Food for the Family

There was nothing traditional about this family Christmas feast.  But I did enjoy it.  I started with a cold app platter for the grandkids to munch on.  And munch they did.

Then we had hot appetizers.  I purchased small crab balls and made my own aioli, but the real hit was from Pillsbury.  Here is a link to their recipe for a pull-apart tree made with crescent rolls and Boursin cheese.  Not sure why I did not take a picture of mine.  It was really good.

The standing rib turned out very good.  I purchased it at Aldi and this was the first time I had ever shopped there.  I will certainly buy meat there in the future.  No pics of this either.

There was one goof with dinner.  Seems that if you put one of those frozen vegetable bags in the microwave upside down, they do not heat up.  Did not realize that was the likely problem until this morning.   We ended up making them on the stovetop.

And I made Yorkshire puddings for the very first time.  They tasted great with the horseradish mushroom sauce for the roast.

The purchased lemon cake was not appealing to me at all, but we still had cookies.  Here is the recipe for what turned out to be a near obsession with Mackenzie.  These are my Dried Cherry and White Chocolate Oatmeal cookies, pictured on the bottom.

Oatmeal, Dried Cherry, & White Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients:

2/3 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

2/3 cup light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour  (you make also use 1 cup flour with 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour)

1  tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

6 ounces dried cherries

2/3 cup white chocolate chips

Directions:

1.  Cream butter and sugar with electric mixer until well-combined.

2.  Add eggs and thoroughly mix.

3.  Add flour, oats, salt and baking soda and mix well but do not beat.

4.  Fold in cherries and chips.

5.  Refrigerate dough for one hour.

If baking immediately, preheat oven to 375 F.  Cookies can also be scooped and frozen for baking at a later date.

Scoop cookies using a tablespoon sized scoop or make balls about 1 1/2 inch diameter in size.  Place on parchment lined cookie sheets, two-inches apart.  Bake for 8-12 minutes.  All ovens vary so check after eight minutes.  You do not want to burn the bottoms.  They should be just barely firm to the touch when done.  Let cool on cookie sheets.

I hope you had an enjoyable day if you too were celebrating friends and family.