Home Made Christmas

Christmas in my family has always been something of a big deal. Even with us kids in our mid to late (ahem) twenties, we still all gather around the tree in our pajamas on Christmas morn to share gifts and empty our stockings. The warmth of my parent's home welcomes us as we travel in from different ends of the state to share the season with each other.

On Christmas Day, extended family and friends arrive to partake in a feast with their own dishes to add to the table. Recently, my dad and I have decided to get a little crafty with the menu, and the meals have turned out, if I do say so myself, simply amazing. And the best part? Nothing came from a box or a can.

In a repeat performance of last year's Christmas dinner, we served a Bourbon and Molasses glazed ham. This glaze alone is enough to get mouths watering, but caramelized onto the ham is just short of heaven. The glaze would be good drizzled over an old Birkenstock, that's just how delicious it is.



Oh, yeah, that ham was good. Not wanting to complicate things too much, the next dish was a menagerie of vegetables, tossed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, seasoned with salt and pepper, and roasted in the oven until the veggies were soft and the balsamic had caramelized. It is such a simple recipe that produces an outstanding result. We combined zucchini, acorn squash, carrots, pearl onions, bell pepper, asparagus, and even a couple of hot peppers into a giant orange bowl and got to work. For anyone wanting to give this a shot for their next dinner party, I advise you to eliminate the hot peppers from the recipe. They permeate the entire dish, and give it unnecessary heat. Unless you're into that sort of thing.



While the veggies were in the oven, my dear sweet mum and sister were busy preparing another holiday favorite: Deviled Eggs. Bless her heart, but this is the only thing my sister knows how to cook. Using our grandmother's secret recipe, she and my mother boiled, shelled, halved, mixed, and filled the eggs that would soon quickly disappear from the egg plate.



And once the egg-prep station had moved off the table, it was time to make the dough for my Angel Biscuits. If you remember, I made these for Thanksgiving dinner as well, and they were a big hit.



Three batches of biscuits were reduced to a half dozen by the time dinner was over. Served with freshly home made pomegranate jam, these light, airy biscuits were perfect with the rest of the meal. And who doesn't want to load up on carbs on Christmas?



This Christmas dinner was fantastic. The best part truly was spending the day in the kitchen with my wife, sister, mom and dad while we put this feast together. The food was amazing, but the company made it perfect. I hope everyone was able to spend this Christmas and holiday season enjoying delicious food with the people that you love. I wish you all a very, very happy new year. Enjoy!



Pictured are me, my lil' sister, and my dad. My mother is off somewhere fussing about the dinnerware. Mrs. Rosewater is behind the camera, as always.

Thanksgiving Day

I've been away for a while, taking a short respite from blogging to work on some other writing projects. It is also nice to occasionally enjoy cooking and eating without having to document every moment of it. I am sorry if any of you missed me.



But today, also known as "Black Friday", is all about Thanksgiving Day, quite possibly the biggest food day of the year. (At least in the number of calories consumed.) This year, Mrs. Rosewater and I hit the road and traveled to Eureka to visit her side of the family for a Thanksgiving Day feast. With the family gathered at Grandma's house, a team of us converged on the spacious kitchen to prepare the carb-charged delights that are a staple of Thanksgiving.



Each of us grabbed a station, slicing and dicing and mixing, sauteing and baking the enormous volume of foods that will certainly last into the new year. My hope was to make as many dishes as possible from scratch, and minus the roast and the dressing, we succeeded. Oh, did I forget to mention that tryptophan was not on the menu? Yes, we opted to stay away from the cumbersome and difficult bird of the season and went with a smaller, and easier to cook, roast from Harris Ranch. A few words about Harris Ranch: Harris is the large plot of foul-smelling land stocked wall to wall with cattle and their mountains of cow-pies situated on Interstate 5 about an hour south of Fresno. If you have ever driven past it, you know what I am talking about. I typically avoid products from Harris Ranch, as their cattle rearing practices are dubious at best. However, this not being my kitchen, it was not my place to put my politics in front of family.



The Dressing, (Stuffing not cooked within the cavity of a large bird) started with the basic Stove Top stuffing mix, was mixed with sauteed chicken apple sausage, onion, apple, water chestnuts, celery, carrot, ground turkey and chicken stock. We peeled, sliced, boiled and mashed some organic Yukon Gold potatoes, mixed of course with butter and buttermilk. Yeah, super-healthy.

I brought my recipe for garlic & almond green beans to share with everyone, along with a fantastic recipe I found for Angel Biscuits. These biscuits, a favorite in the South, were light and airy and went perfectly with the rest of the meal. They are incredibly easy, making a very strong argument against buying the dry, tasteless pre-made tubes of frozen biscuits.





It was a great evening of food and family. We all had fun working in the kitchen together, creating a fantastic meal for everyone to enjoy. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with whatever delights you prepared and whoever you spent it with. Right now, left over dressing and biscuits are calling my name. Enjoy!