Holiday party - a Twelfth Night MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I know most Americans consider the holidays over after New Year’s, but my Mom’s half of the family is Mexican and we’ve always considered January 6th the end of the Christmas.

So it’s not too late to break out the holiday music, kick off our shoes and have a relaxing holiday party. And talk about the yummy food we had during the holidays. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas - tell us about a holiday meal (in fact, tell us about the holiday you celebrated!).

I, of course, will be providing the rosca de reyes, tamales and hot chocolate. (Here’s a pretty good link to tell you about how many Mexicans celebrate Epiphany. And here’s another nice accountof the Epiphany traditions.) I didn’t make a rosca last year, but should pull out my recipe and make one this year, because they’re yummy. I just wish I had candied figs to put on top.

Anyhoo, our Christmas dinner this year was, how shall we say, not quite traditional. We went to my brother’s on Christmas Eve and didn’t really get to thinking about Christmas dinner until around 6 p.m… Guess when all the stores in the greater Cincinnati area closed? We could have made a number of fairly fancy items with what he had in the freezer, but we were lazy and had leftover lasagna rolls (very good - pesto and ricotta and spinach filling, I’ll post the recipe later) instead. We didn’t have a proper holiday dinner till the next day when we ate at my ex-sister-in-law’s and had a yummy pork loin and a bunch of traditional sides.

Our most memorable dinner this season, though, was one we cobbled together the last night my Mom was here: pizza, sushi, chips and guacamole, potstickers, and salad. Not sure why I didn’t break out the hummus that was in the fridge as well. :smiley:

Now I’m hungry.

So, what did you have for dinner during your holidays?

2

EEEk, first?

ETA: Yup–now I guess I oughta read the OP or something… :stuck_out_tongue:

We got unsnowbound just long enough to score a chunk of prime rib and a bottle of booze for xmas dinner–we don’t actually celebrate the holidays but by then we really needed a treat. Then we did a chunk of lamb for New Year’s dinner and that was sooooo good. I used the leftover meat and the bone to make an incredibly good lentil soup–still have a bit of that left over. I love lamb!

3

Second!

We made our first real traditional holiday feast this year for my mother and The Boy’s parents, and I’m horribly proud that it all turned out quite spectacularly.

We started off with some carrot-zucchini latkes as a nod to Hanukkah, which The Boy’s family celebrates. After that came the piece de resistance: a roast goose, which we stuffed with a walnut-apple dressing. We served it with homemade dinner rolls, spinach salad with a pomegranate-blackberry dressing, and sauteed green beans with savory. And since we were pulling out all the stops, we also made almond meringue pavlovas filled with scoops of homemade cranberry-pear sorbet for dessert.

Everyone was most impressed with our mad kitchen skillz. :slight_smile:

(also, I am now craving proper Mexican hot chocolate, but I don’t have any at home and it’s too late to go out to buy some… sigh)

4

Ooooh, that dinner sounds very yummy.

I’m going to improvise Mexican hot chocolate using chocolate chips and cinnamon.

Off to beddie bye.

GT

5

Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffienatin’ here.

I worked Christmas and New Year’s Days so so much for feelin’ like holidays. However, the weekend after Christmas day I visited family. We had chicken pie with all kinds of veggie sides as is traditional in southern cookin’. Dessert was fried apple pies, red velvet cake and coconut cake. NUM!!! New Year’s Day I worked but still did my traditional New Year’s Day dinner for people, just had it at night. The night before I cleaned and cooked collards, along with cookin’ black-eyed peas and makin’ up a meatloaf. After work Monday I baked the meatloaf, made rice, mac & cheese and cornbread and heated up the collards and peas. 'Twas nummy as always.

I attended, as y’all know, an Epiphany (Twelfth Night) party Saturday night. Yeah, yeah, I know today is Epiphany but the party is celebrated the Saturday closest to Epiphany. This bein’ a churchwide celebration, everybody brings a goody to share and whatever one wishes to imbibe. I made cheese straws and we brought along a twelve pack of Amber Bock ale which we shared also cause ol’ y’all know who and me are all unselfish like that. A good time was had by all.

Good OP gt!

Ok, I am in need of more caffiene, brekkies and work purtification.

Happy Epiphany!

Later Y’all!

6

Blurf. And I ain’t even going to work today.

Something I wanna do is have a 12th Night bonfire party. Guests MUST bring an old Christmas tree to be let in to the party. The trees are stacked, then set on fire. The rest of the time is spent standing around the fire eating and drinking assorted beverages.

Mayberry VFD took down the decorations from the light poles yesterday. While putting them away for the year I remembered a joke:

What do you do with an elephant with 3 balls?

Walk him, and pitch to the giraffe.

