Redeeming Christmas Hellcation 2010.

I don't like mountains. Over Christmas, I got stuck in the mountains à cause de la SNOW.
I'm not doing Christmas in the snowy mountains ever again.

On Monday, when I finally made it back to Columbia, Clay and I did our own Christmas feast.  It was AMAZING.

 classic: balsamic & olive oil for dipping

The boy's pictorial debut on the blog.  He got me a hardback version of The Little Prince in French, Love in the Time of Cholera in Spanish, and a DVD copy of Children of Paradise which is this great classic French film.  It was easily one of the most thoughtful bunch of Christmas presents I've ever received.  Clay wins all the gold stars. 

 My default salad: baby spinach, goat cheese, toasted pine nuts, dried cranberries, & raspberry walnut dressing. I add a little balsamic in the dressing first before tossing. 

 Ina Garten's perfect roast chicken recipe, also known by Lydia and Clay as Magic Chicken: it. is. amazing. You just shove a lemon (quartered), garlic (halved horizontally, not vertically) & one bunch of thyme up a 5-6 pound roasting chicken's cavity.   Salt and pepper both sides, then place him on top of some carrots, fennel, and onion slices in a roasting pan. Brush chicken friend with some butter, then salt & pepper him again. 425 for an hour and a half.  Then you have magic chicken (and killer roasted carrots) 

 Magic chicken post deconstruction : his juices get EVERYWHERE but that's what makes him SO. GOOD. 

 I skipped the fennel and onion this time, but I think it's better with than without.  

I introduce to you: the best pie in the whole world ever. I'm not kidding you.  It's actually called a galette - it's a free form pie.  I got the recipe from Smitten Kitchen for a Blackberry Nectarine galette, gathered all the ingredients at Earth Fare, then remembered Clay has a taste aversion to peaches (peaches & nectarines are the same - one has fuzz, one doesn't. #SogladIstudiedHorticultureforayear). So I just tossed the whole back of frozen mixed berries in and it was killer.  The pate brisee turned out awesome - I used organic turbinado sugar crystals for everything instead of regular sugar and that was certainly fun. What makes this pie so great is the vanilla - WITH the fruit.  I Merry Christmased myself a new thing of Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla extract and then ate half the pie.  The vanilla with the berries is unexpected, warm, smoky, amazing.  For the pate brisee (pie crust) I used a regular hand mixer (food processor is usually the weapon of choice, but I don't have one) and did 1/4 tsp salt, 2 1/2 c all purpose flour, 1 tbs sugar, and 1 c butter.  You blend the dry stuff first, then pulse the butter (in little cubes) in with it until it looks kind of like crumbs. You pour in 1/4 - 1/2 c ice water, just enough for it to stick together to form a ball. Then you work it all into a nice ball, split that in half, then pat them into disks so when you pull them out of the freezer they'll roll nicely into your large circle crust.  For this galette, you just need one half of the pate brisee recipe (which needs to sit in the freezer for about an hour before you roll it).  While it's chilling, you toss 1/4 tsp vanilla (I think I put a tablespoon. That may have made the pie, actually), the berries (who knows how much there were, it was just a whole bag of Cascadian Farms mixed berries), 3 tbs flour (I substituted this for the corn starch) & 1/4 c sugar.  Stir it & let it sit for about 30 minutes so the juices get... juicy. Then you roll your chilled dough out to 12 inches diameter and put the berries in the middle. Beat up an egg and brush 2 inches of the inside of the dough, then you start to fold it up, using the egg as glue.  Brush the entire crust with egg, then sprinkle with sugar crystals.  Bake at 375 for 55 minutes and then you will die and go to heaven. It likes to be eaten with ice cream.  

 I didn't even know it tasted like heaven yet. I was just proud it didn't burn or crack or explode while baking. 

THE NEXT DAY for lunch I decided that I had to try the huevos rancheros recipe I had seen on Smitten Kitchen as well, and daaaang those were good too:

I'm going to use a corn tortilla next time - the flour tortilla was too big for the egg and the air pockets complicated things.  That recipe is here. And daaaanggggg if that isn't amazing food. It is totally appropriate for dinner - I was just too antsy to wait.  Lord I love the kitchen.

Now I need to get back to studying for my qualifying exams - whoever invented comprehensive exams to be taken after Christmas break was a sadist for sure.  Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and if your first Christmas sucked you made a new, better one, too!