Either way, it was a really nice
day, made all the nicer by waking up to snow on the ground. It’s a good thing I
finished the wood pile, because once the snow starts covering the ground,
things start to freeze into one solid mass. Mom started things off by making
pancakes for breakfast, and then we basically lounged around, opened presents,
and ate. We pace the opening of presents in order to make a day of it, but it also
forces the kids to think about each gift and hopefully appreciate it more,
rather than just tearing through the boxes in order to get to the next one.
That I find disturbing.
We had a few glitches, of course,
on our path to Christmas enlightenment. We were out of certain food items, but
once again, BGs came to the rescue. They were open for a few hours on Christmas
Day. Then I got stupidly ambitious and tried to make whole grain cinnamon rolls
for Christmas breakfast, but they took way too long, and we ran out of cinnamon
after BGs had closed. R needed it for her pumpkin pie, as well, so she took
cinnamon sticks and ground them up with her seed grinder into powder. How cool
is that?
At some point in the afternoon we
needed to get out, so we went for a nice afternoon walk, which around this time
of year means walking in the dark because the days are so short. We wanted to
see the UU Church tree, but when we got there, the thing wasn’t lit. Why, I
have no idea, but it was a little disappointing. Then for our big Christmas
supper, we ran into another bump. A request was made for mashed turnips and
carrots, but it seemed to take forever to cook the stupid tubers. I boiled them
for what must have been 40 minutes, but they were still hard. We ended up eating
them undercooked because it was getting late and we were hungry. Kind of a
bummer. I also screwed up the meat by marinating it in the wrong stuff, but
more on this later.
On a bright note, however, other
things went very well. We cooked a London Broil, which I’d never done before.
I’ve eaten it in the past and was never impressed, it struck me as tough and
tasteless. After doing some research, I learned that this is because it’s a
cheap piece of meat, even though it sure sounds gourmet. I found the trick is
to cut it as thin as possible, then serve it with gravy. It’s the Arby’s
approach. As I mentioned, I marinated the thing in a teriyaki like marinade,
which was so stupid when you think about it. Teriyaki and gravy don’t go
together, but I was foolishly led to believe that the marinade would tenderize
the meat, which it did not. The reality is, if you’re cooking London Broil,
it’s just going to be tough. There are no miracle cures for that. Fortunately
the marinade was not overwhelming, so it was fine and the most importantly, the
kids loved it. Next time I’ll just rub it with salt. One bright note about LB
is that it sure is cheap. I’m curious to see if it works better with a nicer
cut of meat.
Another good moment during our
supper was the Yorkshire Pudding. I’m always getting requests from the kids to
make YP, and what’s not to love? Flour, salt, butter and eggs. In the past, I
would make it in a 9X9 baking dish. This is usually fine, but after doing the
usual exhaustive research, I began to notice that pics often show these small,
individual YPs on each plate. Kind of cool. I finally found a recipe that says
to use a cupcake pan, and that’s what we did. The YPs came out beautiful, and
they tasted great. Live and learn, right?
The kids loved the meal, and it
was nice to be home by the wood stove, eating a family meal together. That’s
what the holidays are all about, right?
Now we just have to get to the new
year, and we can get on with our lives. Until then, hope everyone had a nice
Christmas, and thanks for reading, and thanks to Bahman Farzad and 3liz4 for the pics.
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