joyeux noël!

Have you tried Lindt Excellence Chili Dark Chocolate? Oh my goodness gracious, me oh my. My dearly beloved husband, who knows me well, put it in my stocking Christmas morn. I am trying to savor it right now, but I think inhaling is a much more accurate word choice. It is perfectly yummy dark chocolate that at first makes you wonder, "Where's this Chili it speaks of on the label?" Then when you've almost finished chewing, you find it. The warmth spreads throughout your mouth and your thoughts are more along the lines of Homer Simpson's drool for beer. Chocolate was made for this.



On to dinner...
Last year we had German food for Christmas. This year we decided to let Julia teach us some French cooking since I had received Mastering the Art of French Cooking for my birthday.

We begin with...

 Of course we knew that all good French dinners end with a cheese plate, but we needed something to tide us over until we could eat that which was causing our house to smell like heaven, so our cheese plate came first. Brie, some layered deliciousness and an Irish cheddar were the perfect start.

And then came dinner...

 Starting from the bottom we had Carottes a la Creme. These were carrots braised in butter then boiled in cream until the "cream has been almost entirely absorbed by the carrots." And what do you do when you are ready to serve these carrots? Why you toss them in a little butter and parsley, because they apparently don't have enough butter in them! I had no idea that you could stuff a little carrot medallion with as much fat as Julia insisted we should. We did and it was worth it, but those babies should not be eaten more than once a year. And that's pushing it.

Above the carrots in the pink bowl were Legumes a la Grecque. Basically it was vegetables blanched in an aromatic broth then removed. The broth was then boiled down to make the sauce that is poured back over the veggies and the whole thing is chilled. I chose celery, red and yellow bell peppers and mushrooms. It was really good and probably one of my favorite dishes.

The topmost dish is a Costco Pecan Pie and southwest of that is a piece of DubbleBubble gum. I have no idea how that got there.

Moving on to the next picture...

 The white CorningWare dish in the center-ish part of the picture was a delicious rice and onion dish called Soubise. I took sliced onions, rice and butter (of course) and cooked it all slowly until it almost became risotto-esque. Creamy and mmmmm...definitely my favorite of all the food...I think...maybe.

The Pyrex measuring cup in the middle holds the nectar of life: the Cream and Mushroom Sauce. Hubsters made this and it was heavenly. Really, though, whipping cream, sauteed mushrooms, butter and port? How could one go wrong?

My brother was there and asked only that Mom make her classic sage stuffing. She obliged. (It is in the 9x13 baking dish.) And behind it is the Costco apple pie.

Next...

That long strange over-sized breadstick you see directly in front of the stuffing was my attempt at Pain Francais, or French bread. It was very good: the crust chewy and the inside soft. A slice with brie spread on it was indescribable. I had some issues fitting the batards (that's the loaf shape I chose to make) onto my baking stone. They were too long, hence the somewhat snakey look. But taste is the key, right? (I made three and by dinner time, this was the sole survivor, only because I threatened to beat anyone who ate it before I got a picture.)

Those little cream-colored poop-looking piles in the top left are Pommes Duchesse. Duchess potatoes. I wish I had a large star tip for piping them but I didn't and so they looked like that. Oh well. You take mashed potatoes that have butter, heavy cream and egg yolks whipped into them, pipe them out and then of course, drizzle them with more butter and some Parmesan cheese and broil the little suckers. Because to the French, there is obviously no ceiling to the amount of butter you can insert into a dish.

The pièce de résistance, or so we thought, was the Jambon Farci en Croute, or stuffed ham baked in a pastry crust. (It's that big loaf-y thing you've been wondering about this whole time.) The first problem was my inability to locate foie gras and truffles. Okay, so it won't be stuffed anymore. We'll just make Jambon Braise en Croute, or braised ham in a pastry crust. The braising went well. Very well. The ham-sandwich-everyday-type-of-ham flavor was gone and replaced with a complex madeira-ham flavor. Excellent. Unfortunately we made the pastry crust too thick and it just ended up being an easy carrying device/incognito ham disguise. No one really ate much of it, but it was fun and we learned and if we try it again, we know what to do. Good news was that the ham was really, really good. Whew!

And then came dessert...

This lovely little delicate thing was my contribution to dessert. We had two huge Costco pies which you've already seen, but I wanted something special. Something with...oh...you know...that je ne sais quoi. (Just kidding. How pretentious, right? It is really fun to say, though.) I settled on Bavarois a l'Orange, or Orange Bavarian Cream. I'm so glad I did. Julia told me to take a custard flavored with orange (and Grand Marnier!) and fold whipped egg whites into it, then folded whipped cream into that. The perfect descriptor would be "delicately rich", if that is possible/makes sense. So good. So very, very good.

And that was what we had for Christmas dinner.