Story of a Christmas Buffet

Tonight I was invited to The Chef's Grand Christmas Day Dinner Buffet at Dockside Restaurant on Granville Island.

The place was packed, and we were part of the last seating starting at 7:30 pm. This is the first time I go out on Christmas day and I was amazed at how many choose that option versus dinner at home.


But that was not as surprising once I saw how impressive the menu was.

The highlights of the first trip to the buffet were the Smoked Salmon Trilogy (smoked, lox and candied).

The salads were typical buffet mediocre ones. The potato salad with double smoked bacon and mustard was really good. On the other side of the spectrum, the Thai salad was not good at all.


Then came the visit to the carving station...

There was roast beef, turkey and ham. Almost everyone around the table agreed that the roast beef was the best. It was thick, juicy, tasty, cooked well. Too bad the roast beef carver was not as friendly as the turkey and ham carver.

Yes, it was so good that I could not resist a repeat trip to the carving station (my third trip for the night).

The dessert buffet sounded more appetizing on the menu than it was in real life. There were many options indeed - nanaimo bars, brownies, all sorts of squares to pumpkin and eggnog cheese cakes and pies. The Yule Logs were cut in pieces looking more like wood chips as opposed to a full log. 

The chocolate lovers were in chocolate heaven with the flowing chocolate fountain surrounded by fruit to dip into. 

All in all, a pleasant buffet experience, albeit feeling way too stuffed as I write. In fact, I'm feeling exactly like my host's cat all ready for a long nap. Good night and merry Christmas.

ميلاد مجيد

Christmas eve was celebrated Middle Eastern style at somerville kitchen.

Friends of different religions hanging out in front of the Christmas tree, feasting for close to four hours. Cheeses, mezza, 'jaaj mahshi', 'buche de noel' - all a must at this night back home.

First came the cheese platter. 

A deliciously simple combination of Camembert cheese with raisin bread and pecan (the original recipe called for hazel nuts, but none to be found). Try it; those three elements go great together.

There was also a festive looking feta mix - feta cheese with green onions, tomatoes, olive oil and oregano, served with oats crackers.

And then came the goat cheese with pickled thyme phyllo rolls that disappeared pretty quick.

 

A platter of humus covered with hot ground beef and roasted pine nuts smothered in hot olive oil and served with pita kept all going while the chicken roasted and the conversation flowed.

'jaaj mahshi' or stuffed chicken in Arabic is a very traditional Christmas eve meal. Way simpler than the North American turkey - you partially cook some rice, mix with ground beef, roasted pine nuts and almonds, stuff and roast.

The rice comes out with a unique taste and texture that no stove cooked rice can match.

Asking my brother what best to serve with this, he recommended a festive potato salad with middle-eastern dressing of olive oil and lemon juice.

It was made with boiled potatoes with chopped tomatoes, red peppers, green peppers and parsley.

Can one get more festive than this?

Of course one could!

A beautiful Anita "buche de noel" - white cake roll with orange chunks covered with a delicious cream cheese frosting.

A very memorable Christmas eve, but the most fun was had by cats opening his new toys.

 

Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, Fröhliche Weihnachten, ميلاد مجيد

Gift Making @ somerville kitchen

Forget about shopping and crowds, the best gifts are those made with care and love. The card, a print from a Marwan Khoury original (details at artistwebsites.com) was just the start.

But shopping could not be completely eliminated all together since the amount of planned baking required a multitude of trips.

Three days of baking resulted in packing up many goodies to be included in gift baskets to friends and neighbours.

Those were:


Chocolate chips rum balls, wrapped in the cutest small Christmas bags (see recipe at Holiday Baking) 

Mom's cookies wrapped in long skinny bags to accommodate the snowmen (see recipe at Mom's Cookies).

 

And not to forget the somerville kitchen Christmas Cake (see recipe at Festive Cake).

Two local specialty stores got my business to enhance the gift baskets. 

The first is Shaktea. 


With their exotic new teas that appeared right in time for Christmas, it was difficult to restrain from trying some of those teas on my adventurous pallets' friends.

The second is European Specialty Importers on 220 Prior Street in Vancouver.

This German store goes crazy at Christmas with the most delicious imported Christmas German specialties.

More on their Christmas products at Christmas Gifting.


And the last chores of Christmas done, now I am all set to enjoy the holiday.

Merry Christmas!

Early Christmas

Yes, the first official Christmas dinner and it was delicious!

Not only did our hostess prepare a lovely meal, but her organization skills are amazing. Guests showed up to a clean kitchen, all pots already washed, and dinner organized in platters and kept warm.

Festive looking salad kicked off the evening - lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, mushrooms, crab and goat cheese. So fancy.

The turkey was moist and the stuffing, what can I say, pleasantly addictive.

The potatoes well creamed and a delicious mashed yams with chunky carrots. Those yams were so sweet one thought there was sugar or syrup added to the mix, but it was just the natural sweetness of the roots.

