Friday, December 26, 2008

Xmas eve

xmas cake ii

I worked on Christmas so we decided to do our presents on Christmas eve. We planned to eat our dinner at Jamjuree after Rachael's 5:30 Mass at St James, then go back to Annie's house to eat cake and open presents.

snowy sidewalk
The weather intervened, though, and I ended up trudging through the snow, with a knapsack full of presents and a 4.15kg Christmas cake, the 2 1/2 miles to Annie's house. Fortunately, Rachael met me partway and took over the cake.

Once I got there and left off my packages, Rachael and I went back to the store to get stuff for me to fix us dinner. Rachael wanted fettucine alfredo (which, when it was too late, it turned out Annie doesn't like), and in addition I made this nice Christmas salad:
xmas salad

Christmas Salad

For the dressing:
2T each olive oil and red wine vinegar
salt, pepper, and mustard flour

For the salad:
a small red onion, thinly sliced into rings
a red pear, cored and sliced into thin wedges
a handful of dandelion leaves, or other strongly-flavored but tender greens, torn into bite-sized pieces
a red grapefruit, supremed
a couple of cara cara oranges (pinkish navels) or, better, blood oranges, supremed
6oz green olives, pitted (I got Castelvetrano olives for their bright color)

Whisk the dressing ingredients together in a medium bowl, then add the onion slice and stir them around. Let them rest in the dressing getting limp while you prepare the other ingredients. After they've limpened up, transfer them to another bowl and add the pear slices to the dressing and stir them around.

Spread the dandelion leaves on a platter, and dribble a little dressing over them. Artfully arrange the pears on top, then add the onions. Toss the citrus in the remaining dressing, then add to the salad. Finally, carefully stud with pretty green olives.

1 comment:

joannamauselina said...

Works of art~ even the sidewalk.