happy chrimbo

beef topside joint. all hail the master of the meat!

crazy delicious

Well my brother was supposed to be here for Christmas dinner but he got snowed out. With everything being closed because the Irish are such good Catholics, we had stocked our tiny fridge with groceries for his 2-day visit including fixins for Christmas dinner. Since our mini-fridge doesn't really keep things for very long and we weren't sure if my brother would be flying, hubs and I decided to eat the Christmas food anyway and freeze the leftovers.

We had shrimp and cocktail sauce for lunch and a true Christmas dinner--just the two of us. We had the most delicious cream cheese mashed potatoes (my mother-in-law's recipe...pretty much the best on earth), vegetable chips made from rutabaga, carrots, and parsnips, and a beef top joint (is that a cow's shoulder?). Hubs lovingly marinated  and basted the beouf in Irish whisky for hours, which made for a killer gravy. Even though it was our first Christmas alone in our lives, we made it a special one with a cozy day in. We skyped with both sides of the family and got to open some gifts, including a special international shipment of chex mix--not made from 'Shreddies' thank you very much.

Also, we opened some lovely gifts to each other. I got hubs a winter jacket he had his eye on at Debenham's that in his words, "doesn't have a ton of crap hanging off it". I think he means toggles, extra pockets, rope ties, shoulder straps, and all the other embellishments that seem to be in style. For me, hubs wrote the sweetest card and got me a gift card to my absolute favorite store Carousel. Carousel, as I've mentioned before, is a vintage dress shop from heaven on the south side and I can't wait to go pick out some pretty little frock! It's the kind of place I have been dying to shop but with the prices being a little higher (ok a lot higher) than Penneys I just didn't feel like I could get anything without a special occasion in mind. Problem solved. Very thoughtful hubs!