7

Quick blurf in the middle of the night.

Xmas eve was spent with my family. The traditional Christmas eve food in El Salvador, for my folks at least, is turkey sandwiches on French rolls, piled high with tomatoes, curly lettuce and radish slices, and topped with a spicy (not hot) tomato-based sauce. We had that, only with chicken, and my sisters made 3 or 4 different cakes. Xmas day was spent with my ex-in-laws. They made ham with all the trimmings. Both meals were delicious.

OK, back to sleep. My mom is going for her U.S. citizenship interview later today, and has to leave first thing, so I have to get the Princess dropped off at school and pick her up at the bus stop, so I’m not going to work. Will check in later.

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**Lucky13 **- that is so exciting about your mom! Nothing says welcome to official US citizenship by standing in a government line. But very exciting still. :slight_smile:

**GT **- that dinner sounds wonderful.

**M2 **- no one in my family celebrates Hannukah but my youngest wants to make latkes and knishes, mostly because of the Chowder holiday special (Merry Knishmas) so I am going to try my hand at that soon.

**Swampy **- the party sounds fun. I have to admit I only skimmed your dinner because I figured ours would be close with the traditional Southern cooking and all.

**bob **- what are you going to do when I show up with my artificial tree, huh?

OK, for me Christmas dinner was our traditional. Cooked chicken and dressing with giblet gravy. Our dressing is the spooning kind, not that cake-y stuff y’all make up north. We also had the one-at-every-gathering chicken/cheese/broccoli casserole, hashbrown casserole, spaghetti and cheese, a huge ham (yes, alongside the chicken), bacon wrapped green bean bundles, and lots of other stuff that I am sure I am forgetting.

Since we have 20 people for Xmas eve and we all got tired of throwing gift cards at each other we play dirty santa. I ended up with three reed diffusers and my parents got a quesadilla maker and some other stuff that I forget (every person gets one). We had a lot of fun stealing presents from each other.

Now for the sweet story. After everyone left and it was just my immediate family in the house on Xmas Eve my kids were absolutely nuts to give me their present so we decided to go ahead and open one for all of us. As I have mentioned I am returning to school (starting a week from today) to finish my degree. The kids went to Dollar General and got me school supplies. They got me a tiny stapler, Elmer’s glue, a notebook, pencils (my 7 y/o said to my brother, who took them shopping, “I don’t think they’re going to let her use her pens so she needs these”) and all kinds of stuff that they get at the beginning of the school year. They also got me a huge pink princess pillow. I was so proud!

My parents got me a laptop. I am so excited!!!

PS - this reliving of all the holiday food is not working well with my trying to get back on track eating for health. I am normally a vegan eater and I went off the rails for the holidays and ate every animal that crossed my plate and immediately gained 15 pounds. Blurf indeed.

9

Good morning!

First day back at work for me after almost three weeks off. Boo! Hiss!

I’ve talked at length in previous MMP’s about our holiday meals, but I won’t let that stop me! I love to talk about food!

Christmas dinner was ham, scalloped potatoes, steamed asparagus, and a new dish of corn and zucchini tossed with crisp bacon crumbles and sprinkled with Jack cheese. Desserts included lemon cream cheese pie and a chocolate swirl bundt cake with chocolate glaze.

New Year’s Day we had a huge prime rib, twice baked potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, black eyed peas, and a tossed green salad. I thought I was gonna pop!

This weekend I turned those bones into a yummy stock and made veggie beef soup with it. I had been saving up leftover veggies in the freezer for about a month to add to it, too. It was so good…

Gotta go do my self-evaluation for work. <groan>

10

Blurf. At work, but would much rather be lounging around in bed.

Vundie, I love your idea for a Twelfth Night bonfire. We don’t put up a tree, though… I fell out of the habit years ago (after getting tired of moving a box of Xmas crap around from one place to the next), and The Boy’s family never had one.

Shelli, latkes are probably one of the tastiest foods known to man, but be forewarned that they’re a total pain in the butt to make - the grating will seem endless (though a food processor can make that much easier) and your whole house will smell of oil for several hours after you’re done. Knishes might be a lot less troublesome. We used this recipe for the latkes, BTW.
(Also, your kids are awesome… but clearly, they must have learned that from you)

Lucky, congrats to your mom. Are you guys going to use this as an excuse to throw another party with yummy food? :slight_smile:

11

Holidays now that I’ve moved away from my family are weird to me. It’s just me and Hawkeyeop, and we don’t do anything too exciting. We did bake cookies. At home in IL, holidays were always crazy times for me. I usuallly had to be four different places in one day. So, it was all about the scheduling.

