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More Food - Christmas Dinner

After brunch I was thinking I may never want to eat again. Stuffed! I had to put on my Christmas PJs the minute my mom and sister walked out the door. If you can recall the Friends episode where Joey wore maternity pants for Thanksgiving and called them his Thanksgiving Pants, well that's how I was feeling about the PJs. I'll definitely be hitting the gym hard tomorrow!

Of course the stuffed-to-the-gills feeling finally passed...after many hours of course. It was time to figure out exactly what to do for our special Christmas Dinner. I had originally wanted to do a cranberry chipotle sauce/gravy for the Quorn Turk'y Roast. However, Jason ate the cranberries in his cottage cheese yesterday as a snack. Oops. So I had to go to a Plan B. This is why we always keep a very well-stocked pantry!

I had originally planned to start with salad of spinach, leaf lettuce, mandarine oranges, and toasted walnuts with a balsamic vinaigrette. We were still entirely too full for a starter. So directly to dinner.

I made the Quorn Turk'y Roast and the sauce ended up being a fig sauce. I sauteed finely diced yellow onions and garlic, then added diced dried figs, and simmered in a Pinot Noir and vegetable stock. I let it reduce for about 30 minutes.

The side dishes included the Kale with Currants, Lemon and Olives recipe I found in Food and Wine magazine. I didn't have currants so I substituted with white raisins instead. I also used low-sodium vegetable broth instead of the chicken stock. Oh, and I pretty much halved the recipe. I also made roasted new potatoes with thyme, sea salt, black pepper, and rosemary and homemade French bread rolls.




    Comments

    1. Wow so much to say. First off, MERRY CHRISTMAS DARLING!!!

      Those Jingle balls look fabulous. Did you get a new camera because your photos look SO SO SO professional. Seriously. Thanks for the blogger award :) You are too kind. Your Christmas din din looks great. I love those ornaments on the table.

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    2. OH and p.s. I have been sporting my sweats all day. There is no chance I am putting on clothes that don't have an elastic waist band :)

      ReplyDelete
    3. Allie glad I'm not the only one living in pants with elastic waist bands today! LOL. Not a new camera, I think I'm just starting to figure it out! Practice, practice, practice right?! I was pretty proud of the table today, thanks for the compliments. Merry Christmas to you too!

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    4. wow that meal turned out to sound so healthy and delicious :D
      merry christmas!

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    5. peanutbutterbliss thanks so much for checking out my blog. Hope you had a very Merry Christmas as well. Congrats on the weight loss AND marathon. Kudos to you!

      ReplyDelete
    6. Yum-- looks like a wonderful Holiday meal (even if you had to improvise a little bit :-) )

      Hope you had a wonderful Christmas, Heather!

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    7. Anna sometimes the best dishes end up being those you had to improvise on! I definitely don't ever feel like I'm tied to a recipe (for better or for worse).

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    8. I think having to change to figs may have been a good thing. Who doesn't love a fig sauce?

      Nice looking pic, btw.

      I got a giggle out of your elastic waistband story. That is how we were at Thanksgiving. My cooking was a little more controlled this holiday (thank goodness).

      Sorry I haven't been here in a couple of days. We have been swamped with too much celebrating.

      talk to you later,
      Alicia

      ReplyDelete
    9. Alicia you've got a lot to be celebrating so no worries on being MIA! Oddly, Thanksgiving was much more controlled for me. Christmas got out of hand! Glad I could give you a giggle - we could all use one!

      ReplyDelete

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