Christmas Feast

On Christmas day we woke up early to clean the house. Not really a good way to start your weekend, but boy we were so happy when we came back home to a clean house on Sunday.

After the house was nice and clean I packed everything we need for Christmas dinner at my parents. My car was totally packed. Since we were staying over for the night I brought some clothes and blankets. Then there was a bunch of veggies, the big tray of tiramisu and of course the presents.

All my sisters came home for Christmas and this year we had a special guest. The daughter of my dad’s friend from the USA was studying in Groningen for half a year and would spend Christmas with us. My dad and her dad use to be in the boys scouting when they were young. Apparently there were several groups and although they were not in the same group, they did know each other. They and several other people have found each other through the internet. This amazing invention has made the world a lot smaller and brought lot of people together. Where would we be without it?

Anyhow, back to Christmas day…I was kinda busy cooking the food so I didn’t had much time to take picture. On the menu we had steamed BIG shrimp as a starter, rib eye as a main course with baked potatoes, stir fried Brussels sprouts and Belgian endives and balsamic pearl onions as side dishes and tiramisu as dessert.  

My mom’s eye was way bigger then her stomach so she bough a 4,3 kilo rib eye for 8 people, which could easily serve 18-20. She marinated with a special blend of spices I put together.

I asked her to marinate it about 2 days before Christmas so all the flavor could get into the meat. About 1 hour before we roasted it in the oven we took it out of the fridge. This time we decided to slow roast it. This means the meat will have to be in the oven for about 4-5 hours on a very very low temperature. We put the oven on about 80-100 degrees and roasted the rib eye for about 4 hours. Then since I thought the meat would be done I sliced it in half to have a look and then covered it up with foil. It was perfectly pinkish in the middle. I think that another hour would be better, but we didn’t have that time.

I wanted to oven bake some potatoes in olive oil, garlic and rosemary. I have a very nice rosemary bush in my frond yard, covered in snow. I wasn’t sure if it would survive but after removing the snow the rosemary looked like noting happened. 

I chopped the Belgian endives in parts and stir fried them with some olive oil, butter, salt, pepper and sugar.

The pearl onions came in very pretty purple and white. It took me a while to get the skin off, but after that they were just gorgeous.

The Brussels sprouts had to lose the old dark greens also so they could show off the nice fresh greens. I stir fried them with onion, garlic and bacon bits.

I served all the vegi together on one big tray. 

The onions were slow cooked in balsamic, little bit of sugar and a squeeze of lemon. They were sooooooo good. 

Mom steamed the shrimp in a huge steamer.

We just ate it plain with some lemon, pepper and salt mixture. This is the best way to eat it, pure and simple.

That roasted rib eye was just the best. Since we slow roasted it, the meat was very soft, juicy and tender. This is something worth making time for. So if you can, try to slow roast it.

Unfortunately my mom’s other oven wasn’t working too well so the baked potato’s weren’t all cooked evenly. I had to cook it in a pan at the last minute.

My plate…was unfortunately too big to go for a second round and I had to save some room for the tiramisu.

 Wouldn't want to miss out on a dessert like that!