone had to get moving. I got them started off with a nice drink (some Black Bush, an egg-nog with spiced rum, some of the wine, or a lovely Winter Ale from Great Lakes Brewery that included hints of orange and cinnamon) and then some melba toast with brie (either pepper brie or brie with a cranberry-pine nut compote), warned up to melt the brie slightly in the microwave.

Then I worked on preparing and serving the main course: A 3.75 pound slow cooked pork loin roast, done in a sauce consisting of two cans of whole-cranberry sauce, 1 sliced apple, 1 cup chopped dried apricots, 1 chopped onion, 1/2 cup sugar (and we could have omitted that) and 8 ounces of apricot nectar, plus I think a pinch of salt, garlic, pepper, and a wee bit of crushed red pepper. The recipe called for less, but it was also for a small crock pot and a 2.5 pound roast. It cooked on low in the cooker from 8:00 am until 4:15 pm and then let sit for a few minutes (very important, you should always let meat, even BBQ'd steak, cool for 5-10 mins before cutting as the fat re-disburses and makes the meat much easier to cut and much better tasting) before carving.

We a couple of cups of the warm liquid (and the bits of fruit), put it in a small saucepan with some Knorr Veloutine (non-clumping thickener) and boiled it for a minute or two until it thickened up into an excellent gravy/fruit topping.

That was accompanied by steamed asparagus (steamed with lemon juice in the water and drizzled with more lemon before serving), the aforementioned Irish Soda Bread, some Bombay Chicken Salad from Loeb (pasta, chicken, raisins, maybe some broccoli, a curry-mayo type sauce), and a Caesar salad with extra bacon.

Dessert was another creation of mine: A raisin-date-coconut rum cake. The constituents were 2/3 cup chopped honey dates, 2/3 cup chopped raisins, about 1/3 to 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut shredded, 1 package of yellow cake mix, 1/2 cup canola oil, 1/2 cup coconut rum, 1/2 cup spiced rum, some cinnamon, a wee pinch of salt, and 3 eggs. Into the ring-pan, cook for 43 minutes at 325. The glaze was made of 2 tbsp spiced rum (probably dark would have been good), 2 tbsp pineapple juice, 2 tbsp butter, 2 cups of fine/confectioner's sugar, and I added some coconut. The glaze you beat until it is sort of homogenous, but I think you should probably warm it up too (recipe didn't say to, but it would have decrystalized the sugar).

Made some Irish Breakfast tea to wash it down and everyone left well fed and well stuffed. Some Christmas music was enjoyed, good companions shared their stories and their warm regards, and the cleanup will only be a small scale emergency. :)

A job well done, even when I did forget to peel potatos to roast (discovered too late to address, but we had enough food otherwise).

It is moments like this eveing that remind me why I put up with some of the other moments life throws at me.

Warmth of the season to one and all!