to custard or not to custard

I love dinner parties.  I love scouring the internet and poring through cookbooks to come up with the perfect menu that is both easy and impressive.  And holiday dinner parties are even better.  More special.  More glittery.  But holiday dinners are my mom's domain - she's the matriarch of the family so holidays are always celebrated at her house.  I was raised Unitarian Universalist and while we celebrate Christmas, Christmas Eve was always an afterthought.  We don't go to church, we don't have gobs of family to visit, we open presents in the morning, the big dinner with roasted meat is on Christmas Day.  Christmas Eve was for reading 'Twas The Night Before Christmas and that's about it.  So I created an event out of Christmas Eve dinner as something to do - and as a reason for me to be in control of a holiday dinner.  What can I say?  I like being hostess.

I have my menu all planned out.  Brie & crackers to start (probably heated up with pears and/or almonds on top, though not en croute).  Crab & spinach lasagna, roasted Brussels sprouts and a green salad for dinner.  And a pear tart tatin with vanilla ice cream for dessert.

And that's where the custard dilemma comes in.

I have an ice cream maker.  My sister got it for me for Christmas a few years ago and I love it to death, but have only made ice cream once.  I hate making custards and apparently I didn't have everything cold enough because it froze up too hard (though still tasted great).  But I have this ice cream maker!  I should use it!

So I did some research.  If I chill the base properly and let it age in the fridge for 24 hours, it should mix up properly and not become a brick.  If I serve it after freezing for just a few hours, it should be fine either way (though my leftovers will possibly still be rock-hard).  If I add some gelatin or anywhere from a teaspoon to a tablespoon of vodka, it should help it stay scoopable.

But there's still the problem of having to make a custard.  Then I found this recipe from Williams Sonoma (I always have luck with their recipes).  Philadelphia-style ice cream made without eggs.  Oooooooooh.

After more research, I learned that this is how Breyer's Natural Vanilla (the type with the bean specks) is made.  And my sister and my mom really like Breyer's.  But I like Ben & Jerry's and Haagen Dazs better, both of which are made with eggs (and thus probably a custard). 

I don't know what my brother-in-law prefers so am going to assume he's like my niece and would be happy with either.

So should I make the Philadelphia-style ice cream?  Or should I buy a custard-based (or French-style) one?

Making my own ice cream will have to start tonight with freezing the machine and all that.  It will be one more thing for me to do on Christmas Eve day (though really, I could prep the lasagna the night before).  Buying a pint would be a heck of a lot easier and probably will taste better, but it won't be as rewarding.  But I'm often too ambitious and end up running late when entertaining.  Would be nice to be able to not have to spend the whole day cooking.  Or rearrange my freezer to make room for the machine.

I can't decide.  I'm going grocery shopping tonight and will decide on the fly.

What Would Debbie Do? My mom's house for Thanksgiving

First in an occasional series on how I would redecorate a space

As I touched on in my last post, the Thanksgiving table at my mom's house is a bit random.  A cramped table, too many dishes, a mish-mosh of serving dishes and tablecloth that has been washed one too many times.  Quality linen it is not.

Her china was her mom's, but isn't some special family heirloom.  Nope - it was a giveaway the local bank was doing.  Make a deposit and get a piece of china.  It's not the prettiest stuff in the world, but my grandparents didn't have a lot of money.  And when my mom inherited it, she and my dad didn't have a lot of money.  So even though she's always thought it ugly, it's always been on the table.  Beggars can't be choosers and all, right?

Well, now my mom is in a more comfortable place.  Not enough to go out and buy new china, but you know, she isn't really a china person anyway.  She wants to be, but she's not.  She's stoneware - Fiestaware, to be exact.  She already has a few pieces of it in cobalt and always likes expanding on her collection so I'm going to help her along.

I'll start with a dark purple tablecloth from World Market with matching napkins

The rich colors are still autumnal but will go better with her dishes than the green.  And it's cheap, which is great considering she'll only use it once a year.  Veering a little from tradition which is unsettling for my mom, but I think she'll really like the outcome. 

Then I'll complete her set of cobalt Fiesta dinner plates.  Thanksgiving is a more-the-merrier event so let's give her a total of 16 plates. 

I'm tempted to mix and match a bit, but it's easier to just stick with all cobalt and then she can easily keep expanding after I've finished with this little blog post.

So let's replace some of her tired dishes.  The light turquoise one?  Yeah, it's been passed down, but I don't think it's heirloom quality and is too light for the winter holidays.  Fiesta has a very nice pedestal bowl that would be good in its place. 

