Wild, wonderful Christmas

December 29, 2017 By Nina Max in family, holidays, parties, uncategorized

Making gnocchi… the first time around

Making the Bouche de Noel

Baker’s assistant

Shane crushing the pan for the porchetta, so it will fit in the oven

Josh’s mini version of his dad’s stuffed peppers

My mom’s Christmas dinner diary

Making gnocchi the second time

the first batch didn’t freeze and turned an awful shade of grey

Christmas ornament lottery numbers, this one is 3

Rose and I made 27 unique ornaments

Each ornament doubled as a lottery number

Number 14

Number 17

Twenty, the prize was a cotton candy making machine

Number 12

Each place setting had an ornament

Orange, fennel & olive salad, bread sticks and marinated carrot salad

Gnocchi (!) with sage butter

A delicious and gorgeous “flaming” bouche with mocha buttercream

Iris’s mom’s Korubiethes recipe engraved on a cutting board

Christmas at our house is elaborate, to say the least. Starting with dinner for 27.

This year’s menu featured 22lbs of porcetta, homemade gnocchi with sage butter, marinated carrot salad with cilantro, stuffed mini bell peppers, orange, olive & fennel salad, bread sticks and cheese bread with pepper spread and for dessert a glorious bouche de noel, kourabiethes cookies & fruit. Simple, right?

Image captions above tell the story.