Some Scattered Food Thoughts As We Head into Christmas–and a Great Punch Recipe

Hi everybody! My last post was before Thanksgiving, with a promised post-mortem on the meal. I’m afraid I’ve let events get the better of me on that, so here are some thoughts on TG and also some projections into the future:

1. Dry brining is the way to go with any type of meat. I would refer you to a massive Serious Eats manifesto on this subject: “Dry brining Is the Best Way to Brine Meat, Poultry and More.” I did something along their lines for my turkey breast at Thanksgiving and it came out quite moist and delicious. I also dry-brined some steaks recently and they were, like, totally awesome–flavorful with a great crust.  You do have to plan ahead a little, as you don’t want to make things worse by hurrying the process along. First the salt draws out moisture and then it gets sucked back in. I would highly, highly recommend that you read the SE article and follow its guidelines. My days of marinating steak are over, and I’ll just make the sauce/marinade separately to be ladled on at will after the fact. I’d refer you to my post about last year’s birthday dinner for my sister-in-law; I was pleased to see from that post that I did indeed do a dry brine on my beef tenderloin. The consensus of opinion is that wet-brining–that is, soaking your meat in a salt-water solution–does indeed increase the moisture in the meat but washes out flavor. Also, for something big such as a turkey, the logistics are daunting. You have to have a container big enough for all that water, it has to be scrupulously clean, it has to be refrigerated (although if you’re sure the weather is going to be cold enough you can put the container in your unheated garage), and then you have to carefully pour out all that brine that’s now potentially full of salmonella so that it goes down the drain and not all over your sink and counter, requiring that you sanitize all of those surfaces, and then you have to clean and sanitize the container so that you can use it again. And after all that effort the results aren’t great.

2. It’s hard to come up with vegan options for familiar dishes. We had a vegan guest for TG and I didn’t do all that well for her. It’s always a balancing act, with my wanting to be warm and hospitable to everyone but at the same time not sacrifice the needs/wants of the many for those of the few (or in this case, for the one). I’m not doing the Christmas dinner so I don’t know what my mother-in-law is planning to do. For my dinner I’m going to make two vegetable dishes that involve items I love: roasted carrots and shallots and perhaps some type of cauliflower/broccoli thing. I’ve also run across a mashed-potato recipe that uses olive oil instead of dairy, and to be honest it looks really good. Salad can have a vegan dressing. But I’m making popovers, because that’s what my sister-in-law wants, and they have milk and eggs. My mother-in-law always makes fruit salad, so there’ll be that. My s-i-l always wants cheesecake, which I will make as individual ones. But I may try my hand at whipped coconut cream instead of regular whipped cream, which would make the fruit salad a little more dessert-y. All you can do is all you can do. I just can’t make a whole separate main dish for one person. I deal with this issue quite a bit, actually, as I constantly feed large groups. As long as you have something for everyone, you can’t be faulted too much. I lay out my own viewpoint on this whole proliferation of restrictive diets in my post about the food-choice pyramid.

3. And finally, an encouragement to resist the siren call of mindless indulging in holiday treats. As I’ve said before, it’s not the specific meals that are a problem. Thanksgiving is one meal. Christmas dinner is one meal. Maybe a New Year’s Eve buffet, also one meal. You eat mindfully and well at this occasions, you enjoy yourself, and you’re not stuffed. The scale doesn’t show any uptick. The problem comes with all the cookies, and the candy, and the mixed nuts, and on and on and on, just sitting there begging to be eaten. No, no, no! I love baking and drive myself crazy making items for our Cherry Creek Chorale concert receptions. But again, those are one-time, isolated events. (Also, since I’ve worked myself into a frenzy making the stuff, I have no real desire to actually, like, eat it.) It was interesting last night for me to see that about half the food we normally have on the tables for the reception was just enough. We had been told by our venue that we had to be out of the building by 10:00, so we instituted some changes to get people through the line a little faster. I didn’t end up throwing away big plastic containers of store-bought cookies. I didn’t end up with tons of other leftovers that would be put out for the choir tonight at our warmups. There’s always a balancing act involved in feeding large groups, but in my experience it’s very rare to run out of food and much more common to have tons of leftovers that then have to be dealt with. Last weekend I did the desserts for our church Christmas party and I was restrained. I made only one punchbowl full of my famous pink eggnog, which was plenty for 60+ people since not everyone indulges. A small cupful is quite sufficient, as it’s so rich. Since the original post in which I gave the recipe for this fabulous item seems to have disappeared, here it is:

Fabulous Pink Eggnog

This rich, creamy concoction is pretty lethal in terms of calories and sugar, so keep servings small. A six-ounce serving has over 19 grams of sugar, as far as I can figure, so small cups and servings of four-five ounces are better all around. This tends to be one of those "love it or hate it" recipes, but the vast, vast majority of people LOVE it.

Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Servings 48 4-oz. servings
Author Debi Simons

Ingredients

  • 1/2 gallon peppermint ice cream*
  • 1/2 gallon commercial eggnog
  • 1 2-liter bottle ginger ale

Instructions

  1. This is a very simple recipe in terms of the number of ingredients, but you need to get good quality ones (see my rant below on ice cream) and you need to plan ahead so that the ice cream is softened in time. I take the ice cream out of the freezer and put it in the fridge several hours ahead. Then about an hour before serving I go ahead and dump the ice cream into the punchbowl so that when I'm ready to serve it's very soft.

  2. Stir the ice cream until it's smooth, then slowly stir in the eggnog. You don't want lumps. Then slowly stir in the ginger ale. It does foam up quite a bit, so persevere. If it sits for very long it'll get a layer of foam on the top which needs to be stirred back in. If you're serving the punch instead of having people help themselves you'll be able to keep stirring it, but if you leave it as a self-serve item you might want to check back periodically or encourage people to stir the punch before they take some. No big deal, though.

  3. Use the smallest punch cups you can; the six-ounce size is the best, as then you'll only be able to put in four-five ounces.

Recipe Notes

*Please, please, please--do not use that horrible cheap ice cream that comes in the big tubs for this recipe! (Actually, don't use it at all, for anything.) It's mostly air. You'll be very disappointed in the results, as the punch will be very foamy and not very creamy. If you don't want to spend the money on good ice cream, make some other kind of punch. Peppermint ice cream can be hard to find, but there are usually a few companies that come out with that flavor for the holidays--Edy's or Dreyer's (same ice cream, different brand in different parts of the country), or, the best because it comes in true half gallons, Blue Bell. Most ice cream these days comes in 1.75 or 1.5 quart sizes, and you have to figure out how to come out with a half gallon--2 full quarts--in your punchbowl. So very much easier to have a half-gallons size to begin with! If you're stuck with the smaller sizes, you'll just have to cope. Again, if you don't want to bother, make something else. I've cheated before with the smaller-size carton, thinking that it wouldn't make much difference, but it does. For the 1.75 quart size you'll need 8 additional ounces for each batch from another carton, or 1/7 of that container. The 1.5 quart container is actually easier to deal with, as you need one additional third of a carton. You can do some kind of pre-measuring if so desired, especially if you're making a lot. Anyway, as is probably evident, this recipe is only for the obsessed!

If you’d like to see some process pictures of making this punch, here’s a good post. Interestingly enough, proportions for this recipe are all over the map, but she has hers correct. (She doesn’t have you put the ice cream in the punchbowl early, but that’s okay.) I was super pleased that she had a pic of Blue Bell! (I certainly don’t do the garnishes she shows, and indeed they’d be impossible for a large crowd.)

Peppermint Eggnog Punch