Late Curry

Sorry for the delay. I had to run right off after dinner to referee a basketball game. Good game. Good dinner.

We were treated to a fabulous turkey curry tonight. That massive beast from Christmas is still doing great service. And is it ever good turkey. The mrs. whipped up a beautiful sauce which she called, "Turkey soup?? curry??" but whatever it was it was good. I ladled mine over a bowl of rice. Added some vinegar from the pickled peppers to kick up the heat and nuked it. 2 and a half minutes later I was in dinner heaven.

After getting back home this evening I managed to get some book time with the daughter. Then the wife and I sat down to watch "The Visitor." Interesting movie. The wife said that she still feels a little scared living in Canada because she is not a citizen. I can understand that. Especially when I was living in Japan I always had that niggling doubt that if I did something to over the top I would just be packed up and sent home. That kind of feeling really helps one keep in line. Well sorry about the lateness of the post. Later.

Happy Obama Day.

And so it begins.

As for me, with four weeks or so to go till b-day I had a chat with the person that will be replacing me while I'm off on parenthood leave for 5 - 7 weeks. I am pretty happy about that. With the other kids being born at the beginning of the summer vacation it has never been an issue before. However, this time we are having a winter baby. Should be interesting.

For dinner this evening we had turkey a la king made with some of the frozen Christmas turkey leftovers. It was really good. The wife mentioned she thought that was the organic turkey goodness coming through. I tend to think it was the fabulous job I did of brining and cooking it but hey its not a competition. Good turkey, happy people, bottom line. The coleslaw salad also made a nice reappearance after being gone for a while. Once again the organic cabbage the wife bought didn't have any of the usual "nigami" or bitterness. It was a really sweet coleslaw both in the taste sense and the damn thats good coleslaw sense. Looking forward to lunch tomorrow.

Back to basics.

Well the reli's are all gone home now so it is back to things as normal. If you can call eating protein at every meal and drinking beer and eating chocolate in tandem normal. We had a wonderful two days and I am sure there are other blogs out there with sledding videos and other such things that I did not manage to capture images of, but here is what we have.

Everyone arrived on Christmas Eve day in the afternoon. We broke into the stocked bar fridge right away and had a nice evening.
Mom broke out some tortiere [sic] and the wife laid on a salad and some fried shrimp and veggies. Mmmm good. There were some chocolates out and one of my sisters made these little things called hedge hogs. Now when I picture hedge hogs I picture the little chocolates by Purdys. However, the hedge hogs we, or more likely I, spent the last three days scarfing down were marshmallows dipped in caramel and then rolled in rice crispies. A delightful addition to the sweets table, a tradition that I hope endures for the rest of my Christmases.

Well after eating we watched some movies and then the kids headed off for bed. Actually the movie theme this year was Harry Potter. We watched all five movies over the last week and 3, 4 and 5 were seen by our guests. Kind of a nice nightly ritual.

Anyways Christmas morning I and the wife were woken at 2:30, 5:00 and then for the last time at 6:52. We said we would wait for 7:00 but this was close enough. The daughter wanted me to point out that it was only her that did the waking up. The son slept through. Anyways, Santa had arrived during the night and the little ones were pretty much over the moon about having stockings and gifts.
They were not great about waiting to open the rest of their presents. We are cruel and wait for everyone to wake up and then open in rounds so that each present gets its due time. Lots of books and some toys, it was fabulous. I am dreading as they get older. A cashier I was talking to said her teenage kids were next to impossible to shop for. Santa will have his work cut out for him over the next 15-20 years. Should never have had that third child, well its too late now and I am sure the upside will be huge. Its not like I am going to be able to retire before I am sixty anyways. Might as well eh.

So on with the holiday. The monster, I mean turkey, went in the oven just after 10 and was done by about 6:00. 28 and a half pounds plus a couple more pounds of stuffing. The turkey was excellent even if I do say so myself. I really think brining the bird gives it a juiciness and richness of flavour that can't be beat. I am also thinking that if I never had a bird bigger then 20 pounds again it will be fine with me. 8 hours, give me a break. Fortunately, the wife laid on a pancake and sausage breakfast with fruit salad and even managed to come up with some leftovers for lunch. The kids had a bit of a skate in the afternoon and everyone else got out of the house for a bit, be it a walk or a drive everyone shook off some cobwebs and then we got right back to feasting. Standard family Christmas fare: turkey, sausage stuffing, roast potatoes, mashed turnip, brussel sprouts, gravy, bread sauce, and cranberry sauce. The wife also made a nice green salad. As usual my son was really interested in the drum stick. It was a little out of his league but he seemed to enjoy gnawing on the bone. After the feast we sat down to the gift exchange and another movie. With only six involved in the gift exchange there wasn't much stealing and in the end I believe everyone ended up with the gift they opened. There were some tradesies afterwards but all in all I believe everyone walked away happy.