Everything was covered with ice this morning. Of course, I fell on my way to the train 'cause I’m a total klutz. So, now I’m sore and ugh feeling. An ominious start to the day, I think. I shouldn’t have left my bed.

12

Okay… it’s been a discombobulating day so far, but I’ll start out with holiday meals. And yes, I’m hopefully sufficiently caffeinated by now!

Christmas dinner was baked spiral sliced ham, which we still have plenty of! We had baked regular and sweet potatoes with the ham and I can’t remember what other veggie right now. After my turkey disaster (it went bad … purchased a fresh one and left it in the fridge too long), I didn’t get another turkey until after Christmas, but we then had turkey, cornbread stuffing, green bean casserole, etc. We had a prime rib somewhere in there too. LOL For New Year’s day I had pork loin roast as well as black eyed peas.

Today on the way in to work, I lost my little purse that I keep my SmartTrip farecard, money, IDs, debit card, etc. in! It totally freaked me out. I got on my first bus and made it to the station where I transfer to another bus. It wasn’t until I got on the second bus to come to my workplace that I discovered that the purse was missing. A co-worker paid my bus fare but I almost lost it on the ride, I was >< that close to crying. :frowning: I had to call the Metro folks, then I called my credit union to cancel my debit card (WAH!), but I also called my daughter at home and she was going to check out the bus and also stop at the subway station, in the mean time bringing me another SmartTrip fare card so that I could get home this evening.

Well, the upshot is that someone found my purse on the bus, turned it in to the bus driver, who gave it to my daughter, who brought it out to me around 9 this morning! :slight_smile: I am a bit combobulated now. LOL I guess an angel was watching out for me this morning. Whew. :slight_smile:

13

Hello lovely MMPers. I will probably be a bit scarce this month but I am keeping up as best I can. :: kisses ::

14

Another food-based MMP! Yay!

Well, we went to my parents’ place early in the week because we’d already spent T-day with them so had to spend xmas with KT’s parents but by going early, I got to be with my family for my birthday. So we had my birthday dinner out, and it was mostly crab based - Dad and I had an awesome crab pasta with a cream sauce, KT had crab cakes that were totally delicious, and Mom had a seafood sampler plate. I don’t remember exactly what all was on that.

We went “up north” with the in-laws to a resort that they like to go to in the off season. For Christmas Eve it’s a Milwaukee German tradition to have raw ground round on rye bread. It’s called something or other that makes it sound better than raw meat, but I didn’t try it anyway. But apparently it’s THE thing to do for Xmas Eve in southern Wisconsin. (Even if we were in northern Wisconsin.) Then for xmas day MIL didn’t want to try to cook a big meal in the little kitchen in the resort suite so she just made a family recipe for chili. It was ok, but I don’t like beans so not really my favorite meal.

For NYE, KT made crab cakes and I made crusty peasant bread which we dipped in rosemary-garlic-flavored olive oil. Yum! Then on NYD we had a friend over and KT made gumbo. He’s been off work for 2 weeks (work shut down to try to save money ahead of layoffs next week) so he’s been doing a lot of the cooking.

Not for a holiday but just 'cause we felt like it (and I found 2 little filets on sale for $10/lb), I made this recipe for filets with blue cheese and red wine sauce last night. KT made delicious oven fries - the secret is to parboil them a bit first before sticking them in the oven, then they come out nice and fluffy on the inside and crisp on the outside. And I made broccolini. And we had sundaes for dessert. I love being able to make at home what would probably be a $30/person dinner out at a restaurant!

I know the ice thing, mousie. My car slipped all over the road yesterday morning coming home from church. I’m just really lucky that there wasn’t a car in the left lane or I would have been in an accident. Instead I was just a bit shaken up.

Follow-up to last week’s hives: I went to the doc on Friday and she said that hives can be caused by colds, especially sinus infections. So I’m on prednisone and zyrtec for the hives, arithromycin for the sinus infection, sudafed for congestion, tylenol for pain relief and eucerin lotion to keep the skin from drying out. Ugh. But at least the combination immediately improved things and I’m not itchy any more. Yay!

15

Morning all. And happy Twelfth Night to all and sundry.

Our Christmas dinner was a default prime rib, mashed NOTs, spare guts with holidaze sauce and a secret recipe slaw salad that has come down through generations of family on my Dad’s side. Okay, if you must know, it’s angel hair cabbage with onions and lots of salt and pepper. The salt and pepper causes the cabbage to wilt somewhat which you want it to do. The dressing is apple cider vinegar and bacon drippings heated to boiling and poured over the cabbage and onions and then tossed. Yes it sounds like a heart attack but it goes fantastic with a heavy roast meat like beef, lamb, or pork.

Okay, my “new leaf” is seriously in trouble here, as well.

