Holiday Cooking

The holiday cooking is now in full swing! With three separate family parties/potlucks to attend, we do our own fair share of cooking during the holidays.

Our Thanksgiving Contrubutions:
- 3x White Chocolate/Chocolate Bread Pudding with Irish Cream Sauce
- Cider Brined Turkey with Cider Gravy
- Sausage, Bacon and Mushroom Stuffing

With the exception of a quarter of a pan of bread pudding left over from a party that was over-ladden with desserts, we had no leftovers. Always a good sign. :-)

Planned Christmas Contributions:
- Carrot Soup
- Green Onion Casserole
- Green Beans in Lemon and Olive Oil
- Chocolate Raspberry French Macaroons (or Macarons)

I made the carrot soup last night (It's actually a pretty quick, easy recipe if you're not doing a triple batch. Six lbs of carrots is a lot of carrots to peel and chop...). The immersion blender couldn't get the little nut chunks into super smooth soup (and the carrots totally stained it yellow!), so I'm thinking of either straining out the almond bits or seeing if my regular blender can get the soup any smoother. I think I may leave the nuts out next time. I must say, though, that this is a pretty darned good soup. And I'm not a huge fan of cooked carrots.

We also blanched the almonds (I mean, really, why does my Safeway not carry blanched almonds?) for the macaroons. I may or may not grind them up tonight. It'll depend on what happens with the carrot soup.

I'll report in on the results of the Green Onion Casserole. It sounds really weird to me, but A wants to try it. We shall see.