Boxing day saw us get up, fill up on turkey leftovers and head out for some sledding. We joined up with some other friends of ours who were up from Victoria and had a great time even if it was a little cold. We returned home for some more leftovers, chocolate, beer and a nap before heading to a party at the sledding friend's parent's house. You guessed it, more great food, more beers some lively conversation and by five o'clock we were pooped. We came back home and to my surprise no one had dinner. So we sat down for HP 5 and ate some more chocolates and drank some more beer. That night the sisters had some late night leftovers and then boom. It was 7:30 this morning and the relatives were out the door. It was a whirlwind of eating and drinking and catching up. The sisters who couldn't make it with the spouses were all dearly missed. But that is life I guess. A friend who I was talking to while our kids were sledding before everyone arrived commented on how this was happening with his family. He really hit the nail on the head when he said that we have to start creating the new traditions for our families. We cannot look to our parents anymore. Their our kids so it is our time to step up.

Oh yeah we got a DVD player from some really important people to us and watched a video on it last night. The viewing experience was excellent and we wanted to say a big thank you to them. Love.

I am not a Turkey

However, I managed to cook one up quite nicely this evening. I even went with my own version of stuffing. The wife wanted lean ground pork rather than sausage meat and who am I to dicker. I recall an experiment my mother tried a number of years ago with water chestnuts and thought that might be nice. I don' t know where the apples and raisins came from but it may have been the radio yesterday. Someone talking about goose perhaps. After that it was bread crumbs, cooked rice, salt, pepper and some sage type seasoning which we have in our cupboard. All in all I really enjoyed it. Not as heavy as my mom's stuffing but still passable. We cooked the turkey using a meat thermometer and though we may have cooked it a bit longer than necessary there was no way it wasn't done. I think our oven cooks at a lower temperature than it reads. Good to know.
Other than the turkey and stuffing we also had roasted yam and potatoes, brussel sprouts, gravy, cranberry sauce and a lovely mixed green salad. We planned to make mashed turnip too, only we forgot to take it out of the oven where it was warming. Should be good for tomorrow. The meal was followed by the wicked awesome pumpkin pie the wife made yesterday. It was truly great. How great you may ask. The daughter after being convinced to try it had a second slice. This from one who normally shows tremendous disdain for squash of any kind in any meal. We had three guests this evening. A friend from town who doesn't have family around these parts and my mom and her man. Everything was on the table by 5:30 ish. By 7:00 we had finished pie in time for the Canucks. Who won I might add. Damn fine night.

I know Thanksgiving should really be either Sunday or Monday, but this way, as my mom pointed out, we don't have to cook tomorrow. Crafty with a dash of panache. Nice work ma.

Light Dinner

As we were driving back to the GF this evening the topic of dinner came up. After a weekend of feasting and four days of sitting I am always thinking of something light. Also something quick and easy to prepare with very little lead time. In my brain I come to pasta with a vegetarian tomato sauce. No dethawing. Anything undercooked can still be eaten without the possibility of death. I think it works. So I offer this up. To which wife responds, "you always say that when you want a quick meal. I was thinking, yaki soba with miso soup, and a green salad." To me this does not sound like a quick meal to be whipped up in no time. However, it also sounded way better than what I was offering and -- more to the point -- sounded like I wasn't going to be cooking it. Sold. It turns out I was in charge of the salad but after being away for three days the garden was teaming with fresh produce. We even ate our first daikon. It was pretty small and the kids complained because it was too spicy. Exactly. Yup having a great garden year so far and though one of my jalapeno plants has succumbed to a bad case of dampening off, everything else has flourished (so far). Even the almost dead broccoli is coming on strong. I actually had to tell it to back off as I am married. You know how broccoli can be.

Oh yeah the red stuff is hot sauce. I know I won't be able to taste anything by the time I am sixty but I just love the hot stuff.