(Almost) Southern Christmas Eve

Family's here and it's time to cook! We don't have any traditional Christmas Eve dishes in our family so it's pretty much anything goes.

I always like to start out with a soup. Easy to make ahead and keeps everyone busy while I finish off the rest of dinner. One of my favorites is cream of mushroom. It was something we made at the Culinary Institute boot camp and their recipe here is fairly similar to what I made.

I started by rendering four pieces of chopped bacon until crispy, saving the bacon for garnish and using the rendered fat to sautee a chopped medium onion, three cloves of garlic and three packages of eight-oz button mushrooms (hand-crumbled to speed cooking - it all goes in the blender anyway so no need for chopping). Once vegetables are beginning to soften, I added a tablespoon of flour, cooked for another minute then deglazed with 1/4 cup of Madeira. Finally added in a teaspoon of thyme, salt, pepper and about 6 cups of chicken stock and let it bubble away for an hour.

After it's cooked, I let it cool (one too many experiences with blenders and exploding scalding hot liquid) and run it through a blender (food processor or emulsion blender works fine too - I prefer a blender for a smooth soup). When ready to serve, add 1/2 cup cream and thin with water or stock to desired consistency. Garnish with a bit more cream and reserved bacon bits. Easy and very yum.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

Green beans were very straight forward. Blanch beans for five minutes, shock in ice water. Render a few pieces of bacon, remove the crispy bits for topping (seeing a theme here) and caramelize 1/2 a thinly slice onion in the fat. I also added a couple cloves thinly sliced garlic - slow sautee until brown and crispy. When everyone is seated and diving into the soup, reheat the green beans with the onions and garlic. Add a splash of balsamic at the end and salt and pepper to taste. Oh and don't forget to top with bacon.

Green Beans with Bacon

Another veg was collard greens. Paula Deen's recipe is perfect and very easy. I used a smoked turkey wing for the meat portion, let that cook for an hour. Added the cleaned, chopped collard, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper and bay leaf and cooked for another hour or two (pretty low maintenance, just keep enough liquid to keep the greens covered). Removed the turkey wing, shredded the meat, returned to the pot and finished with a splash of red wine vinegar. Make sure there's hot sauce on the table, greens love hot sauce.

Collard Greens

The meat was smoked chicken thighs and drumsticks finished in the oven. I brined the chicken in 1/4 cup brown sugar and a couple tablespoon sugar for a few hours. Patted it dry, sprinkled with rub and put it in my electric smoker skin side down for an hour at 225 degrees using a couple hunks of peach wood I purchased online (don't you just love the Internet?) After an hour in the smoker, brought it back in the house, put it on a baking rack and pan lined with foil, doused with more rub and continued to cook in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Flipped to skin side up at 500 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Add a bit of water to the bottom of the pan to prevent the rendering fat from smoking. This was adapted from one of my favorite recipes - spice rubbed picnic chicken recipe from America's Test Kitchen. I added the smoking step to the beginning for an added smoky flavor which I love but the recipe is fantastic as is.

Smoked Baked Chicken

Here's picture with everything on the table including a few baked potatoes I started cooking in the oven before the chicken went in and finished with the chicken. I can eat baked potatoes every day.

The Dinner

Mmm... baked potato. 

Partially Eaten Potato - Couldn't Wait

I don't cook dessert much but what the heck it's the holidays. I saw this ingredient macaroon recipe while flipping through Food and Wine and it looked easy enough. It was a breeze to throw together while everything else was cooking and very very impressive.

Easy and Impressive Macaroons