Christmas Season 2023/2024 - 3rd Day of Christmas: A Charlie Brown Christmas

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

The third day of Christmas.

After my cigar I came inside and made an Old Fashioned. We had left over beef bourguignon for dinner.

        

And pumpkin pie for dessert. 

We watched A Charlie Brown Christmas.

This special is one of my favorites. Dale mentioned that it was his favorite as a kid. I appreciate it for two very specific reasons both of which are things other children's holiday programs won't often touch. One, it acknowledges the angst which can often accompany Christmas. Two, it acknowledges the religious aspect of the holiday. 

Christmas Season 2023/2024 - 1st Day of Christmas: Christmas Day Dinner

Monday, December 25, 2023

We had Mom and Warren over for dinner this afternoon. We had the beef bourguignon that Dale and I made a couple days ago. Dale also made some buttered peas as a side. Afterward we had some dessert which Warren brought over and then watched Ted Lasso. 

Holiday Season 2023 - 2 Days to Go

 Saturday, December 23, 2023

Countdown to Christmas - 2 Days

Dale started the preparations for the beef bourguignon and I helped.

Sylvester was banished from the kitchen as he kept jumping up on the counter trying to get into stuff.

While I was out with Noel, Dale let it bake and eventually added the mushrooms. Next it'll go into the fridge for a couple days where it'll marinate in its own juices until Christmas.

Tonight we watched Shop Around the Corner on TCM. So charming and romantic.

Christmastide 2020: Christmas Day - The First Day of Christmas: Getting Dinner Ready

Friday, December 25, 2020

Made a Bloody Mary.

Got the balls on the tree. Decided to go simple and not ornament-pack it this year. It's a lot easier. 

Played sous chef to Dale and helped get the beef bourguingnon going. 

And listened to some Ella. 

Christmas Eve 2020 - Simple Dinner

Thursday, December 24, 2020

Simple dinner of chili tonight. We watched the most recent episode of Star Trek: Discovery. We're not entertaining tonight so we decided to make it extra easy. The hard work comes tomorrow when we'll be up early to prepare the beef bourguignon. Mom'll be coming for dinner! None of the three of us have interacted closely with anyone outside our immediate households for a while so it should be quite safe. 

Christmas Day 2017 - Beef

Monday, December 25, 2017

Dale decided he wanted to make Julia Child's beef bourginon recipe for Christmas dinner. I helped and was more involved in the production I think since the first time we made it years ago.

To start, my job was to slice the onion.

Dale got the meat dried off with paper towels.

I also took care of getting the carrots sliced. The recipe calls for one carrot. We had baby carrots so I used about 7 of them and sliced them into quarter rounds.

Dale got the stove set up.

I cut six (they're doubled up in the photo) good sized slices of bacon into thirds.

Dale had the brilliant idea of each of us frying the  bacon off at the same time. I used the skillet and he used the casserole. 

Then we did the same thing with the meat, searing it on all sides. I'm surprised one of us hadn't thought of this before since it made it go twice as fast.

We then fried the vegetables and then added the bacon and the beef and put it in the oven for about 4 minutes, took it out and tossed it, and then put it back in for 4 more minutes.

When it came back out we added garlic,

thyme,

the wine,

chicken stock,

and about a tablespoon+ of tomato paste,

brought it to a simmer and then put it in the oven for about 2 and a 1/2 hours.

As it got closer to the time to take it out, Dale fried off the mushrooms.

When it came out of the oven,

we drained off the broth,

put what was left back in the casserole,

and added the fried-off mushrooms to the casserole.

Dale needed to boil down the approximately 3 and a 1/2 cups of broth we had down to 2 and a 1/2 cups. He said it probably started out as 5 and a 1/2 cups when we put  the whole casserole in the oven and reduced to  the 3 and a 1/2 we had when we took it out.

After the broth was reduced, Dale skimmed off the fat although there wasn't much since the beef was pretty lean to begin with. We added the broth back to the casserole and waited for it to rest a bit. The smell was insanely divine.

Mom came over for Christmas dinner. She got here at 3:00 p.m. and watched The Bishop's Wife serving appetizers of smoked gouda, pears, and crackers.

We ate at 5 p.m. with the beef served over egg noodles. Dale made oven roasted brussels sprouts. Pumpkin pie for dessert.