Christmas: Count Your Blessings

 

I spent this Christmas with my parents - something that from time to time has seemed unlikely based on their various health challenges. We had Christmas dinner the evening of the 24th and invited my close friend Dan over for dinner as I hate to see friends spend a holiday by themselves.

I did a fair bit of the preparation and cooking. We had a 15-pound hormone free, free range, organic turkey that had never been frozen (although he was missing a wing - late purchase gets 'scratch and dent' bird I guess). I roasted it between 350 and 325, most of the duration with the lid on the broiling pan, with some added pilsner (two bottles) as lubricant and moisture source. The turkey turned out quite tasty.

With the turkey, we had my mom's signature stuffing: Bread 'chunks', some yellow onions, apple, raisins, a cup of melted butter, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, and poultry spice. At one point, I poured a bit of the turkey juice (beer) onto the mixture to keep it moister so it didn't get really crunchy while being baked at 275.

There was a salad - ontario greenhouse tomatos with some tomato balsamic dressing and some grated parmesan for Dad, tomato chunks with spring greens, tomato balsamic dressing and grated parmesan for the rest of us. Dad's new top plate isn't good for chewing field greens and won't be until he gets the bottom one.

And then there were sweet potatos mashed with some maple syrup, yellow potatos boiled then mashed with some butter and grated parmesan cheese, a steamed broccoli, some white buns warmed in the oven, and a lovely white wine.

The turkey was accompanied by a new discovery - a cranberry sauce made locally with whole cranberries, honey, and a bunch of spices to give it a little 'zing'! Very good stuff, I must say!

Dessert consisted of a sherry triffle with fruit, custard, raspberry jello, and some sherry, a layered dish, with whipped cream on top.

I made some raspberry ice cream for my mother in the Cuisinart ice-cream maker my friends Doug and Cathy got me for my birthday. It turned out well, but the freezer at home turned it rock hard so we settled for the whipped creme.

This was the first time I'd made a turkey. It was the first time I'd made the stuffing. It was the first time I'd made (or even peeled) sweet potatos. And it all came off rather without a hitch.

Dan was excellent company and seemed to enjoy himself, departing at around 9 pm as I was falling into a stupor of 'winter storm/sinus headache' misery that persisted for about 12 hours. Still, it held off starting until after dinner and the dinner was a special occasion for all of us, I hope.

On the 25th, I added some steamed asparagus to the leftovers to make another good feed, and then spent an hour or so carving up turkey to create materials for turkey sandwiches, turkey pot pies, and turkey soup. Another first for me was boiling the carcass and then straining off the liquid to make a turkey soup stock - we got about 7 quarts off of the big bird. I am looking forward to using that cooking, both to make some turkey vegetable soup and to use in place of chicken stock when roasting pork in the slow cooker.

I'm glad the food worked out. I learned a few useful things and convinced my mom she had bought too large of a broiling pan for me - which she hadn't believed - when it turned out to fit in neither her oven nor mine.

The important part was spending some time with my folks and with Dan. Life is about the connections we make with other humans and the way those connections help affix meaning to our few score passages around the sun....

Merry Christmas, I say to one and all. It is the season to find things to be thankful for and be happy about. The New Year can keep its concerns until we get there!