Christmas Day menu

As we did for Christmas Eve, we mixed recipes and traditions also for Christmas Day.
First, Santa Claus came and pay a visit to us, distributing presents to everyone. The children were completely fascinated by him (and the adults also ;-D).

Also in this occasion, unfortunately, time was an issue so I didn't follow up on the recipes nor took that many pictures. Let's see if I can recollect the menu properly!

Starters

• Assorted cold cuts

Main Dishes (all homemade)

• Classical lasagne
• Prinskorv (prince-sausage)
• Oven cooked chicken with potatoes and onions
• Glazed ribs
• Saffron fennel (which was a disappointment)

Dessert

• A wonderful panettone, decorated with a holy scene, covered in chocolate (coming from Rome!)

Recipe for the Glazed Ribs

Ingredients for a buffet for 6 people:

• 1 and half kg short ribs
• 2 yellow onions in ckives
• Salt according to the description below

For the glaze:

• 1/2 dl honey
• 2 spoons of concentrated tomato
• 3 spoons of soya sauce
• 1 tea spoon white wine vinager
• 1 spoon finely grated ginger
• Grated skin of one orange

Put the ribs and the onions in a big pot and cover it with water. Put 1 and half spoon of salt for each liter of water. Let it light boil it for about half an hour.

Turn on the oven to 225 degrees. Take the ribs from the pot and put them on an oven pan. Brush the ribs with the mixture of all the ingredients of the glaze.
Grill it in the oven until it gets a nice surface for about 30 minutes. Brush it with the glaze several time while it is cooking in the oven. Turn the ribs the last 10 minutes. 

Recipe for the Saffron Fennel

Ingredients for a buffet for 6 people

• 2 fennel
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 and half dl of white wine
• 0,25 g of saffron
• 2 star anise
• 50 gr of cold butter
• Half tea spoon of salt
• A quarter of a tea spoon of ground black pepper

The ingredients

Turn on the oven to 225 degrees.Clean and slice the fennel in the cloves. Put it in a baking dish with the finely chopped garlic.

Fennel and garlic

Mix the wine, the saffron, the star anise and pour it over the fennel.

The wine mix

Put the butter in small quantity over the fennel.
Add salt and pepper and let it cook in the middle of the oven for about 30 minutes.

Ready for the oven

Oscar's arrival

As his sister, also Oscar knows what a plan is, despite some little variation.

Door wreath done by me, my mother and Mattias

This is the time where we try to adjust to this change. This is definitely hitting all of us (well, maybe not Pico or Romeo with the same extension as Isabella's arrival did) and it is taking more energy than with Isabella. Maybe we are just getting old :-)

And as symbolf of our son, here is what I got from my sweet husband, who has been very supportive in order to make this delivery much better than the first one:

Efva Attling jewelry

If you are interested in doing this alternative door wreath, look below! In Italy it is common to do something called "Birth ribbon". People bring it even at the hospital and one can put it outside the door. But I didn't think a conventional one, usually embroided with the baby's name, would have survived Skåne's climate, so I thought of doing something more "Swedish" for the style.

A wreath, some paper roses, an zinc heart and few ribbons

The main decoration: light blue roses

Details of a ribbon: little baby boy decorations. Unfortunately, not a good picture

We started by rolling the light blue ribbon around the wreath

Then we added also the baby boy one

We tied the heart to the blue ribbon and we glued with the glue gun the blue roses. Small roses have been hooked allover the wreath.

Here it is!

The final result!

Christmas Eve menu

Since this was our first Christmas in our own home, we wanted to make it special, mixing Italian and Swedish traditions. Of course, not everything went according to plan, or not all the recipes became top notch, but we put a lot of efforts and energy in this.

For Christmas Eve we did follow the Italian (or maybe Catholic) tradition to not eat meat and we pushed the Santa Claus visit to Christmas. Of course, we didn't watch any Donald Duck during the afternoon since noone would "appreciate" this Swedish tradition.

Unfortunately, the time was very tight and I didn't manage to follow up on the recipes as I usually do and I didn't even manage to photograph the table or the dishes prepared or being eaten.
I will then try to remember what we ate...

Starters

• Russian salad (not homemade)
• Brantevikssill (herring as in Brantevik) (not homemade)
• Inlagd sill (herring with red onions and other spices) (homemade)

Main Dishes (all homemade)

• Snabbgravad Halstrad Lax (quickly cured grilled salmon)
• Cod with tomatoes and potatoes
• Janssons frestelse (Jansson's tempation) 

Dessert

• Marinated orange salad

Recipe for the Cured Salmon

Ingredients for a buffet for 6 people:

• 300gr salmon
• 1 1/2 tea spoon sugar
• 1 tea spoon salt

Mix the salt and the sugar and roll it around the salmon. Let it get cured at room temperature for about 30 minutes.

Warm up a frying pan and grill the salmon for around 30 seconds on both sides. 

Let it cool down.

Cut it and serve it, if you like it, with a cured salmon sauce (we skipped it and in our taste was not definitely necessary).

Recipe for the Marinated Orange Salad

Ingredients for 4 people:

• 6 oranges
• 2 figs cut in cloves
• a clean pomegranate

For the marinade:

• 2 dl of light syrup
• 1dl of orange juice
• 2 tea spoon of crushed cardamom seeds
• 1 star anise

For serving:

• 2 dl of whipped cream for serving (if necessary)

The ingredients

Boil all the ingredients for the marinade in a pot and let it cool down in a big bowl (remove the star anise).

Marinade left to cool down

Peel the oranges and take a clove at the time, removing the membranes. 

Put all the fruit in the marinade and mix it carefully.

Let it cool a bit in the fridge to get a better taste!

Ready!

Happy New Year!

In reality this should have been a "Merry Christmas" post, but Christmas flew in a butterfly flap and I have also not managed to create a proper post about Christmas' Eve dinner and Christmas lunch and... Well, hopefully they will soon come :-)

Laputa

Kiki's delivery service

Nausicaa 

During 2013, a big Alphonse Mucha's exhibition took place in Japan. I guess as tribute to him and as celebration of such an event, some Miyazaki's masterpiece has been "posterized" as a Mucha artwork.
You can read more about all the art in this article.
Thanks to Mattias' Christmas present, we have now three of them ready to take place in our house!