Note: the colors in these pictures are all over the place, but they're all the same deep cobalt in real life

So now we have 16 cobalt plates and four cobalt serving dishes (counting the ones she already owns), it's time to shake things up a bit.  But I'm going simple and streamlined so I don't want to inroduce another color.  How about pewter?  My mom loves pewter, it will add some shine to the table and is a bit more rustic than actual silver so will go better with the Fiesta.  How about a couple Revere bowls?  A little expensive at $130 each for the 9" ones (and we might need bigger), but they're gorgeous.

Let's pull out the Jefferson cups she already has and buy some more to make a set and use those for wine.  They're a little more casual, a little more fun and since she already has footed water glasses, a nice contrast.

A pewter gravy boat (with it's own stand since when they're not attached they never end up back together) would round out our glitz requirement for the table.  Two would be necessary, one for either end of the table.

She already has a good selection of small Depression glass dishes that are great for things like cranberry sauce and olives and will add some nice sparkle.  They look fancy, but they originally were as dime store as the Fiestaware.  Love it.  And if we happened to find this one at a yard sale or antique store?  Well, I wouldn't complain.

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I really wanted to find a platter to replace the plain white one but couldn't find one I liked.  Oh well. 

I think these pieces would help my mom's Thanksgiving table better reflect her personality and she would be more likely to use them everyday.  After all, life isn't all about the holidays!

table centerpieces

I always drool over all the centerpieces displayed around Thanksgiving.  Tables full of flowers and twigs and leaves and mini pumpkins and votive candles.  So pretty!

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But where does the food go?  And what do you do with all those extra plates when you sit down to eat?  Does the host then have to shuttle them all back to the kitchen?

At my mom's house, there's the platter for the turkey.  Bowls full of mashed potatoes, stuffing, butternut squash, pearl onions, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce.  Bowls full of food guests brought - this year it will be Brussels sprouts, a rice dish and a green salad.  A basket of Parker House rolls.  Butter dishes.  Wine and water glasses.  Seriously - no room even for the smallest floral arrangement.  It is not a buffet house or a put-a-little-on-everyone's-plate-in-the-kitchen house.  It's family style and it rocks.  I actually did a whole blog about Thanksgiving at my mom's house a few years ago.  Here are a few pictures showing the crowd at the table:

Then at my house, my dining table is so ridiculously small that as soon as you put one platter on it, there's barely any room left for the plates.  And it's all so squished that it becomes a sea of white instead of clear against pattern.  I should just hang ribbons from the ceiling fan instead of fretting over my lack of a centerpiece (oooh - good idea for Christmas Eve!).  But candles or flowers would block the folks on the ends from being able to get to the food. 

So maybe all those pretty centepieces are from houses with large dining rooms, wide tables and no sideboards.  My dream house will definitely be that way!

dinner at the Mint Green House

I had my sister, brother-in-law and niece over for dinner Saturday night.  I was at the Co-Op on Friday and saw bags of clams for $6.99.  Cooking shows always scare me away from clams and mussels with suggestions to talk to your fishmonger or some other scary thought.  I like my grocery experience to be a bit impersonal - get in, get out, smile at familiar faces and say please and thank you to the cashier, but that's it.  I'm getting better at this, mostly due to the farmer's market and this fabulously talkative farmer, but it's a slow process.  So I'm always excited to find new food items just sitting out there waiting for me!

And clams are SO FREAKING EASY!  I may even talk to someone just to get them again.  Boil up some water & wine, toss the clams in and 5 minutes later?  Dinner.  Sure, I had to soak them for an hour, but I can do that and then go back to wasting time somewhere else.  I remembered too late hearing that one should toss some cornmeal in with the soaking clams so they'll spit out even more dirt, but they weren't too bad.  And I loved the freaky gurgles and bubbles they made.

Sides were leftover macaroni & cheese cupcakes, a loaf of sourdough bread and some green leafy bok choy-ish greens from the farmer's market.  I bought them two weeks ago, but they were still bright and crisp - probably because they were still covered in dirt.  Love getting food straight from the source.

I really like entertaining now that I have a good collection of dinnerware and serveware.  I set my table in less than 5 minutes.  Glasses were clean and in the cabinet, as were the platters and bowls, and the tablecloth was folded up in the dresser.  Reminds me how nice it is to be organized!

I pulled the orange chair up to the table for my niece because she likes to sit in big chairs (and I don't have a high chair for her).  I thought she'd be more likely to stay in her seat if it was one she liked.  Yeah, not so much.  But that's the good thing about having such a small house - she could run around while we ate.  She did sit there for a few moments at a time!

pictures by Alison Gary