If you have been following my blog over the last month, you know that I have been focused on Red and Green dishes to amp up the “festiveness” of the holiday season. My dinner menu is coming together. I am starting with a whole bunch of appetizers (more about that in a minute) including Crab Cakes with Cranberry Tartar Sauce, the very decorative Festive Asparagus Wreath with Roasted Tomatoes as one of the side “salads” plus a salad of Green Beans, Goat Cheese and Kalamata Olives, Ricotta and Spinach Chicken Roulades with Orange Tomato Sauce as a main course with Butternut Squash and Yukon Gold Potatoes Gratin made with Jarlsberg and all the heavy cream that was left in the grocery store; and finally, a chocolate fondue with all sorts of sweet and savory dipping things–pretzel rods and marshmallows to name two– and a Sticky Toffee Pudding with Graeters Ice Cream (Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip and Toffee Chocolate Chip.. OH MY!). The good news, blog friends, is that you can buy this ice cream from wherever you are. They deliver it to your door. You must try this handmade ice cream because really. Just really.
This may seem like a lot of food but it is so rare to have all the family home at once. I am going to stuff everyone so they can’t leave the house. And while it may look like a lot of preparation, let me just admit– I mean CONFESS because it is such a serious admission of weakness–that I have relied on Trader Joe’s for two of the hot appetizers (Bacon wrapped Dates Stuffed with Goat Cheese and Mini Greek Spirals with Leeks and Feta Cheese and for the Sticky Toffee Pudding because I mean, how many courses can one cook cook?
And just when I thought this was all in equilibrium and that there was a perfect balance among the courses, I decided to do something just for fun (well, and maybe because I bought a 50 pound marble slab I can’t lift by myself, and maybe because I am taking photography lessons, and maybe because I bought the coolest, fastest new Canon lens and maybe because I am afraid that there won’t be something for everyone) and make a huge (and I mean HUGE) Cheese and Charcuterie platter (slab) with all kinds of things. Dried Apricots. Dried figs. Think cracker sheets that are as thin as paper. Fig Jam. And cheese, cheese and more cheese– Port Salut, Brie with Truffles, Point Reyes Blue, Naked Goat, Goat Brie, and Fromager D’Affinois. And prosciutto, Iberico Salami, Genoa Salami, and Serrano ham. Phew. I mean that is a lot of meat and cheese. I know. But it is the holidays. And when some people say they only do this once a year, at least I mean it.
So this is not the Kale and Brussel Sprout Christmas dinner. I am sorry. But we all eat enough of that all year round. And people only say they like those things because they are so good for you. But as between Brussel Sprouts and Sticky Toffee Pudding with Graeters Salted Caramel Chip Ice Cream, you will NEVER, EVER convince me that any person in their right mind would pick the green things. Don’t even bother…….
I am not making this Cheese and Charcuterie Platter until Christmas Day so I can’t show you the final arrangement yet. But I wanted to give you a heads up for some ideas of what you can put together (that you don’t have to COOK!!!!) to please a crowd and guard against people getting so hungry (or heaven forbid so inebriated) before the dinner even starts! So the photos today and this post are mere preliminaries to the final day of Holiday Cooking, when it all comes together into one organized whole (well, let’s hope for that!). Please come back soon for the final result of all this planning!