And of course gravy with large, not overcooked mushrooms. Only magic can keep those mushrooms so fresh and solid, yet well cooked and soaked in the gravy.


And then came dessert.




An Anita Christmas log - chocolate roll, filled with freshly made white cream and cherries and decorated with marzipan mushrooms. The log was just under 2 feet long; so good that with only five diners it was all gone.

Thank you Laura!

Break From Feasting Soup

After three days of baking (and tasting) and gearing up for three Christmas dinner festivities, the shortest day of the year necessitated the lightest meal of the season.

Into Best of International Cooking book I dove and over to Spain I flipped for a very basic vegetable soup from Spain.

So easy...

Saute green onions, add beef stock or broth (you can easily make it with a vegetable broth too) and boil.

Now add shredded cabbage, peppers, carrots and potatoes, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

After that, add tomatoes cut in quarters and peas, simmer another 8 to 10 minutes and you are ready for a major stomach-body-friendly meal.

For more body and flavour, I added some fresh-from-an-Ontario-jardin special lovage, a gift from a special person.

And now I can let the Christmas feeding festivities begin....

 

Mom's Cookies for Christmas

Mom used to make those cookies when we were kids and they bring back childhood memories. 

She calls them "healthy biscuits" in her recipe book . And I used her recipe to make Christmas cookies today.

According to the blog's stats, three percent of those of you reading the blog every day can probably follow mom's original Arabic recipe on the left.

For all the rest, here is the translated version for you to experiment with. But before you start, this is a messy, not straight-forward recipe and requires lots of manual labour and time.

But on a vacation day like today, me and cats had all the time in the world to make cookies and clean the mess afterwards.

So here you go...

1. Mix 4 cups flour, 3 tsp baking powder and 1.5 cups sugar.

2. With your hands, crumble in 1 cup butter.

3. Add grated orange (or lemon) zest, 1 tsp vanilla and 4 eggs already well mixed.

4. Knead for 15 minutes until all turns to dough.

Now roll the dough in between sheets of wax paper and cut into the shapes you want.

My mother would typically use a drinking glass to cut circles. But it is Christmas and I want to show off all those interesting molds I have.

And the challenges begun.
 

Very quickly I realized that I needed to change the wax paper after each roll.

The dough was too buttery that some molds simply would not lift well. I had snowmen with chopped heads, trees with no trunks, stars with one side chopped off, and on and on.

I found out very quickly that the easiest way to do this is to (a) roll the dough on the thick side and (b) use simple molds (like the shape of a mitten).

Baking was the easiest part of these cookies.

Just put the cookies on ungreased cookie sheets and bake in a 350 oven for 10 minutes.

If your cookies are on the thin side, drop down the time to 9 minutes or so. If the cookies are on the thick side, then leave them in closer to 12 minutes.

Once out of the oven, transfer off the cookie sheet within 5 minutes so they don't stick.

Three hours later, dozens of those cookies were made (minus a dozen that I ate along the way).

And with no help from cats.

Now my Christmas baking is all done and time to start eating and feasting. Stay tuned.

Festive Cake Recipe For You

This is not your traditional Christmas cake, but a fail-proof recipe that I have been making for close to 30 years. It is unique, it lasts for few weeks and easy to make.

It all begins with lots of shopping. And since I wanted to gift some of them, I quadrupled my shopping.

The best quality & value for all you need for this cake is at Famous Foods (1595 Kingsway in Vancouver).

Prepare mixture "Fruit"

2 cups shredded coconut
1.5 cups candied cherries
1.5 cups candied pineapples
1.5 cups light raisins
1.5 cups almonds
1 cup flour

All mixed together, put aside. (I also added a bit of candied orange peels).

Prepare mixture "Flour"

1.75 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Prepare "Batter"

Cream 1 cup butter and 2 cups sugar
Add 4 eggs one at a time

Now add to "Batter" the "Flour" mixture gradually alternating with 1 cup of pineapple juice.

Blend in the "Fruit" mixture and mix all very well. You will end up with a beautiful cake batter ready to bake.

Baking it is a process on its own. Grease a 9" X 6" loaf pan, line it with foil paper and grease the foil paper as well.

In the oven, have a pot of hot water and keep it in throughout the baking period (not sure why, but it works).

Bake at 275 for 2.5 - 3 hours, until nicely brown on top.

Let it cool down, then pull it out and peel the foil paper off. 

It comes out perfectly easy, no mess and fuss and it is ready to serve right there and then or wrap well and keep in a cool place.

While the cakes lined up nice and proper, the mess the production created was not as lined up and nice.

Now quadrupling the recipe I have here created a lot of batter that I ran out of pans.

Into cupcakes the leftovers went. They bake slightly faster (close to 1.5 hours).





Wonder which follower will be the fist to bake this before Christmas? Enjoy.