Food, Food, Food

It’s just about 70 degrees here and there’s a lovely breeze floating through the house. I can’t say I like having Spring in Winter, but for one day it’s nice. I’d like some cold temperatures and snow but only if it’s going to stay cold. I hate this up and down stuff. Anyway, a quick rundown of food, food, food and then I have to go because The Niece is coming to spend the night and will be here shortly.

For Christmas Eve I made the black-eyed pea salad. I thought it was awesome and instead of the habanero it called for I used one of our Anaheim chilies because I knew no one at the party would want it to be that spicy. I was pretty disappointed because I don’t think anyone else tried the salad at the better-half’s family gathering. He and I ate some and enjoyed and we took the entire bowl of it home. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised because if you look up white bread in the dictionary that family will be smiling right back at you. Some of them didn’t even know what baklava was.

For Christmas we went to my sister’s for breakfast and she made her breakfast casserole which is a thing of beauty.

For Christmas supper we had the MIL over and we made pork loin with fennel, red skin potatoes and carrots. We also served green beans and rolls. She hardly ate anything and said even less. I hope the new year is better for her because it’s like having a zombie around. The holidays have never been her strong suit but her health and rapid decline is a drag for everyone involved. We’re hoping the deep brain stimulator and the change in meds will do good things next year. The pork loin was tender and tasty. We chopped some of it up last night and made pork fried rice. Also good.

For Boxing Day we had friends over for a meal of appetizers. If we were fancier we’d call it tapas. Here’s the laundry list of what we enjoyed:

Smoked trout pate (entirely homemade down to smoking the trout)
Fried oysters with chipotle mayo
Shrimp scampi
Fried manchego cheese chunks
Fried olives (stuffed with blue cheese and garlic)
Rumaki (bacon wrapped around mushrooms or water chestnuts)
Then we broke out the raclette grill and seared tuna, kielbasa and knockwurst. We also had the raclette cheese, of course, and two types of dried meats, cornichons, potatoes and marinated mushrooms.