Family dinner redux
Dec. 27th, 2008 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adelheid_pEverything went remarkably well. I had help with side dishes and dessert from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dergeis' family members and one of his sisters did the dishes! Everyone raved about my ham aka meat of death by oxymoron67. I used this recipe for Ham Cooked in Beer and the beer I chose was Sam Adams Winter Lager. I also studded the top (fatty side up) with cloves in addition to the pineapple slices and placed it in an oven bag as I don't have a covered roaster and I had one leftover from cooking the Thanksgiving turkey (there are always two to a box). In addition, I used a probe thermometer and cooked it to an internal temperature of 140 deg F. (dergeis believes this was the key.) It came out very moist and did not have a detectable beer flavor at all. I put it in the preheated 325 deg F oven at about 7 am and it was done by 11 am (this was an 18 lb bone-in ham). I had anticipated a six hour cooking time and it was done in two-thirds of the time. People were expected to start arriving at 1 pm. I took advantage of the open oven time to cook two unstuffed Cornish hens seasoned inside and out with Penzey's Ozark seasoning and placed them breast side down to keep the breast meat moist. One was for amg04 who doesn't like ham, the other is for me at some not too distant date. I popped the ham back in to warm up after the hens were done. While the ham was resting from it's second time in the oven, we popped in the cheesy potatoes (this might be the recipe that my mother-in-law uses) that were brought as a side dish and I micro-cooked fresh green beans and heated canned sweet potatoes for dergeis who doesn't like regular potatoes on the stove with brown sugar and cinnamon. We also had Swedish Limpa Rye bread which was made by my mother-in-law. I don't know what recipe she uses as she's been making it nearly since I've known dergeis. (Edit: Actually, I have the recipe somewhere around here if anyone comments that they want it. I was trying to find a way to make a reasonable bread machine facsimile as the original recipe bread is too dense for my bread machine.) Luckily it was a gorgeous, unseasonably warm day and the kids (my younger nieces and nephew) had fun going up into our back yard and finding a bunch of golf balls (our far back yard borders a golf course and we're in line with the driving range). What was nice is that things progressed at an easy pace. I had cut veggies and dip and cookies out to munch on, someone else brought beverages, we visited and ate and visited some more and then we had a leisurely time opening gifts. dergeis' family had long ago decided to choose names at Thanksgiving so that each adult in the family only bought one gift for another adult. And it is the responsibility of the gift receiver to submit a list of desired items within the set price range from which the gift giver would choose one or a number to total of the max dollars in the range. All the nieces and nephews get gifts from the aunts and uncles but some day when they all grow up, I think that will change too. Everyone gets something they asked for, and no one goes broke buying presents. We visited a bit more and my sister-in-law, Beth, had seen one of the origami crane and glass bead ornaments that I had made and I showed her how to make the crane and sent her a link to the website with the animated tutorial for making origami birds that I used. Everyone kept saying what a good time they had. Although I was busy most of the morning, I didn't feel too frazzled. I'm tired now and happy that it's over but I'm glad it went well.
dergeis' family members and one of his sisters did the dishes! Everyone raved about my ham aka meat of death by oxymoron67. I used this recipe for Ham Cooked in Beer and the beer I chose was Sam Adams Winter Lager. I also studded the top (fatty side up) with cloves in addition to the pineapple slices and placed it in an oven bag as I don't have a covered roaster and I had one leftover from cooking the Thanksgiving turkey (there are always two to a box). In addition, I used a probe thermometer and cooked it to an internal temperature of 140 deg F. (dergeis believes this was the key.) It came out very moist and did not have a detectable beer flavor at all. I put it in the preheated 325 deg F oven at about 7 am and it was done by 11 am (this was an 18 lb bone-in ham). I had anticipated a six hour cooking time and it was done in two-thirds of the time. People were expected to start arriving at 1 pm. I took advantage of the open oven time to cook two unstuffed Cornish hens seasoned inside and out with Penzey's Ozark seasoning and placed them breast side down to keep the breast meat moist. One was for amg04 who doesn't like ham, the other is for me at some not too distant date. I popped the ham back in to warm up after the hens were done. While the ham was resting from it's second time in the oven, we popped in the cheesy potatoes (this might be the recipe that my mother-in-law uses) that were brought as a side dish and I micro-cooked fresh green beans and heated canned sweet potatoes for dergeis who doesn't like regular potatoes on the stove with brown sugar and cinnamon. We also had Swedish Limpa Rye bread which was made by my mother-in-law. I don't know what recipe she uses as she's been making it nearly since I've known dergeis. (Edit: Actually, I have the recipe somewhere around here if anyone comments that they want it. I was trying to find a way to make a reasonable bread machine facsimile as the original recipe bread is too dense for my bread machine.) Luckily it was a gorgeous, unseasonably warm day and the kids (my younger nieces and nephew) had fun going up into our back yard and finding a bunch of golf balls (our far back yard borders a golf course and we're in line with the driving range). What was nice is that things progressed at an easy pace. I had cut veggies and dip and cookies out to munch on, someone else brought beverages, we visited and ate and visited some more and then we had a leisurely time opening gifts. dergeis' family had long ago decided to choose names at Thanksgiving so that each adult in the family only bought one gift for another adult. And it is the responsibility of the gift receiver to submit a list of desired items within the set price range from which the gift giver would choose one or a number to total of the max dollars in the range. All the nieces and nephews get gifts from the aunts and uncles but some day when they all grow up, I think that will change too. Everyone gets something they asked for, and no one goes broke buying presents. We visited a bit more and my sister-in-law, Beth, had seen one of the origami crane and glass bead ornaments that I had made and I showed her how to make the crane and sent her a link to the website with the animated tutorial for making origami birds that I used. Everyone kept saying what a good time they had. Although I was busy most of the morning, I didn't feel too frazzled. I'm tired now and happy that it's over but I'm glad it went well.
