How The Janns Do Christmas

The thought of cooking food sometimes gives me the hives.

The thought of the hours spent selecting the menu, the thought of the trips to the grocery store to get every ingredient just right, the thought of the cutting, the thought of the boiling, the thought of the dishes getting cleaned up…

*shudder

But nonetheless, I offered to prepare some dishes for our family’s Christmas Eve dinner (which, next to Thanksgiving and Chinese New Year, is only the most important family meal of the year). How hard could it be? A salad, a potato side dish, a dessert. Easy as pie.

Well, when you’re me, it can be pretty hard. For some reason, I thought it was a good idea to set a more fancier menu for those dishes. Meaning I wasn’t just gonna toss some iceberg lettuce in with some carrots and call it a day. I wasn’t just gonna buy the boxed mashed potato flakes.

I decided to spice up the plain ol’ mashed potatoes dish by making a variation of this recipe of mashed potatoes with spinach, ricotta, and bacon.

These here are all the brave soldiers that served for duty that night.

First, I diced the potatoes while the water was boiling. Saving time baby!

Then, while the potatoes were boiling, I diced up some onions and mixed them in a pan with spinach and ricotta cheese.

Turkey bacon also got sizzled and diced. I used turkey because it’s healthier. This is the reason why I will never be able to become a vegetarian.

My grandma started helping me mix it all together. You gotta have a grandma mixing to make this recipe filled with love.

Voila! What do ya think? Looks pretty scrumptious, no? It tasted even better the day after.

So unfortunately for me, I took too long making the potatoes that I ran out of time when I got to my fancy salad recipe (which was going to feature fancy stuff like kale. And couscous. And quinoa which is so fancy the man at Trader Joe’s had to correct me and say, “it’s not pronounced ‘kinoa,’ it’s pronoounced ‘keenua,’ you blundering ball of idiot” (ok, so he didn’t add the last part but he sure was thinkin’ it).

I did whip up a freakin’ tasty pumpkin bread but it was so yummy I forgot to take pictures of it. Here are the rest of the dishes served at the dinner…

‘Twas so nice getting my sister and cousins back for the holidays. As you can see, us Janns are more than a little enamored with the Lius.

Sisters!

Hope y’alls had a great Christmas!

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posted by Janice | Comment: 2 | Food, Personal

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