Maligayang Pasko 2011 - A Delicious Christmas
Hi everyone,
I hope you all had a great Christmas weekend! I was a bad blogger. I didn't take many pictures from Christmas dinner on Sunday night. I neglected to charge my camera(s) and since I was so busy preparing everything, I just didn't get to take any. My bad. It's okay. I had a great dinner nevertheless.
I actually started preparing for Christmas on Friday night. After work, I made my infamous Red Velvet Cookie Whoopies. Part whoopie pie, part cookie. 
My formula is: one scoop per cookie and one scoop of cream cheese frosting goes in between each pair of cookies. It works.
Not the best pictures because I used the cam on my Droid, but they'll do. I used to make these a lot, but I have only made them twice this year. Hopefully I make them more in 2012.
Keat and I spent Christmas Eve-ning with the Kwan Cousins and Chef Cousin Dave made some of his bomb fried spaghetti. TO ORDER. Oui oui. Delicious.
Cousin TAK made up some, what I call "Naughty Hot Chocolates." He gave me a little Bailey's to give me a little more warmth. Delish. We also played a White Elephant gift exchange and we came out with some awesome porcelain mugs!
When we got home that night, which was just a few minutes before midnight, my family and I did our gift exchange.
It was a white Ellen Tracy jacket with gold buttons. I hope she liked it!
This is one of the first pix I took on my new iPad! I was so excited to start using it. I really have the best husband in the world! He says that it help me with my writing. Gosh, he is so supportive of my passion. I love him.After we opened our presents, we knocked out!
I really needed to rest because of all the cooking I was going to do in the afternoon. The menu?
Meal inspired by the House of Prime Rib!
In the morning, Keat made sure to take the rib roast out of the refrigerator. Putting a cold roast in the oven just doesn't make sense. The recipe/procedure I followed is by my friend and fellow blogger Chef John over at Food Wishes. At about 2 o'clock Christmas Day, I started buttering my rib roast. There were about 4 bones in it, so it would feed 8 people - total weight was about 7.5 pounds.
It took about 2 sticks of butter to cover the whole thing, as follows:
Using an offset spatula made it so easy. Just make sure the butter is soft. I added a simple melange of parsley, black pepper, and kosher salt in the butter. Once I started applying the butter, I noticed it firming from the coolness of the meat. In the end, it looked like a weird-looking cake with buttercream spread. I thought it looked gorgeous.
The directions are SUPER easy. Just click the link above. The only thing I would change is probably leaving it out to sit in room temp longer and leaving it longer under the high temp in the oven. My family, turns out, likes their prime rib more on the well side. I also made au jus which really helped with those who wanted their meat more done. I simply swished their cut of prime rib in the jus until the pink went away.
Here is my plate. I have a piece of prime rib sitting in au jus accompanied by mashed potatoes made with heavy cream and topped with bacon, and Pioneer Woman's creamed spinach. It was SOOOOOO easy to make this creamed spinach, it's ridiculous.
There are other things I should have done when making this meal. I should have used an elective knife. My knife, though brand-new, didn't cut it as smoothly as I wanted.
This is Cousin Starr's plate. I put the bacon over the spinach this time. She likes her meat on the rarer side, so if making a prime rib for different people, maybe do it exactly how Chef John suggested and do the "au jus swish" for those who want it well done. Once you overcook it, you can't fix it.
Another thing I WISH I had more time for was making the Yorkshire Pudding. I found some great recipes for it online (was going to use Claire Robinson's) and I had great great pan drippings from the roast. Alas, the guests were arriving and I hadn't showered, so I had to clean myself up and skip the Yorkshire pudding.
ANOTHER thing I WISH i did was take a picture of the House of Prime Rib-inspired salad I made. Chip and Lara got to our house a little later that expected (AHEM haha) and they were bringing the dressings for the salad as well as the horseradish for the meat.
So yes, we did have the salad which consisted of sliced beets, iceberg lettuce, boiled eggs, and the Thousand-Island-ish dressing. I actually mixed the Thousand Island with Bacon ranch. YUM!
I then mixed some sour cream with the grated horseradish. Horseradish is really really potent, so muting that with sour cream worked.
Our dinner table was a smorgasbord of food from Chinese, to American, to Filipino. It was really really really delicious and it was equally awesome to have my family, Keaton's family, and our dear friends there, too.
So what about the day after Christmas? We took some leftover roasted chicken and made sopas - a soup of macaroni, chicken, veggies, and milk - so comforting on that chilly day! I took the chicken skin and broiled that until a little crisp and put them on top. Adds nice crunch and saltiness.
Well, I hope you all had a glorious holiday season. I really am excited for 2012 and all the things in store. I can only thank God for blessing me and giving me a wonderful family and delicious food to eat.
Until next time, loves!
xoxo,
Jo
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