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Dec. 27th, 2005 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petermarcusMan, with the holidays and work and life stuff, haven't updated in a while. Thought I'd update on the Christmas dinner, though. It's a tradition of mine to do a themed 4-course meal for Christmas dinner. This year it was 10 adults and 3 kids (the kids, as usual, basically just ate dessert, then noshed on Mac&Cheese). Unfortunately, I don't think there were any pictures of the dishes themselves this year. There are some prep-pictures as I cooked, but (and I consider this a compliment) everyone was eating the meals and not taking pics.
Theme:
Halloween Christmas (based loosely on Burton)
Appetizer:
Apple Cider Cheese Fondue. Cider mixed with white wine, mozzarella, and smoked provolone, heated, served with diced cuban bread and granny smith apples.
Salad:
Mexican salad with dual-color tortillas. Homemade corn tortillas with amarillo and cumin (orange color), and unsweetened cocoa powder and chili powder (dark brown), cut into strips, then deep-fried. These provided halloween colors on top of the salad. Also, a homemade dressing of olive oil, orange juice, garlic, wine, and other spices.
Main Course:
Pumpkin-seed crusted mahi-mahi, pan-fried, with key-lime cream sauce over white-wine-chicken-broth risotto. Pumpkin seeds were food-processed into crumbs, and dusted over the fillets along with spices and a bit of flour. Pan-fry both sides of the fish in olive oil to a golden brown, then stick the whole pan in a 400-degree oven for 10 minutes. Sauce was white wine, key lime juice, garlic, and cilantro, reduced then strained clear, with heavy cream added and reduced again.
Dessert:
Orange mini-crepes, filled with chocolate mousse. Again the halloween colors. Crepes made with triple-sec (and a bit of orange color), rolled into a horn-of-plenty shape, filled with homemade chocolate mousse.
---
The homemade tortilla thing was an improv. There are orange and blue-black tortillas, made with colored corn, but I couldn't find any. So, it was either punt the salad, or make the tortillas myself. I picked up some masa and tried my hand. I am convinced tortilla making is an art like knitting -- only old grandmothers are experts at it because they've been doing it nonstop for 50 years. It was a good thing I planned to make the strips and fry them because there wasn't a single round tortilla in the batch, and most looked more like maple-leaves. Fresh tortillas tasted so good, though, that I'm thinking of getting a real tortilla press (instead of a rolling pin and masa-dusted foil) and trying this again.
Theme:
Halloween Christmas (based loosely on Burton)
Appetizer:
Apple Cider Cheese Fondue. Cider mixed with white wine, mozzarella, and smoked provolone, heated, served with diced cuban bread and granny smith apples.
Salad:
Mexican salad with dual-color tortillas. Homemade corn tortillas with amarillo and cumin (orange color), and unsweetened cocoa powder and chili powder (dark brown), cut into strips, then deep-fried. These provided halloween colors on top of the salad. Also, a homemade dressing of olive oil, orange juice, garlic, wine, and other spices.
Main Course:
Pumpkin-seed crusted mahi-mahi, pan-fried, with key-lime cream sauce over white-wine-chicken-broth risotto. Pumpkin seeds were food-processed into crumbs, and dusted over the fillets along with spices and a bit of flour. Pan-fry both sides of the fish in olive oil to a golden brown, then stick the whole pan in a 400-degree oven for 10 minutes. Sauce was white wine, key lime juice, garlic, and cilantro, reduced then strained clear, with heavy cream added and reduced again.
Dessert:
Orange mini-crepes, filled with chocolate mousse. Again the halloween colors. Crepes made with triple-sec (and a bit of orange color), rolled into a horn-of-plenty shape, filled with homemade chocolate mousse.
---
The homemade tortilla thing was an improv. There are orange and blue-black tortillas, made with colored corn, but I couldn't find any. So, it was either punt the salad, or make the tortillas myself. I picked up some masa and tried my hand. I am convinced tortilla making is an art like knitting -- only old grandmothers are experts at it because they've been doing it nonstop for 50 years. It was a good thing I planned to make the strips and fry them because there wasn't a single round tortilla in the batch, and most looked more like maple-leaves. Fresh tortillas tasted so good, though, that I'm thinking of getting a real tortilla press (instead of a rolling pin and masa-dusted foil) and trying this again.
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Date: 2005-12-27 05:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-27 09:44 pm (UTC)During my three-year first marriage, I spent a cumulative total of months, I believe, trying to learn to make my own tortillas and tamales; I never mastered the tortillas. Or the marriage.
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Date: 2005-12-28 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-27 09:51 pm (UTC)I ate a homemade tortilla once at the Museum of Man in San Diego... I helped grind the corn using mortar & pestle and then ate the results as created by a 60 year old woman (hehe!) - most incredible, delicious tortilla EVER! So I'm very jealous of your feast and my mouth especially watered over the tortilla portion, even though it's such a small part ;)
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Date: 2005-12-28 02:16 pm (UTC)