December 18, 2011 Christmas party prep and cheap eats.

December 18, 2011 Christmas party prep and cheap eats.

Sunday turned out to be a very active day.

Let me set the stage by giving you my tentative Christmas Eve Menu and then you will see how we put in motion the steps to complete the dishes. 

Christmas Open House menu (proposed December 4, 2011)

Baked Hubbard Squash garnished with Ricotta salata, toasted hazelnuts and sage

Tapa -  artichoke hearts, English peas, ham, pimiento and saffron

Green tomato chutney cream cheese spread

Florence's Shrimp mold

gravad lax

White beans and baby clams

olive medley

Cheese board

asparagus

Roasted Turnips and beets

pork tenderloin stuffed with a cherry and onion glaze

Roasted Winter fruits (cranberries, apples, and pears) with fresh thyme

I started by putting the 7 ½ lb Hubbard Squash in the oven at 350°F for about 1 ½ hrs. while I watched the Sunday Morning CBS show and Fareed Zakaria on CNN.  Then we removed the soft inner pulp and seeds and cut the flesh off the hard outer skin and put that in a roasting pan and checked our olive situation and decided we had enough green cracked and kalamatas but needed more dried black olives, because ours had dried out during the last year of storage in the basement.  .

Shortly after 10:00a.m. we jumped into the Land Cruiser with our six cases of wine bottles for recycling and drove first to Lowe’s and bought one-half head of red cabbage for the German meatball dish and a green bell pepper and tomato complete the ingredients necessary to make Mother’s Van Cliburn Shrimp mold.  Then we drove to Whole Foods where we looked at beans again and bought a bag of white cannelini beans and a can of artichoke hearts in water for the pea, ham and pimiento tapa and hazelnuts for the roasted Hubbard squash dish. We then went to the recycling dumpsters behind the Walmart store on Carlisle to dump our boxes of empty wine bottles and finally drove to Costco at around 11:30 a.m. for lunch and more shopping. 

Costco serves my favorite food in Albuquerque for $2.00 or less.  I ordered the Polish dog and a cold drink for $1.50 and Suzette ordered a slice of pizza for $2.00.  I eat my hot dog open faced by sprinkling onions, relish, mustard and catsup on the bun on both sides of the dog and then cutting the hot dog in half to yield two open faced sandwiches, which I eat with a knife and fork.  A filling lunch that is hot, sweet, tart, and sour with fresh tangy chopped onion.

After lunch we shopped for party ingredients.  We bought pork tenderloins, sour cream, cream cheese, brie, Saint Andre, and Dubliner cheeses for the cheese board.  I picked up 9 bottles of Pennywise Pinot Noir 2009 and bottles of the Leese-Fitch Sauvignon Blanc 2010 and some candy for the piñata at Suzette’s staff Christmas party on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 a few other items like sponges and Breton crackers for cheese. 

We decided to ask the Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery to bake six loaves of French bread for the party.

At around 1:00 p.m. we drove home and I took a quick shower and dressed for the play at the Filling Station at 2:00 p.m.  After the play we went to the Pupuseria on

Bridge Street

with Mimi and Max and Richard and Joan to eat Salvadorean food.  The Pupuseria is another one of the ethnic food gems in Albuquerque where you can get great inexpensive food.  Although the menu is extensive with lots of platters with meat dishes such as chicken asado and sautéed fish served on a platter with a baked potato, refried beans, rice, salad and a sauce and plantain tajada, if you ask at $10.00, I always gravitate to the pupusa menu.  Pupusas are thin corn pancakes with a filling stuffed inside of two walls of toasted corn meal.  My favorite is spinach with cheese and second favorite is beans and chorizo.  The pupusas are served with a bowl of tangy pickled cabbage, carrot and green chili.  The pupusas cost $2.50 each.  Also on the menu are vegetable and fruit juices.  The juices are made fresh in the restaurant and served in tall malt glasses with ice and cost $3.00 each.  Suzette and I each ordered a spinach and cheese pupusa and split a glass of orange and carrot juice for a total for dinner of $10.00 including a 25% tip and went home full.

When we arrived at home at around 6:30 p.m. I decided to make the Van Cliburn Shrimp mold and Suzette started packing Christmas Gifts for mailing to Luke and her family. I also realized that I had forgotten to flip the gravid lax, so I flipped it at 7:00 p.m. and we decided to pull it from the marinade at 10:00 a.m. on Monday for a 48 hour curing. 

We got the shrimp mold into the refrigerator just after 8:00 p.m., just in time to watch the beginning of two episodes of Masterpiece Theater’s presentation of Downton Abbey.  We were a little hungry by 9:00 p.m. so I made us each two sandwiches.  I spread German Deli mustard mixed with a little horseradish on German fullkorns Museli bread and on one slice layered Gelbwurst Veal Bologna and on the other the coarse braunsweiger. We drank a beer with the sandwiches.

So I felt that we had had a full day, with shopping, cooking, watching a live performance and eating two wonderful inexpensive meals at my two favorite cheap eats restaurants.  We are in the midst of prep for the Christmas Eve party and I could not be happier.  I finally have gotten the Christmas spirit from cooking and shopping.  If you are reading this blog and have not been invited to our Christmas Eve Open House, consider yourself invited.  Your admission is to say you saw the invite on the blog.

Bon Appètit.