christmas cookin's

Last night:
roast pork loin stuffed with dried apples, cranberries, and almonds
brussels sprouts browned in garlic butter and braised in cream
mashed potatoes with cream cheese
tasty pastries from George's Bakery

Today:
roast duck with duck liver gravy
cauliflower soup
assorted xmas chocolates

Tomorrow:
My mother is cooking a turkey with a backstory - I didn't ask, I didn't want to know, but this has been in the freezer since last Thanksgiving, because my ex-sister-in-law pre-empted her with the complete fixings (courtesy of her employer). Oh, and there are a couple of frozen pies, which might be from this year.

I love my mother, and I grew up big and strong on her cooking, but I didn't learn to cook from her.

roast

I've been feeling super-broke for a while (credit card debt far exceeds cash in the bank, and continues to grow at an alarming rate). So I decided to make xmas presents where possible - coffee and nuts for everyone. Of course, the downside to the money-vs-effort tradeoff is that I have to put in the effort.

The nuts (roasted, then glazed and spiced) are bit pricy for the raw ingredients, but are relatively quick and easy to make.

The coffee is stock that I already had (from a big order last summer), but somewhat time-consuming to make. My roaster is optimized for 1/3 pound batches (I tried roasting a 1/2 pound to save time, but it didn't circulate well, so the beans near the heat burned, and the beans further away were under-roasted). Furthermore, each batch loses about 1 oz of water weight in the process, so I end up with 4.3 oz. I want to give everyone a pound+ of roasted coffee, so that's 4 batches per person.

The roaster creates too much smoke to use indoors, so I'm sitting in the unheated garage, with the door open. It's a hot-air roaster, and the cold source air slows things down considerably, so it's taking about 20 minutes per batch, to set up and roast. I did 8 batches last Monday, for 2 mailed presents. I'm doing 12 batches tonight, for the family I'm visiting tomorrow. Plus we need some for our own consumption. I'm currently on #9.

At least it's not too cold, and I have a bottle of Trois Pistoles. And every time I go up to the kitchen, I'm greeted with the smell of duck stock simmering.