How it worked out… (Christmas)

I got some Christmas lights hung; I stretched blue ones around the eaves and put strings of clear lamps on four shrubs.  The overall effect is very pleasing – to me anyway.  I have been leaving them on all night or at least until two or three am.

Christmas dinner wasn’t a total success.  Mom couldn’t eat anything so it was just Mandy and me – and my Cornish hens weren’t quite done.  There was a little bloo-oood around the bones where the ribs attach to the spines.  The corn pudding turned out very nice – it is sweet and very light like egg-custard (which of course, is what it is).  The pumpkin pie(s) took me all day to bake – it was a “high-maintenance” recipe…  Very good though, in the end. The recipe was for one, but the leftover filling caused me to prepare and fill another smaller pie (in a tart pan).  The vegetables were overdone (easy to do with zucchini).  I know how to "fix" all of this -- and have ideas on how I would do the same meal again and improve the results. So maybe again another time.

I have de-boned the left-over hens, and one I made Chicken a la King with (see recipe on blog) and the other, today, I simply sauteed for a few minutes and prepared a batch of barbecue sauce for it.  This all was designed to finish the cooking process as no one really likes underdone poultry, do they.

I didn’t go anywhere in the end – I did a tiny bit of visiting with Dave and his family last night but that was it.  My other friends I will try to catch up with later.  It was just too difficult to get away when Mom is so dependent on us right now.  She is virtually house-bound, and while she is moving around a little bit now, she hasn’t been outside since she came home from the hospital.  If you know my Mom, you know how uncharacteristic that is.  She has been unable to eat much – and she has no strength.

Mandy and I went to a Presbyterian candlelight service on Christmas Eve – my first choice (Christ the King Ev. Lutheran) had an earlier version this year – early evening.  So we went to Emmanuel Presbyterian on Shea Blvd at 11 pm.  Mandy enjoyed the service – but I don’t think that is a congregation I would attend habitually.  They do have a nice pipe organ though…  If I ever decide to attend a church, I might try some of the others around here – maybe Orangewood Presbyterian.  Or I always thought CTK Lutheran would be OK – although I prefer the colder austerity of the Presbyterians!  Any of them would likely throw me out on the curb when they found out what I believe – and what I don’t. 

New Year’s is a non-holiday for me, so that’s it for the holidays 2011.  I can’t say they were “bad,” but they weren’t “glowing.”  But we take them as they come and appreciate what we have.  No regrets. 

Recipe - Chicken a la King

Uncle Bob’s Chicken a la King

This ain’t a bad way to use up some left-over roast chicken (or turkey)…

1# diced chicken (about)

3 or 4 lg mushrooms, sliced

1/8 cup or so diced red pepper

2 or 3 green onions (make a slice lengthwise then chop)

Splash of sherry

Butter/flour  4 TB each

Salt/pepper or chicken seasoning, garlic, 1 TB minced dried onion.  You might try others like thyme, etc.

1 can chicken broth or equivalent

¼ cup green peas (fresh if ya got ‘em).

Toast points

Put a splash of olive oil in a non-stick skillet.  Heat over med.  Add the mushrooms and cook for 1 minute.  Add the diced pepper.  Cook another minute.  Add the green onion, cook another minute.  Add the chicken and a splash of sherry.  Saute all for 2 or 3 minutes.

Add the seasonings and the butter and flour (I used chicken seasoning and garlic, along with pepper and a chicken bouillon cube for the flavor and the salt, and the minced onion).  Continue cooking for a few seconds and then add the broth all at once (along with the peas – I just tossed them in frozen).  Heat on med until the mixture is thickened and bubbly.  Simmer for an additional 3 to 5 minutes.

Serve over hot biscuits or toast points.  I think it would serve about 4 normal people from the looks of it...

My Simple, Opinionated Christmas

Not doing too much for Christmas this year.  I usually attend a performance of Messiah done by Phoenix Symphony, but I chose not to this year.  I didn’t go to the electric parade like I sometimes do.  I haven’t even played any Christmas music yet. 

I will eventually find my Christmas music collection and I’ll listen to my own favorite songs – “The Gift” (written by Stephanie Davis and also performed by Garth Brooks), and “Little Toy Trains” sung by Roger Miller.  There are others I love as well, but I get weary of some of the ones that are played over and over ad nauseum. Like “Jingle Bell Rock.” In that I guess I am like everyone else I know – we have our favorites and we have those we’d like to forget.  I could listen to Suzy Boggus sing “O Holy Night” over and over to the end of eternity. She has the voice of an angel.  Yep, her and Andra Suchy.

I have no travel plans at all.  Not that I might not go – I just have not planned anything.  I always think I should go north to find a good “snow” picture to put on next year’s Christmas card.

*They weren't cheap, but here they are...

I haven’t even hung Christmas lights yet.  I guess I will work on that today, but I shall keep them very simple – which is my usual choice anyway.  I think simple in Christmas lights is often the most beautiful.  My aim will be to use the lights to elicit and represent some of the hope and mystery of Christmas, a kind of quiet glory, rather than the all-out “glitz and dazzle” that some go for.  Each to his own, I don’t resent that option but it’s not me.  I might use all blue lights if I can find some and they are cheap enough.*

I might go drive around at some point and gawk at all the glitzier lights others have done though…

I don’t begin to celebrate the approach of Christmas until December 15^th – I resent the cheapening of Christmas as enacted earlier and earlier each year by Corporate America as they seek to increase their profits at the expense of everything that is holy.  It’s calculated and crass – and I will resist it and resent it as long as I live.  Standing in line to get into a retail establishment to get a “bargain” on Thanksgiving Day (or night) is asinine – and we ought not to do it if only so that more of our neighbors can eventually stay home with their families at those times.  I can sometimes agree with our nation's critics that we seem, some of us, to have lost our souls.

My Christmas shopping is done, virtually all of it right from my desk here and on the internet.  I designed some little gifts for my closest family and a few friends will get something I’ve made in the kitchen as a token of our friendship. 

On Christmas Eve, which for me is the most mysterious and magical time of Christmas, I plan to attend a midnight service at a Lutheran Church nearby which I have found friendly in the past.  While I am not a Christian,  I think that Christmas can also represent that act of our God reaching down to us, and showing us or reminding us that the love we give to each other, in whatever way we can do that, is the best and truest part of our well-lived lives. At Christmas, some of the everyday hatreds can recede into the darkness for just a few moments – in our part of the world anyway.

Here in Paradise Valley, it will be a good Christmas if all goes as planned. I wish the same for you.