Tuesday, December 27, 2011

holiday entertaining debrief

The Christmas Eve meal was a success! We even made enough food to have a leftover meal last night in our  post-Christmas exhaustion!

I chose a featured meal from the Martha Stewart show.  She demonstrated the roast pork with prunes and brown ale on her show last month. On her web site she had recommended side dishes and desserts to go along. We chose the brussel sprouts with gouda cheese. I made a traditional holiday scalloped potatoes as well.

We started with a simple green salad with cranberries and pine  nuts. Then we served the pork and  Brussell sprouts with scalloped potatoes. Finally, we served some chocolate covered pomegranate with mint brownies and fluffy cookies made with egg whites.

It was a perfect combination of traditional recipes along with new adventure for extra spice.

Here's to next year and the joy of creative cooking.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Merry Christmas!

I'm packing my supplies to make scalloped potatoes while I'm visiting some family up north. I was assigned Christmas Eve meal as my holiday project.

I confess scalloped potatoes are my weakness around  the holidays.  The warm butter mixed with flour moistens the potatoes so that they melt in your mouth. Such a holiday treat I cannot pass up.

This actually ties into a project I did in graduate school  with the Maillard Reaction. This is the reaction that is the basis of flavoring buttery flavored foods in the food industry. It occurs between a carbonyl and an amino group in a basic environment.