Our Lovely {Belated} Christmas Meal {cauliflower, yams, lemon and sage roast chicken}

Such beautiful snow these days.

I had a wonderful afternoon preparing for this 

dinner.

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I must say however that my good friend brought over

the best cheese ball I have yet to taste

and I failed to get a picture of it.

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Suffice to say that GF bagel chips and the cheese ball

were enjoyed by all before the actual meal began.

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So about this meal...

I made my Ottawa Ukrainian Mother's 

breaded cauliflower for our Christmas meal.

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Here's the recipe:

1. Boil cauliflower (whole), so it becomes softer, but not too soft.

2. Cut on smaller pieces

3. have eggs in one bowl (start with 3 and beat them) and 

breadcrumbs or cornmeal to its mix in other bowl

4. dip cauliflower in breadcrumbs first, in eggs after. Do it 2 times.

5. fry it. The best result will be if you fry it in butter or oil and butter.

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The cauliflower was soft enough for me to easily cut

off the end of it and break them into smaller florets,

but not so soft that it was at all disintegrating. 

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I used cornmeal so that it was GF and added one or two eggs

as I went along.

It is surprisingly thick egg with cornmeal but when it fries up

it looks like slightly burnt roasted cauliflower and 

the breading is just right.

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I choose to fry it in ghee

as I knew it would not cause smoke issues while frying.

It worked really well; I did find that between

all the dishes I had in the oven (4 others)

and the two pans of frying cauliflower that

I opened the windows for a little bit to clear the air of

the added heat and food smells.

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It worked wonderfully and was very much 

enjoyed by our guests.

We used my Grandma's dishes for the Christmas meal.

The fried cauliflower was great on our white platter.

It's a great dish as it's texture is more

firm and with a nice light crunch.

We used a very special Romanian wine for our Christmas meal,

one that I was given over a year ago by dear 

friends in Ottawa.

We had a Romanian at our meal who 

asked where I got it from and said that it was

indeed a very good wine.

It was greatly enjoyed!

I also served a green salad, 

baked carrots with an orange and ginger glaze,

GF stuffing,

and the cranberry and yam dish 

(I will blog about how I made this later this week DV).

I made a lemon and sage chicken

that was roasted, basting once with the juices.

Recipe inspired from this one.

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Here is how I did it:

I cut up a large onion

and place the onion inside the chicken with much of the sage, 

and a little lemon.

Under the skin was lemon slices, sage and garlic.

I put butter on the skin...

Onion was around everywhere, spilling out and wedged in 

by the wings.

 After buttering the chicken, 

lemon juice was poured over the chicken,

before I put minced garlic and more salt and pepper on the top of 

the chicken before pouring around half a cup of chicken stock

in the pan after the chicken was already in the pan,

ready to be roasted. 

It was roasted at 450 F for about 30 or so minutes.

Then I turned the oven down to 375F and put back the 

already partially baked stuffing, carrots and yams,

all covered in tin foil

(other than the chicken).

These all stayed in the oven for perhaps a hour or less.

It was a lovely and very festive meal.

Cheesecake followed with a mint tea with rose petals

and coffee.

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Much talking, discussing and laughter was present...

life with all of it's joys and hopes were there,

with friendships deepening and 

talk of church, priests and family interweaving in 

the conversation as the meal was enjoyed by all.