Christmas Season 2017/2018 - The Snowman

Thursday, December 28, 2017

I watched The Snowman today which I haven't seen in years. The special dates to 1982 and I believe was made for British television. I remember showing it to the kids at the Catholic school I taught at back in the 90s. They loved it and so did I. It's enchanting. The scene where the snowman takes the boy on a Christmas Eve flight still touches me. I got a bit verklempt while watching it...

The Day After 2017 - Joe and Noel's Post Holiday Shopping Adventure

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Noel and I weren't even sure we were going to attempt our day-after-Christmas-shopping-spree this year based on what things were looking like the day before Christmas Eve (bleak - were weren't seeing much). We decided to give it a go anyway. It helped to set our expectations low because we ended up finding a lot of really cool stuff. I found the reindeer pictured above at Patina and the reindeer pictured below at Bibelot.

I found the bottle brush tree below at a new little shop on Chicago Avenue. The two small reindeer below were found at Bibelot.

The bottle brush trees below with the turquoise and silver balls was obtained at Victory.

Of course, everything was half off!

Oh, and Noel was sweet to give me an angel from her collection! She's much better than I am about passing on Christmas tchotchkes that she's no longer using. I could stand to do a major edit but I've been saying that for years.

The Day After 2017 - Baby It's Cold Outside

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

It's cold outside. Took Athena for a walk this morning. As we got closer to returning to the house I started walking a little faster but Athena broke into a full fledged run. I had to work to keep up with her.

Christmas Day 2017 - The Bishop's Wife

Monday, December 25, 2017

After dinner we watched The Bishop's Wife and ate pumpkin pie. 

Christmas Day 2017 - White Christmas

Monday, December 25, 2017

Dale and I finished watching White Christmas before Mom arrived. We had actually started  it yesterday but nodded off. 

Christmas Day 2017 - Merry Kiltmas

Monday, December 25, 2017

I wore my kilt for Christmas Day dinner,

So nice to spend the day with Mom and Dale.

Mom brought over chocolate covered cherries which were always one of Dad'a favorites.

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.