Christmas Dinner

Every family that celebrates this holiday has traditions and expectations for Christmas Dinner. My young family is just starting to make our own. This year was the first that we stayed home for the entire day and I had free reign for dinner. The diners would be my family plus Mema and Papa. When pondering the plethora of options for this task, I decided to bring some traditions from my childhood holidays and then craft the menu with practical sense in mind. Having a toddler and infant can mean for an unpredictable day, especially when excitement and presents are involved. Therefore, I did not want anything labor intensive (unless it could be done ahead of time) or temperature sensitive (so that timing could be fudged around). Here is what I came up with:

Appetizers
Crudite platter
Cheese and crackers

Main meal
Baked Ham
Orzo salad
Dinner rolls
Cottage cheese salad

Dessert
Chocolate mousse with fresh whipped cream

The apps don't need much introduction. Some store-bought (but fancy and fresh, not some ranch in a tub) dip and veggies are a no-brainer and add something healthy to boot. Cheese and crackers are easy, yummy, and always a big hit with my toddler.

For the main meal, I thought of ham for two reasons. 1) Erik went crazy for it when Papa made it for a family holiday party a couple weeks ago so I wanted to give him an encore 2) Ham is fully cooked when bought and takes no fuss to be table-ready PLUS it doesn't need to be piping hot to enjoy- in fact it may be better room temp.
I bought a butt-end portion that was NOT spiral sliced- all those cuts lead to drying if you heat the ham slowly in the oven. And really, how hard is it to slice some ham? Then I pondered options for boosting the flavor of my ham. I read some recipes for glazes, rubs, and even one involving Dr. Pepper by Alton Brown (which Erik REALLY wants me to try some day, but I can't stand that soda). In the end, I went on my own and made a glaze with some maple syrup and molasses. I scored the ham in a criss cross pattern and after rubbing that all over the ham, I added some brown sugar and put whole cloves in each intersection of my scoring. I put it in a 275 degree oven for an hour, then boosted it to 325 for another hour or so. Again, the meat is fully cooked, so really you just want to heat it through and get your additional elements doing what you want from them. (And if you use cloves- make sure to take them out before serving!)

The orzo salad idea came from my summer time discovery of a tomato/spinach/feta orzo salad that was a big hit. Sadly, Mema does not like feta, so I needed to change that out for something else. Then I thought of a tomato/basil/mozzarella salad and how great that would be with orzo- even includes Christmas colors as the other one did. I bought small balls of fresh mozzarella and sliced them. I used some tomatoes on the vine from my nice produce store that smelled nearly as good as Summer tomatoes and seeded and chopped them. Add some basil, olive oil, salt, pepper and a little fresh squeezed lemon juice and it was a delicious salad that was good at room temperature.

Cottage Cheese Salad
How is it I've written so many entries and haven't yet done cottage cheese salad? What the heck is cottage cheese salad? You're asking. Well. Let me tell you. This is a creation from Papa's mother (I believe- correct me if I'm wrong, Papa) and it is very simple. It's a tub of cottage cheese (I use lowfat because whole fat just scares me since you end up adding more fat to it, but please, not nonfat- the texture just isn't the same) with a couple tablespoons of mayonnaise, a handful of finely chopped celery, salt, pepper and a maybe a teaspoon of dried minced onion (the kind in the spice jar). It may sound strange, but it is GOOD! One of my favorite sides of all time, and ever present at all our family holidays.

Chocolate Mousse
Papa is the King of chocolate mousse. Seriously, ask anyone who has had his. I thought it was about time that I learn this craft. My friend Liza gave me these espresso dark chocolate chunks for baking when she visited and immediately I thought they would make a terrific mousse. I looked in my cookbooks and online for recipes until I found one by Tyler Florence that sounded good. If you search foodnetwork.com for his name and mousse it will come up. It was then that I realized chocolate mousse involves eating raw eggs. I'm pretty ok with raw egg whites because I make meringes and foams with them all the time, but raw egg yolk? This was a stretch for me. But really, there is no way to heat the yolk to the 160 degrees it needs to be considered cooked. Chocolate melts a little over 100, and much beyond that, will cease. The ickiness factor that had me worried was long forgotten when I tasted my creation :) It was nearly perfect. It was nearly, as good as Papa's. Although slightly hard to compare directly, simply because mine was espresso flavored with some Kahlua whereas he usually does some Grand Marnier if I'm not mistaken (again correct me!) so the flavor profiles are different- but I think I got the texture nearly dead on. A good mousse is perfectly smooth and light, but rich. It's heavenly. Especially topped with some fresh whipped cream (of course!).

Merry Christmas to all! I hope your tables were filled with joy.