Christmas Eve is my family’s big celebration. We had beef bourguignon over egg noodles, roasted broccoli, and salad. There was a ton of wine, presents, and 4 crazy kids!
Today we did lunch with a smaller group. I made two muffulettas - one with traditional meats and one veggie (roasted eggplant, zucchini, tomato, and red onion). Several salads, chips, brownies, and an apple cranberry crisp.
Damn, that’s a thing of beauty right there!
Firstly, this is my parents home up in northern Girona on the Cape and it was reformed completely.
Is it typcial ? In this área, are only detached homes. The exterior is sort of “Bahaus” Contemporary.
Barcelona, Madrid Capital are Metropolitan and filled with City apartments predominately historic however, reformed on interiors in upscale neighborhoods. The suburbs have modern apartments, médium and high rise.
The Coast and Capes of northern Costa Brava are known for their “Stone Masas” (Stone), a “Villa” in Italian, & Bahaus contemporary, many of which were palatial lodgings centuries ago and completely reformed and renovated for modern living.
The Pork: Yes, the meat is Boneless Pork tenderloin. prepared with:
Vin Santo - a sweet Tuscan Dessert wine
dried fennel seeds
peppercorns (black and White)
celery
carrot
red onion
Evoo - Italian
salt to taste
red wine vinegar
butter 82% butterfat from France
bay leaves, sprigs of Rosemary, springs of sage, beef broth from home made beef stock, and fresh thyme herb.
@Mr_Happy - a picture is indeed worth a thousand words! In this case, your post has 11,000, all of them superlatives. Your entire meal looks beyond incredible! The fat cap on the prime rib is a thing of beauty, the roast itself, cooked to perfection, and I’m sure as delicious as it looks! You have a lucky family!
Ooohhh, muffulettas. Festive and unfussy way to feed a bunch of guests.
Way too easy for me to get overwhelmed with prep at the holidays so I love this idea.
I’ve only eaten this once. That was at the Napolean House in New Orleans - one of several places which seem to lay claim to being “authentic” (your call as to what that might actually mean). I liked - and wrote about it here - [New Orleans] Napolean House
LOVE muffulettas too. Had a great one at the NOLA airport believe it or not. Took 1/2 of it on the plane. May have been a bit aromatic for flight, but pretty sure most of the passengers were thoroughly anointed with the amazing food from the area, by that time.
Thanks!
Been doing Muffulettas for many years…so much so my 36 year old daughter thought it was a NYC thing…
Corrected her last year… so she said then…it is our sandwich!! (especially on a school night!)
Thanks…thoughts of this warms my heart!
We did the same thing the last time we were there (pre-9/11 security). We bought ours at the Central Grocery. The other passengers were very jealous!
Will have to try making some soon - never have yet.
Nothing traditional here, since the 2 of us were celebrating quietly this year.
CHRISTMAS EVE (strictly speaking, a Christmas Day breakfast)
Thin slice of haddock, tuna tartare (soy sauce, chive, wasabi, sesame oil, black sesame, red beet syrup) , potato puree (with mixed haddock)
Roasted duck breast with ginger and wine syrup, hazelnuts, parsley coulis and carrot
The wine, ginger and poultry stock reduction was very strong and bitter ginger taste on its own, but surprisingly coated on the duck, it was very palpable on the cooked duck. We were less hot with the parsley puree, extremely overwhelming in taste. (I guess one should put less, just a touch, haha)
Baba au rum, chantilly, orange and grapefruit with vanilla ice-cream
Savarin cake was imbibed with orange zest, canne sugar water and rhum agricole. First name we found the cake a bit dried. Next day, it was much more moist. I was playing a bit with the ice-cream making I used David Lebovitz’s recipe.
CHRISTMAS DINNER (We skipped lunch, not even hungry.)
Roasted scallops, carrot, clementine, tonka and wasabi, carrot puree
This was the most complicated recipe, at least 3 sauce reduction, and other preparation, but it was delicious. Creamy sauce was made with scallop corals, shallot, white wine, tonka and wasabi. The condiment of scallop consisted of cooked carrot (chicken broth), endive, crispy bread, clementine and lime zest, zeros and balsamic vinegar, clementine juice + white wine reduction and Espelette pepper.
Grilled clementines and oranges, clams and cockles
Pretty straight forward, it was good, especially the coques!
Bresse capon with lemon butter and rosemary, celery
Skin was crispy, meat was moist but firm, which is the biggest difference with a chicken
Cleaning a bird was tough!! Never did this before! This animal came with a furry head, greyish blue feet and organs! Watched numerous You Tube tutorials, and needed Mr n’s help to completely empty the bird! Butter with lemon zest was introduced under the chicken skin the night before.
Raspberry and grapefruit buche ice-cream, from Picard
Lessons learned :
Need more room in the fridge. It was a juggling game to pile up all the glass jars and storage containers in a fridge that was already full of ingredient. A nightmare to take things out each time. Should tidy up the fridge before big cooking.
Should make sure that the accessories of the rarely used robots were all there before cooking.
Better organisation in terms of procedures and preparation.
Read the recipe and think before doing the actual cooking. All of the recipes I used were first timers.
Be less ambitious.
Haha, but was fun anyway!
We had a few nibbles on the table, with my kransekake as the centerpiece. Every tastebud was satisfied.
Delicious! May I ask what is it?
Those are kind of a mini quiche, made with bisquick mix. It’s kind of the “impossible pie” recipe" from bisquick. I put bacon and swiss cheese in mini muffin tins, then cover them with the bisquick mix, which is a loose batter. Then bake them. The kids love them, and I can make them ahead of time and freeze them. Then I just rewarm them in the oven when serving.
Le goût de l´exception.
Joyeux Noel. Bonne Fêtes.
What a beautiful display of treats.
I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had time to update on the fish dinner this year. A few pics below. We switched up the order to mixed response from the crowd so TBD on that. We have hired someone to help wash dishes for the past two years. This year we couldn’t the same firm we have used for this and several other functions. The holiday rates are about double normal. My in laws got a very cranky email stating that the 20% tip was not sufficient and typical tips for holidays are 50%! 
