Sylvia's Scenario

I made several "new" recipes for Christmas dinner this year and after taking a poll, this was people's favorite item of the whole dinner! I know they don't look like much but these potatoes were amazing. They were like Twice Baked Potatoes only no skin. I wanted a potato dish that was flavorful enough that you could eat them plain with no gravy or anything on them and BINGO, these were it. And I wanted some that I could make ahead of time.  That was the theme of my Christmas dinner - Make Ahead.  On Christmas, you don't want to be spending all your time in the kitchen when you're hosting a Christmas party.  I want to be able to join in the fun!  We had ten people here for Christmas which is a small number for my family so thus, I felt like experimenting a bit.  We had our usual Mustard Crusted Beef Tenderloin   along with horseradish and mustard sauces, another new recipe for peas that was a hit, a green salad with pears and apple and pomegranate dress...

Wishing all of you the most wonderful holiday season, from our family to yours. 

I am still recovering from Thanksgiving and the food overload!  It was quite the delicious Thanksgiving this year.  Bruce's sister, Lynn, came for Thanksgiving since she had business to attend to this week in Seattle.  She arrived Wednesday before Thanksgiving when I made that most delicious  beef stew  from Ina Garten's cookbook, Back to Basics.  For dessert on Wednesday, I made another recipe from her cookbook, Cooking for Jeffrey, called Pumpkin Flan with Maple Caramel and it was amazing, thus I'm posting it on my blog.    I guess you could say I'm stuck on Ina Garten right now who is commonly known as the Barefoot Contessa.  I watch her cooking shows while I do my twice daily knee exercises and it really gets me in the mood to cook.  Bruce has been doing the cooking around here lately because my knee rehab has been taking me so much time.  I'm still going to physical therapy twice a week and also massage therapy twice a wee...