No Fuss

I don't know about you, but I have seen so many christmas dinner ideas on the internet that I feel full, even before I had an actual celebration dinner. Last night my mother and I enjoyed some quality time together with some fresh food and managed to get a festive night between the two of us, without feeling the next morning like we ate an entire pig. In fact that's how I have been making food decisions for the last two weeks now. Here are some of the things i managed to get on camera:

The dish below is my variation on a local winter dish called hutsepot, which is basically a stew from different kinds of meat and vegetables and not to be confused with the dutch dish called hutspot, which is in essence a mash of potatoes and carrots. I made mine with bacon, instead of the usual variety of stock meats, this allows the dish to be made quicker and in smaller quantities. The winter vegetables I used were brussels sprouts and turnips as well as some celery and potato. 

Some tacos with some stir-fried vegetables, turkey breast and avocado. Its not like one can buy corn tortillas here, and I knew that ahead of time, so I managed to bring over a tortilla press from NY as well as some masa seca. When that runs out however, I guess I will have to make my own. In fat I am drying some field corn from the late fall now, so when the time comes, I'll let you all know how that goes. 

For the casual sandwich I made some vegetable spread, simply by putting some cooked white beans, the rest of my stir-fry and avocado in the blender with some salt. That turned out really great and I definitely recommend trying it. 

Of course some christmas gifts had to be made also. I was able to fill these cookies with my grandmother's jam btw, isn't that a nice collaboration?

Simple vegetable stock. I used the bottom and outer leaves of both a fennel and a celery, two small onions cut in big chunks, some whole cloves of garlic, a bay leaf, some thyme springs and some whole black peppercorns and salt. I ended up using it for baking a local fish called Brill with some lemon juice and a coarsely chopped shallot and some jerusalem artichoke. These root vegetables are low in starch and go lovely with seafood. 

To go with the brill, I made a variation on Heidi's wintersquash salad and some brusselssprouts "cole slaw" with toasted pumpkin seeds, kohlrabi and a dressing of apple cider, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. I also added some home dried apple. 

Did you notice the heart in the dried apple? I sliced the apple first and then sued a cookie cutter to take the seed house out. I think they made a super cute garnish as well as a decoration for around the stem of a champagne glass.