Dinner #17: Season's Eatings!

Menu
December 21, 2019

Appetizers
Cranberry Tartlets
Cheesy Pesto Pull-Apart Bread
Herb Roasted Nuts

Course One
Tomato Bisque

Course Two
Kale Winter Salad

Course Three
Butternut Squash Tortellini with Sage Brown Butter

Course Four
Cornish Hens Roasted with Vegetables and Stuffing

Course Five
Gingerbread Cake A La Mode

Beverages
Homemade Apple Cider (spiked or not!)
Christmas Sangria
Cabernet Sauvignon
Sauvignon Blanc

It's my favorite one of the AJRB season guys! And this year, John let me even put up all our holiday decorations earlier than usual because we were going to be traveling a lot, so we (meaning "I") thought to get maximum enjoyment, we should put them up pretty much as soon as we deemed acceptable. Mostly, because it is so much work to put them up, that by the time we take the decorations down, I want to be ready for the apartment to go back to its usual state, and not so much sad to see them go. Being in a new apartment, meant it was both fun and difficult to find new homes for everything this year. 

One of the travels that I alluded to earlier was a trip up to Santa Cruz to see John's mom - while there, one of his mom's friends generously gave us this amazing new dining room table that we drove back down to LA with us. That would be the centerpiece of this AJRB, in my mind, and I think it very much showed. The table was much wider than the one we had before, so we were able to more comfortably seat people, and to include decor on the table and it truly felt like a feast when guests arrived. 

As we always do, we grappled with traditional holiday flavors and dishes - for appetizers, settling on a cheesy pesto pull-apart bread (not surprisingly, a favorite), herb-roasted nuts, and cranberry tarts (which were not inherently sweet - which I liked). For Course One, we did a Tomato Bisque and since we started off on a heavy note, we went with a light Kale Winter Salad for Course Two. 

Course Three is really where John put in all his effort. He decided to make Butternut Squash Tortellini with Sage Brown Butter - and before that AJRB, I had no idea how much more work tortellini would be than ravioli. After all the ravioli we'd done, I had finally gotten a grasp on how difficult that was, but in my mind, tortellini was just shaped ravioli. Man, was I wrong. For each one of our guests to have seven (yes, seven, it was allotted) tortellini, John spent probably at least 5 hours making them. Because there was the making the dough, roasting the butternut squash, making the filling once the squash was roasted, rolling out the dough, stamping out the dough to the correct size, adding the filling, then the folding, then finally the cooking. Yeah, it was a TON of work. 

Course Four was another beauty - the Cornish Game Hes with Vegetables and Stuffing. Of course, we made too many game hens, and ended up having leftovers (which we made this delicious chicken salad that we now make regularly) but this was like, super traditional holiday cooking with a roast bird with a fun spin on it by having the Cornish Game Hens. 

After the hens, we opened the traditional Christmas crackers that had been sitting on the table, taunting some guests, while John and I got tea and coffee ready to be served with Course Five - my Gingerbread Cake (served with or without Candy Cane ice cream). This cake - it was the most decorated cake I've ever done. I made a little gingerbread house just to go on top of it (more on this later), and made royal icing for the first time to decorate it. It was really fun to stretch my skills and I was really really proud with how beautiful it came out. Unfortunately, I wasn't too thrilled with the taste (I think I should have done a more traditional flavored ice cream and that might have helped it a bit too, but my biggest issue was just that the cake was dense, which like - it's a gingerbread cake - I think it was going to be rather dense) but again, so beautiful! 

As promised, John made his annual Apple Cider, which was as heavenly as it was last year, and we'd gotten a bit better at making it so we actually got to have some before with a bit of whisky and that was equally divine. All in all, the holiday AJRB continue to be my favorite annual AJRB for a reason! 

Happy Holidays!

P.S. If you are wondering about that gingerbread house - its fate, after removed from the cake, was that it was a decoration in the house for a few days, until one day, both John and I realized it was missing. We both assumed the other had moved it (why, move just the house and not the plate it was on, I don't know) until finally we asked one another...and realized there was some powdered sugar suspiciously down the sides of the dresser where it stood until we deduced that one Mr. Sirius Olson must have enjoyed consuming it while we had been out or at work one day. Luckily, I had chosen a recipe without nutmeg.