Imagine the Feasting!

We hope that each and every one of you enjoyed a fantastic holiday... and that it was replete with great food and good company. Ours was beyond enjoyable, despite the seemingly endless snowfall that left us with some sore shoveling muscles and an eight-foot mountain of snow in the back yard! We enjoyed much feasting with our families (including a delicious prime rib dinner at our house on Christmas Day).

The menu:

Roasted chestnut and porcini soup
Rib roast marinated in garlic and fresh thyme leaves
Porcini mushroom and bacon gravy
Baked mashed potatoes with fontina
Butternut squash gratin with goat cheese and hazelnuts
Steamed spinach

and for dessert...
Frozen Grande Marnier Torte with Chocolate Crust and Spiced Cranberry Topping

We failed to take photos of the complete feast, but I did manage to get a few shots of the rib roast before we set it up for a couple of days of marination time. Not long ago, Amy from We are Never Full posted a recipe for Herb and Lavendar Stuffed Standing Pork Loin Roast (um... YUM). As great as the pork roast was, it was her comments about finding a good neighborhood butcher that rang the most true.

We have a fantastic neighborhood butcher shop just down the road from our house. Bunzel's has been our savior when it comes to last minute dinner parties, mid-summer grilling, and Christmas rib roasts for the past 4-5 years. Not only do they provide a quality product, but their service is impeccable. This year, we put in our order for a USDA prime rib roast the week before Christmas. Not only did Bunzel's come through with a fantastic roast -- but they trimmed and tied the roast up for us on the day we needed it. Just check out the marbling on this roast!

We slathered it up good with the marinade -- which consisted of about 10 cloves of fresh garlic, a few tablespoons of chopped fresh thyme, some salt, and a few tablespoons of olive oil.
The smell was enough to convince us that this roast was to be a thing of beauty...
And from there, we laid it to rest in the fridge for a couple of days until it was ready for roasting.

The roast was seriously fantastic, especially when paired with the porcini gravy. I'm still mourning the fact that I didn't get photos of the finished product... then again, you can probably imagine this beauty for yourself.


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