11th Day of Christmas

Chocolate and Chai tea was my fuel for the day ;)

A good friend brought the cheese platter for the hors d'oeuvres.

Cleo was ready for the party!

Everyone had a place setting tag.

I worked hard trying to arrange people in a good table setting! 

The beef roast turned out well!

Used this recipe, had talked to a lady at our local church about 

how to do a pot roast and her verbal instructions were very helpful...

brown the meat, use butter, (I added a bit of extra virgin olive oil at the end), 

cook for a good long while, at least 2 hours. 

Then, an hour before the meal, add the vegetables.

Don't add strait wine, it will burn, add water first.

For whatever reason, the beef roast recipes were seeming a bit

incomprehensible to me. 

Once I heard her speak of it, it all made sense.

I added only pearl onions, already peeled from our grocery delivery service,

added about 3 cups (3/4th of the Cabernet Sauvignon bottle) of wine.

(The additional wine was based on reading Julia Child's cookbook and a recipe

that called for 5 cups of wine, though some of it boiled down by half).

I added 2 cups to start, with some water first.

Used my best flake salt and pepper. 

Sprinkled thyme, marjoram and basil on top, according to the recipe.

I cooked it in my Dutch oven, covered the whole time.

I wanted lots of left overs so I added 1lb of organic stewing beef

on the sides surrounding the beef roast.

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My goal, as funny as this sounds, was to have

a lot of left overs for easy meals for the rest of Jan-February

so that I can do other things...

Since I had St. Basil's bread,

I had his icon with a candle lit on the buffet as well. 

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Menu in full:

~Cheese platter

~Roast beef with red potatoes and carrots, with pearl onions, spices and red wine

~Mashed potatoes (pre-made via grocery delivery service)

~Cranberry stuffing (also premade)

~Salad that A. brought

~Hot fruit salad, made day of

~St. Basil's bread (N. got the coin, happy for her!)

~Cheesecake with caramel sauce and chocolate bourbon sauce 

~Tea: my guests choose Lemongrass Tea and English Breakfast

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It was a good 11th day of Christmas and I thank God for

everyone who was able to be at our table this year!