My Christmas Dinner 2005

Thanks to my friends and blog friends all over the world, my Christmas 2005 was a very calm, warm and fulfilling one. Especially the dinner was very fulfilling -- cholesterol-wise! Many of you might pity me for having Christmas dinner alone every year, but the good thing about it is that I can make/eat whatever I want without being branded a deviant. To me Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner are the best opportunities to give myself a permission to try the food I’ve always wanted to try “someday.” But it was surprising that picking “my favorites” for the menu ended up in such a “cholesterol-rich” dinner! ;P (I’m seriously thinking about somehow getting trans-fat free margarine or shortening by next year’s Christmas to substitute butter with.) * If you are living in Japan now and looking for a way to buy trans-fat-free shortening, here’s a news. I finally, FINALLY! found an online shopping site (Japanese) where you can order “Crisco 0 Gram Trans Fat Shortening.” They just added the product to their catalogue on Dec 22, 2005. At this point, this could be the only way to have the trans-fat-free shortening delivered to your address in Japan (unless, of course, you have friends/family in the U.S. to buy the shortening and send it to you), because other sites including Foreign Buyers Club and Super@mart do not seem to have this product. The price?.... Oh, well…. It ＃＄＊※□. Read More Anyway, these are what I enjoyed on Christmas Eve this year after my work at the izakaya. (Click to enlarge the photos with "*" mark. *Appetizers: Chicken liver paste is my favorite, but it's a hard-to-find item around here, so I made it myself. And I learned a lesson in a hard way: My cheap electric blender is not suitable for making chicken liver paste! I’m 100% sure that I was the only person in the entire world who was making chicken liver paste using a mortar and a pestle on Christmas Eve. :( Salmon roe tasted better with cream cheese than garlic cream cheese. *Main dish: Baked Orange Rum Chicken Drumsticks. The recipe was from an old, small booklet, “Bacardi Party Book” which has been at the bottom of my recipe box for more than 10 years. Though not called for in the recipe, I added a little balsamic vinegar and brown sugar as hidden ingredients, and sprinkled a pinch of ground cardamom all over before baking. *Veggies: Veggie sticks and Tofu-Avocado Dip. This was a relatively guilt-free part on the table. ;) The cherry tomatoes were stuffed with chicken liver paste, garlic cream cheese and tofu-avocado dip. (To ripen the rock-hard, unripe avocados that I bought at a supermarket, I placed them next to an apple and kept them in kotatsu heater. I know. Call me crazy… but you know what? It worked!!) Drinks: I started with a small (187 mL) bottle of Freixenet Cordon Negro. This dry, not-too-expensive sparkling wine became my favorite this year. How I loved watching the tiny bubbles rising in the glass near the candle light! After that, I tried Moscow mule, because I had one lime left from making lime shortbread and vodka left from the memorable nashi-infused vodka attempt ;) Sweets! *This year I fully appreciated the recipe contributions by fellow foodbloggers all over the world! I tried out three cookie recipes from the Holiday Cookie Swap: Coconut Cranberry Cookies (to use up the dried cranberries left from Thanksgiving dinner), Browned Butter Crisps and Lime Shortbread Cookies (from Cookie Swap 2004). They were all so delicious! Thanks Jillian, Emily and Linda for sharing these great recipes. *Another big hit was a Soft Ginger Cookies recipe I found on the net. Since my last year’s not-so-successful attempts, I had been obsessed with the idea of “big, soft, chewy ginger cookies with cracked tops.” After a frantic net search, I finally found this recipe, and the moment I saw these photos, I knew it was exactly the one I wanted. Yes, this recipe truly deserves a five-star rating! :D I made matcha (ground green tea) cookies again because their green color and a little bitter matcha taste were something I didn't want to miss. Gingerbread people’s recipe was the same one as last year, but the mistake I made this year was using full-flavored molasses for the amount that the recipe called for. I loved the dark brown color which contrasted well with the icing, but the taste was too strong for me. Next year I’ll definitely substitute half of the molasses amount with honey. *Now, what about my Christmas fruitcake?!! When I took it out from fridge and unwrapped it in the morning, I was kind of horrified with its dark color. Then I tasted it, and really hated myself again for using the full-flavored molasses. Its strong flavor just ruined everything, I thought at that moment. OMG, after all those preparations which actually started a couple of months back, did I make a garbage? But when I tasted another slice at the dinner, after leaving the cake on the table all day, I was surprised!! The annoying molasses flavor was gone, and the moist – almost creamy – texture of the cake with a nice liquor flavor coming from fruit bits was just so heavenly. And the cake went so well with the drinks!! *I was crazy. I tried out another cake recipe, because when I picked up the soft ginger cookie recipe mentioned above, this cake recipe was also on the same site (something like “special Christmas features”) and I just couldn’t resist the temptation. My big mistake was downsizing the recipe to half, not 1/3 or 1/4. For my small bundform mold, the batter was still too much. It rose and flooded while baking, filling up the center hole of the mold, too. Maybe the mold couldn’t get hot enough because of that…? The side of the cake didn’t turn brown no matter how long I baked, and I finally gave up. The taste was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo great, though. The refreshing maraschino cherries in cream cheese poundcake. Ahhh….!! * So, as you can see, my Christmas 2005 was full of sweetness (sugar), richness (fat) and love. :) My email inbox was flooded with kind wishes from friends in and outside Japan, and my heart was certainly filled with warmth all the time, even when I was working at the izakaya on the nights of 24th and 25th. I hope everyone -- literally everyone on the face of the earth -- had a heart-warming and joyous Christmas this year.