Had the folks over for the former, and open house on the latter.

Menu for Christmas Day was:

brunch - Eggs Norwegian, a variant of Eggs Benedict substituting cured salmon
for the Canadian Bacon and Milanaise for the Hollandaise. (recipe previously
posted)

Dinner -

Seafood lasagne. Home made parsley-garlic-basil lasagne noodles, layered with
lightly seared shrimp and scallops, ricotta, shredded mozzarella, store-bought
marinara sauce lightly tarted up with caramelized shallots and wine braised
mushrooms. Individual layers lightly dusted with fresh medium grind pepper.
Glug of Chiantia after assembly, cooked covered for 45 minutes in a 350 oven,
15 minutes uncovered, and rested 20 minutes on the countertop.

Rib roast, boneless. Nothing special, just done to accomodate my Dad who's not
very adventureous. Quick 5 minutes/side soak in about 1/4 inch of red wine
(Chianti again), patted dry, rubbed with garlic and rolled in Lipton's Onion
Soup dry mix. Medium temp oven, overlapped with the seafood lasagne, to medium
rare. Finished Dad's portion in the microwave because he likes well done.
Tented it came out well done but still juice.

Roast Duck. This was for me and my Mom, with whom I share an inquisitive
palate. Rendered excess fat for basting. Washed, scrubbed and
salted/peppered. Whole head of garlic in the cavity. Finely chopped dried
apples and shallots mixed with butter rubbed under the skin of the breast.
Roasted @ 400, rested for 25 minutes, tented.

Sides were oven roasted, salted and peppered, potato wedges, and steamed
asparagus with the leftover Milanaise sauce.

New Year's Day

Vegetarian chili (beans, chilis, aromatics), approx 8 lbs total.

Regular beef chili (no beans, 10 lbs of freshly ground lean beef cuts)

Finger foods/crudites/chips/dip/cheap plonk.

I lost track of how many folks came to the open house but we were open from 1-8
p.m. I do know we had 8 kids through (all overlapping, oy vey) but I lost
count of the adults around 29-30.

All in all a good slide into 2005.

Best,

Marc

Sounds a wonderful Christmas dinner menu, Marc, Congratulations! The
lasagne sounded very special and one I would like to try one night.
Could probably duplicate from your notes but the end result may be in
reality quite different from yours!! Did the cook 'glug the chianti'
or was the wine poured over the whole assembled dish? Did you make it
in a large lasagne pan?

Cheers

Bronwyn
Qld Oz

Bronwyn wrote:
> Sounds a wonderful Christmas dinner menu, Marc, Congratulations! The
> lasagne sounded very special and one I would like to try one night.
> Could probably duplicate from your notes but the end result may be in
> reality quite different from yours!! Did the cook 'glug the chianti'
> or was the wine poured over the whole assembled dish? Did you make it
> in a large lasagne pan?
>
> Cheers
>
> Bronwyn
> Qld Oz


Hiya Bananalander! (sure hope I remembered right, I last dated an Oz
in 1982)

For some reason AOL isn't picking up responses to my posts so it took a
week or so for me to get to your response via groups.google.

The cook glugged the chianti, but only a bit to make sure it hadn't
gone off. I did pour Chianti, probably about a cup's worth, over the
final assemblage.

Since neither my Dad or my son eats seafood I made a smaller version of
what I'd made in previous years (leftovers out the ying-yang).

Basically a 9x9 (inches, prolly a 25x25 cm, too lazy to do the math but
near 'nough as dammit) glass baking pan. About 5 inches deep. Bottom
of the pan greased with butter (cheap b*stid that I am, I used the
wrapper from a stick of butter), noodles, ricotta, seafood, sauce, then
another layer of noodles, etc.

The noodles were a compromise between what I thought would go well with
the shellfish I used - the ingredients were chosen based on
acceptability - (read wife/mom)rather than what I thought would best
the most interesting. I'd have ditched the basil and substituted chard
with a pinch of tarragon. And I might have tried some ground/chopped
clam in the sauce.

Feel free to experiment with my *cough* recipe. To paraphrase Jack
Sparrow, it's more like a guideline than a code.
Cheers backatchya,

Marc