Our holiday dinner in pictures (with some recipes)

We enjoyed a quiet, peaceful day, most of it in the kitchen and the dining room...after opening our presents, including Siegfried's:

    He liked it.

My wife's traditional holiday salad (see recipe below):

Waiting for the oven to finish cooking:

Scalloped potatoes and carrots (see recipe below):

Savory dried cranberry sauce (see recipe below):

Slices of Virginia ham from Colonial Williamsburg:

Ace brand multigrain baguette:

Wine left for drinking after cooking (see cranberry sauce recipe):

Holiday flower arrangement (from Costco):

First plate full:

[Lenox "Eternal" china]
Chocolate pecan pie (see recipe below):

Cinnamon rolls from pie dough scraps:

First piece of chocolate pecan pie:

First piece taken of chocolate pecan pie:

First piece eaten of chocolate pecan pie:

[Lenox "Holiday" china]

Recipes

Brussels Sprouts in Mustard-Herb Dressing

1-¼ lbs Brussels sprouts
2 cups cherry tomatoes cut in ½ lengthwise
½ cup thinly sliced green onions
Combine for the dressing:
1 teaspoon prepared mustard
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon dry basil
¼ teaspoon thyme leaves
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ cup red wine vinegar
1 cup salad oil

Cook Brussels sprouts: Trim off stem ends; rinse throughly; slice each in ½ lengthwise. In a 3 or 4-qt. pan, bring a large quantity of lightly salted water to boil. Add Brussels sprouts; when water returns to boiling, reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 7 min. Drain.
Prepare dressing; pour it over warm Brussels sprouts. Cover and chill at least 4 hours or overnight.
Just before serving, add cherry tomatoes and green onions to the Brussels sprouts mixture; stir gently to coat vegetables with dressing. Then, using a slotted spoon, transfer the salad to a serving bowl. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Scalloped Potatoes and Carrots

2 cups thinly sliced white or red potatoes
2 cup thinly sliced carrots
2 tablespoons chipped green onions
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon seasoned salt
¼ teaspoon white pepper
2 tablespoons butter
1-¼ cups milk, scalded

Butter a 1-½-quart casserole. Layer half the potatoes, carrots, onion, flour, salt, pepper and butter in casserole; repeat with remaining ingredients. Pour scalded milk over all. Cover and bake in 350° F. oven for 1 hour. Remove cover about the last 20 minutes of baking.
    Makes 4 servings, approximately 150 calories, 4 grams protein, 9 grams fat, and 14 grams carbohydrate per serving.

Savory Dried Cranberry Sauce

¼ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 cup dry white wine
½ cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
½ cup dried cranberries (available at specialty foods shops)
1/8 teaspoon dried tarragon, crumbled
2 teaspoons minced fresh parsley leaves plus sprigs for garnish

In a small saucepan, whisk together the brown sugar and the cornstarch and add the wine and the broth, whisking until the mixture is smooth. Add the vinegar, the cranberries, the tarragon, and salt to taste and simmer the sauce, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes. Stir in the minced parsley and simmer the sauce for 1 minutes more. Serve the sauce hot, garnished with the parsley sprigs, with pork chops, ham or poultry.

Chocolate Pecan Pie with Brandied Whipped Cream

For the shell: 1 recipe pâte brisée
1-¼ cups all-purpose flour
¾ stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
2 tablespoons cold vegetable shortening
¼ teaspoon salt

For the filling
4 ounces milk chocolate, broken into pieces
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 large eggs
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1-½ teaspoons vanilla
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

For the brandied whipped cream
1 cup well-chilled heavy cream
¼ cup confectioner's sugar
4 tablespoons brandy, or to taste

Make the shell: In a large bowl blend the flour, the butter, the vegetable shortening, and the salt until the mixture resembles meal. Add 3 tablespoons ice water, toss the mixture until the water is incorporated, and form the dough into a ball. Knead the dough lightly with the heel of the hand against a smooth surface for a few seconds to distribute the fat evenly and re-form it into a ball. Dust the dough with flour and chill it, wrapped in wax paper, for 1 hour.
    Roll out the dough 1/8 inch thick onto a floured surface and fit it into a 9-inch (1-quart) pie plate. Crimp the edge decoratively and chill the shell for 30 minutes.

Make the filling: Arrange the chocolate pieces on the bottom of the pie shell. In a bowl, whisk together the syrup, the brown sugar, the eggs, the butter, the vanilla, and the salt, whisking until the mixture is combined well, and whisk in the pecans. Pour the filling over the chocolate.

Bake the pie in the middle of a preheated 350° F. oven for 45 to 55 minutes, or until the pie is pufed and golden brown. (The filling wil not be set completely but will set thoroughly as it cools.)

Make the brandied whipped cream: In a chilled bowl with the chilled beaters of an electric mixer beat the cream with the confectioner's sugar and a pinch of salt until the mixture holds soft peaks. Add the brandy a little at a time, beating, and beat the mixture until it forms stiff peaks.

Serve the pie with the whipped cream.

Happy my birthday!

Behold the pie!

Many thanks to my wife for baking it for me on this, my 67th birthday. Or is it my 68th? Not that I'm unsure how old I've become, but just in consideration of the fact that on my day of birth I was zero years old, so we're actually counting in the "binary system" here.
And here's my birthday piece (before and after ice cream added):

And the pie again, awaiting further celebration:

    Looks like a bigger piece that way, doesn't it? Too big, in fact. This pie, made with sour cherry filling from the King Arthur Flour website, is so filling that I'm going to cut a smaller slice next time.

Father's Day

On Friday about dinner time, the doorbell rang and we discovered a tall cardboard box sitting at our front door.
    "Happy Father's Day," said my wife.
    "Oh, is this Father's Day weekend? Nice."
    The box said it was from a rose company.
    "We need to bring it in and open it," she said.
    The plant's label card said:

William Shakespeare 2000^TM (Ausromeo)
Superb blooms of richest velvet crimson. Strong Old Rose fragrance. A bushy, free flowering shrub.
4ft x 3ft. Zones 5-10.

This was another example of the incisive thoughtfulness of my wife, who thirty years earlier had given her "suffering artist husband" a little book of selected paintings by Vincent van Gogh.

Apricot Kuchen

And my wife prepared and baked a kuchen for me this morning, using apricots from Visalia, California, a dozen miles from where we met, on Friday, March 4, 1966:

My first piece:

My second piece:

My lunch (with raspberries from Florida, where my wife and I vacationed in the early 'nineties—with our daughter—and in 1995, while the OJ Simpson trial was going on):

My dessert after lunch (with blueberries from Watsonville, California, about 45 miles from where my wife and I were wed on Friday, April 15, 1966):

My dessert after dinner:

Thank you, my dear wife, and "Happy My Father's Day" to you too!

And to Siegfried, shown here distracted from playing with one of the socks I had worn three and a half hours outside this afternoon while stimulating the Bermuda grass to grow in some sparse areas.

Moristotle's 66th-birthday pie

My wife created this wonder using as the base recipe Epicurious's recipe for "Harvest Tart." She modified the fruit by adding some that was fresh, and she added some Grand Marnier to make the pie less dry than last year's was. This might not have been necessary, for last year's pie contained only dried fruit. But I'm sure the Grand Marnier made the pie all the more delightful.

Click on the picture to get a closer view of the filling.

Birthday pie

Yesterday the age given in my blog profile increased by one....My wife baked a wondrous three-fruit pie for the occasion (using dried apricots, dried cranberries, and golden raisins):

Here again in close-up (and you can click on either photo to see it larger):

I hope that everyone had a happy my birthday. I did.