We are hosting 7 tonight. We decided to go buffet style with an assortment of finger food. Chilled peel & eat shrimp, crabbies, buffalo chicken dip & homemade salsa for chips, bruschetta, pork potstickers, bite sized miniature meatballs, veggie tray w/dip and an impressive charcuterie board we ordered and had delivered this morning. Also an assortment of cookies my wife baked yesterday. A really colorful spread. For drinks we have a few bottles each of red & white, cooler stocked with beer and my wife made a batch of holiday margaritas this morning. Tomorrow will just be the 4 of us and plan on having a more traditional meal. A ham, twice baked potatoes, corn and roasted Brussel sprouts & butternut squash. I’m sure with the amount left overs we’ll have, Monday & Tuesday meals will already be handled. Merry Christmas
Tonight is Cornish pasty. Tomorrow is a slight change in plans. It was going to be grouper with a macadamia nut crust but the dinner party went from 5 to 10 and so we are subbing in mahi instead of grouper. Mahi is almost as good and a lot cheaper. Skin on or skin off will be a game time decision. It works both ways. Back in the day it was called dolphin but too many people thought it was bottle nosed porpoise (Flipper) which it isn't. I can remember catching a lot of them off of Palm Beach back in the 70's. Also smoking a chicken just in case somebody doesn't like fish. And smoked chicken makes great leftovers.
Let’s see if I can get today’s menu listed with some order to it—We plan on our meal to be served about 4:00 PM. We are having a smoked turkey, a smoked shank portion ham, and a spiral cut Honey Baked Ham for our meats. Ms. Jan’s homemade cornbread dressing (her Mama’s recipe) and giblet gravy with homemade cranberry sauce, cream 40’s & petite butter beans, fresh turnips & mustard greens, sweet potato dumplings, mashed potatoes, sweet potato soufflé, corn casserole, Watergate salad, deviled eggs, pineapple casserole, and yeast rolls. Deserts are pecan pie, an assortment of homemade cakes and cookies. The bar is open and ready for you to make your choices. Life is good in Gator Nation and Merry Christmas to all!
Sure LOL A ridiculous amount of leftovers. My Mon & Tue meal prognostication was incorrect. I think we’ll be all set thru Friday.
Apparently a shortage of eggnog in the area. I wanted to make an eggnog shake as shown in the photo.....but it'll have to wait. I know I can make homemade eggnog but would rather just buy some......
Leftover situation was not as a bad as I thought originally. The Bruschetta, crabbies, shrimp, meatballs and salsa are gone from the first night. And Thankfully, my son, daughter & their significant others liked the food enough that we were able to send a healthy amount of “to go” containers of leftovers. So the corn, a good chunk of the ham and Brussel sprouts are taken care of as well. We have maybe 1/3 of the ham left. I diced it up and froze it for western omelettes and whatnot later. Also froze the hambone for a split pea soup for later as well. We have just enough scraps leftover for dinner tonight, and probably a salad. Not bad. Now, what to do with all the leftover booze …hmmm I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend!
The day after Christmas is Ms. Jan’s birthday-so—tonight we’re grilling boneless ribeyes, choice of potatoes, choice of salads and grilled asparagus. Her birthday cake is a lemon cream cake. A full bar awaits our guests. Life is good in Gator Nation!
And happy birthday the the Missus. Yesterday we had a few no shows so there was some mahi that we didn't cook. So we will be making fish tacos with it. I will bake the mahi with oil and some chili powder. Sometimes fish tacos are breaded and fried but I think that it is a sin to do that to tasty fish. For example I would probably fry tilapia for fish tacos.
I forgot to mention that my wife had sent to us a Chicago hot dog kit from Vienna Beef that was lunch on Christmas day with a few left over for lunch the next day. It was a trip down memory lane. Tonight will be pan seared scallops in a spicy oil served on a bed of flat leaf parsley and cilantro. There was a lot of the yellow rice pilaf from Christmas left over so it will be part of the menu. And spinach pies aka spanakopita.
Well, with all of the leftovers we have access to our choice for tonight is chicken’n’dumplings and cream 40’s & petite butter beans. We had snow late yesterday afternoon, evening, and night. However we have broken out of the hard cold temperatures getting up to 39* today. The family time that we are sharing is largely due to the way our parents raised us up—so grateful that we have this type of family relationships to draw off of….. Life is good in Gator Nation!
Last night I made caramlelized cabbage with penne, bread crumbs, anchovies and sage. Tonight my MIL wanted to get us gyros from Gyro Plus that has moved from University Ave to South 13th Street. Lebanese style. I grew up in Chicago where it was Greek style. Very similar, but not the same. Falafel King was also Lebanese but different. It had pickles. And they had awesome freshly squeezed lemonade. And when I was a grad student at Illinois they had a place called Zorba's that served gyros with tzatziki sauce. I smoked two chickens today for other things like chicken enchiladas.
Last night kinda got away from my posting but we had breakfast for supper….it was a welcome change. Tonight we’re going to be treated to Ms. Jan’s homemade Swiss steak and gravy. She likes to use cubed beef steak rather than sirloin steak and boy is it tender-she also adds vidalia onions, sliced green bell peppers, and sliced mushrooms. Homemade mashed potatoes, field peas with snaps and homemade biscuits will be our sides. Adult libations are available as desired. Life is good in Gator Nation!
That's funny because I had pancakes for dinner last night.....been a while since I've had them and had a brand new bottle of syrup staring me in the face...lol....I had no choice!
