La vie est belle

We hosted Christmas dinner for the first time this year. I was so looking forward to whip something in the kitchen — including roasting my first turkey! We had dinner on both 24th and 25th. On the eve it was with my in laws + friends and on Christmas day it was with sis, bro and cousins. I was planning to prepare the turkey on the 25th only but hubby happened to buy a turkey too, leaving us with 2 turkeys in the fridge! So I decided to roast one on each day! The one that I roasted on the 24th was way too dry and not that tasty. However my 2nd one was really taaaasty and juuuuuicy. Yes I mus admit it was good! It wasn’t dry was because of the way I roasted it.

Christmas tree gift from sister. Brings back good old childhood memories like  setting up and decorating the tree together, special food & snacks prepared by mum, gifts, watching christmas movies together etc. etc.

Christmas table setting on the 24th

Christmas table setting on the 25th

Dinner on the 24th with my in laws and friends

With dar

Dinner on the 25th with sis, bro and cousins

I made some cranberry sauce

Some baked swedish meatballs as well. I prefer the baked version as it doesn’t get dry + it’s slightly more healthy too hehe

And some roast potatoes. Peel, dice into bit chunks and boil them first. Drain the water and give the boiled potatoes a good shake while they are still in the saucepan with the lid on top. Then season with salt, pepper and dry rosemarry herbs. Drizzle with some olive oil and place into the oven. Bake for 45 – 60 mins. The potatoes will turn out very nice.

I started preparing the turkey since 1pm. At almost 3pm it went into the oven and it was only at 6.30pm that it came out! I cooked the 2nd turkey wrapped in aluminum foil unlike the first one. I also coverd the top part with back bacon. Cooking it wrapped in aluminum foil produces very moist meat because the turkey steams in its own juices. I removed the foil for the last 40 minutes of cooking to let the turkey brown.

And here’s my pancetta-sage bacon-rosemarry turkey! I couldn’t find pancetta and sage ran out of stock! Good thing there was fresh rosemarry and thyme. Always let the turkey rest for a couple of minutes (40 – 60 mins) so that the juices settle before it is served. While the turkey was resting, I prepared some turkey sauce, sis prepared her rocket salad and bro prepared his seafood spaghetti.

Dinner time

Sis and me

Merry Christmas!!

Tags: christmas, family, Home

This entry was posted on Friday, December 26th, 2008 at 9:50 am and is filed under Family, Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.