Tupug

16

The other news at our house is that we got two new gerbil sisters over the weekend. Our hamster, Thor, had been getting sicker and sicker for a while and died Friday night. So Saturday, KT gave his cage a good scrubbing and we put in new aspen shavings and went off to the pet store. They had one giant guinea pig that was just fun to look at because it was more rabbit size than guinea pig size, but we don’t have the kind of room that a regular-sized guinea pig would need, let alone Super Guinea Pig.

And we wanted to try gerbils. Neither of us have had them before, and it seemed like a good change from the hamster. They had two pairs of sisters, and we picked the gray and black pair. They are soooooooo cute! So much more active than our former elderly hamster. They spent all afternoon Saturday running around the new cage and rearranging the shavings. They completely dug out the back part of their house so they can go in and out under it as well as through the door and window. And they ran on their wheel a LOT. To the point where either they both try to run on it at once or the gray one pushes the black one out. We’ve seen the gray one actually put her paws on the black one’s back while she’s running, causing her (black one) to flip over out of the wheel. She (gray one) is kind of a bully! But they get along like a couple of siblings and make up after pushing each other around.

They’re totally adorable. But of course I’m at work and I can’t upload pix to photobucket from here. I’ll try to get some posted later today 'cause they’re just too cute.

17

Snrf… I’m just waiting for the coffee to get done then I’m off to get the front end on the van fixededed–hooray! No more wobble-wobble–this is a good thing!

The grandboy is off on a cruise this week and I have serious envy for this. Not only a cruise to the Catalinas and Mexico, mind you, but one which is specifically targeted for kids, and even more specifically targeted to the 10-14 year olds. He is gonna have a blast, and will probably return with a million new girlfriends to make his real girlfriend jealous. Not that he’d do that on purpose, mind you, but he really is unfairly cute and the chicks just dig him…

It snowed an inch or so last night, then it warmed up and rained it all away. There’s a blue-sky break in the clouds to the west but I’m sure it won’t last and it’ll be raining all day. Yuck, she said politely. Stoopit Pratchett is yowling like a banshee wanting to go outside–oops, he just woke Himself up so I expect there will be soakings soon. When he gets like this it’s really all that can be done, soak him good with the spray bottle and let him go groom himself calm. Maybe he needs another kitten to keep him busy–but what in hell would we do with another cat around this place? We’d have to start sleeping in a tent outside 'cuz there’d be NO ROOM!

Oohh, coffee ready–laterz!

18

If LiLi’s around, I’ve been meaning to say that Nat’s looking so big in the pics on your blog! He looks like a toddler now, not a little baby any more! Cute!

19

Howdy, all. Holiday foods? We didn’t do anything too special, but we did have yummy scallops for Christmas dinner, and then we had lobster tails for New Year’s dinner. Papa Tigs is especially good at cooking seafood, obviously. Since he’s diabetic, we didn’t have any sweets, although he did bring me home lots of yummy homemade cookies from the hospital. It got to the point where I was complaining when he came home without any! :smiley:

Yay for your angel, herbs! It’s good to know there are still nice people in this world.

Your bonfire sounds like fun, Bobbio!

Mmmmm, latkes! I adore good latkes. I haven’t made them in far too long; snowbunny’s paternal grandfather used to make latkes to absolutely die for, and he taught me all his secrets. :slight_smile: They’re not difficult, but all that grating is a pain in the rear, you’re right, Muppet. I’ve never used a food processor, and we no longer have one since assorted pieces got misplaced in various moves, but I can imagine it would make a huge difference.

I’m debating whether to actually try to get $$-making work done or just putter around the house today. I guess I should finish the work and then I can putter for the next couple of days, since it looks like we’ll all be twiddling our thumbs until things pick up later this week. I"m sure that within a month, I’ll be complaining about having more work than three people can do, but right now I wish I had that problem.

At least I’ve learned one thing about my lovely nearly-new sexy front-loading washing machine: It had a hand-wash cycle that works perfectly on handknits! Doesn’t felt a thing, apparently! So I have several things I will be trying out on that cycle today; we shall see. I’m still knitting sample hats to match that scarf pattern, but the wool I’m using for the current one is so nice that I’m going to keep this one for myself no matter what and make myself a nice warm cowl go with it, keep me warm while I’m out throwing a Kong.

It was supposed to be sunny here today, at least according to yesterday’s weather forecast. It’s grey and gloomy instead. What happened? I want some sunshine, dammit!

20

Done with court, for now. The case was continued to March 3rd :mad: ; I’m planning to be in Indianner for Da Rugrat’s 21st B-day March 2nd. The shooter is also trying to plea out. For once, I want it to happen instead of going to trial and having the book thrown at them.

Alas, gotta work tomorrow.