Christmas Breakfast 2009

We actually had this meal for lunch.  Without a youngster in the house, our morning was pretty slow.  Add to that the fact that my Mr. doesn't like a heavy breakfast, and this was definitely a meal on the heavy side.

I hope you had a wonderful day and made the meaning of it that matches your own beliefs.  For me, it was a Merry Christmas.  My best gift was getting to skype with my daughter who is out of the country and away from home for the first time over Christmas.

Enjoy!

Sliced mandarins and persimmons
Oven roasted potatoes and red onions
Eggs benedict

Sparkling grapefruit juice/water

These recipes were all from the mind of Juanita.  If you are interested, email me and I'll send them along to you.

St. Patricks' Day Dinner

Corned beef and cabbage
Champ
Tangy Glazed Carrots
Apple Cake Cockaigne
Whiskey whipped cream
Beer/Sparkling Pomegranate Juice

Epicurious.com played a lead role in the meal. The beef brisket was brined in a recipe from southernfood.com, but otherwise the main meal elements were epicurious creations. A traditional Corned Beef and Cabbage was called for, but the thought of a 100% boiled dinner didn’t seem so special to me. I deviated by making a separate carrot dish. For dessert, I thought a cake would be nice. We have had and enjoyed the Apple Cake Cockaigne recipe from the 1975 edition of the Joy of Cooking several times. I ditched it for the French Apple Cake recipe just below it on the page. It looked good and since I had already bought the cream, I offered a whipped cream dollop for each slice.

Cook's notes:

• be careful not to overcook the cabbage. It was tasty but softer than it needed to be (you can tell in the pix);
• if you want pink corned-beef you have to add salt petre or sodium nitrate, which is a color fixative. It tastes the same regardless;
• you can half the recipe for the sauce that the carrots are tossed in;
• the cake is very good on its own and even better with a flavored whipped cream.

My troop and our the relatives who were over for dinner thoroughly enjoyed the meal.

Corned beef and cabbage:
http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/holidays/stpatricks/corned_beef_and_cabbage_recipe/recipes/food/views/Corned-Beef-with-Cabbage-241775
Champ (for the uninitiated, this is a potato dish):
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Champ-241776
Tangy Glazed Carrots:
From the Gooseberry Farm Family Favorites Cookbook
Apple Cake Cockaigne:
From the Joy of Cooking, 1975 edition
Does Whiskey Whipped Cream actually need a recipe? Even I’m not that needy. Anyway, if you do need a recipe for that, let me know and I’ll figure out the proportions for the ingredients (which are whipping cream, powdered sugar, vanilla and whiskey)

Slainte!
Sparkling pomegranate juice for those who don’t imbibe
Beer for everyone else (No, not green)