Christmas Roast Beast and other random shots

So, how were the holidays at your place?
Our hope is that you were delighted by the company of your most cherished friends and family, satiated by platters of scrumptious food, and made all bright and cheery by a few glasses of great wine.

We certainly were!  Nope, I cannot tell a lie. Christmas dinner at our house this year was a positively delicious affair:

• Baby winter greens with maple cinnamon walnuts, cranberry goat cheese, fresh raspberries, and  lemon-raspberry vinaigrette.
  
• Thyme and garlic rubbed standing rib roast
• Porcini & bacon sauce
  
• Parmesan mashed potatoes
• Spinach gratin
• Roasted romanesco with rosemary garlic butter
• Hot buttered rum cheesecakes with rum caramel sauce

We started off by ordering a standing rib roast of beast from our local butcher...  Bunzel's Meat Market bequeathed us with ten delicious pounds of USDA prime first-cut beef.  We couldn't really argue with that, now, could we?

 Preparation of the roast beast began a couple of days ahead. We slashed the roast and slathered it liberally with a mixture of garlic (lots!), fresh thyme (3 T chopped), olive oil (2-3 T), and salt (2 T).

 We also threw together ten adorable hot buttered rum cheesecakes (and their accompanying rum caramel sauce -- which we should mention is positively To. Die. For.  I think that I could live on it!). 

Awesome, huh?


Yeah, well. It turns out we're not the best when it comes to taking pictures of our actual holiday feasts.  We get all excited about the preparations, snapping pictures every other minute... but once the festivities begin, we lose all sense of direction when it comes to recording the final product.  


We did manage to get a shot of the salad, which we served while the roast was resting in the kitchen... but everything else seems to have gotten lost in the "ooohs" and "aahhhs" and the mumblings of satisfaction as we consumed the roast beast and its swoon-worthy accompaniments.

I'm particularly sad that we didn't get a shot of that bacon porcini gravy and the uber cheesy spinach gratin... soooo good.

*sigh*  Maybe next year.



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