For the last several days, I’ve snubbed Christmas menu preparations for earthier delights: shopping, reading, listening, and posting in my less kosher blog Caput Lupinum (closed to the public). But alas, the time for dalliance is at an end. Christmas is just two weeks away, and if I’m going to execute a Devious, Masterful Plan, The Plan must be given form!

Christmas and New Years are perhaps my favorite "food holidays" because there are less stringent expectations concerning what ought to be served. Thanksgiving is a straight-jacket for the creative menu. Iconic dishes, like roast turkey, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, etc, limit how far one can deviate and experiment. Serve something aside from the usual staples and you’re likely to hear uproar. But is there a classic winter menu? Well, for one, nobody can agree on the main; is it ham, beef wellington, a rib roast, or deep fried Jewish latkes? This year in foodie publication, I’ve seen all of the above and more, including lamb, duck, cornish hens, and, yes, roast turkey. The confusion is a blessing, if you ask me. My husband has only one request of the Christmas menu: cookies, and lots of them. We’ll revisit that subject later.

Update: 12/16/09. Finalized Menu. I’m a bit too busy at the moment to bother editing this article; for now, I’ve moved all my previous commentary and ruminations down to the bottom. The menu itself is not as contiguous as my Thanksgiving menu, but despite the broader ethnic variations and experimentation taking place, there’s just enough cohesiveness to move forward. So! Onward!

1. Chana Dal with Spinach Soup.
2. Salmon Bites with a Small Salad. Potato nests filled with poached, flaked salmon, sugar peas, a creamy miso sauce, and a garnish of black sesame seeds. Salad is served with a light sesame vinaigrette or a soy-maple vinaigrette.
3. Sauerbraten on a Stick. In a gingersnap sauce, garnished with braised, red cabbage.
4. Bacon, Squash, and Apple Stuffed Endive Boats. Alongside a bowl of bowl of sweetened mustard walnuts.
5. Wild Mushroom Ravioli with Brown Butter Sage Sauce. Handmade ravioli. Garnished with truffle shavings.
6. Roast Saddle of Lamb with Spiced, Creamed Carrot Puree and Seared Goat Cheese Millet Cake.
7. Sourdough Kalamata Olive Bread.
8. Baked Pear Compote Crepe Cup with Lavender-Honey Mascarpone. Pear brandy infused compote and crepes. Garnished with crushed, toasted almonds.

-- Last updated: 12/15/09. The menu is practically solidified by now. Dessert is still a tad iffy, but I'm pulling together the last of the recipes, so expect the menu to be finalized very soon.

Appetizer #1: Chana Dal with Spinach. Very similar to lentil soup, and an old favorite of mine.

Appetizer #2:

• Potato Nests filled with Salmon and a Creamy Miso Sauce, Accompanied by a Small Salad with a Sesame Maple Vinaigrette. Wow, this dish concept was a gigantic pain to formulate; it took me near three days of off-and-on pondering to be somewhat satisfied. Definitely in the experimental category.
• Spicy Crab-Mango Wonton Cups with Watercress or Microgreens
• Stuffed Squid. Not quite sure what I'd do here, but the idea became intriguing when I stumbled across Palachinka's Moroccan Stuffed Squid.

Appetizer #3: Sauerbraten on a Stick. Garnished with red, braised cabbage.

Appetizer #4:

• Bacon Wrapped Dates Stuffed with Cheese. Great idea from Big City Cooking and Brown Eyed Baker.
• Bacon, Squash, and Apple Stuffed Endive Spears with Candied-Spiced Nuts.

Appetizer #5: Mushroom Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter Sauce.

Main:

• Roast Beef Tenderloin served with a Perigourdine or Perigueux Sauce, which are brown truffle sauces sometimes finished with truffle butter or madeira. Inspired by a very similar dish served with foie gras called Tournedos Rossini.
• Roast Saddle of Lamb served with Au Jus. May or may not be stuffed, as per Gordon Ramsey's little video.

Side(s):

• Whole, skinned butter-herb potatoes, preferably very small.
• Individual servings of dutchess potatoes, dauphine potatoes, or scalloped potatoes (a la potato pavé). Pavé spotted at a review of Ravesi's at Tastebound.
• Gnocchi
• Creamed Carrot Puree, inspired by these blog sightings at Gastronomic Guesswork and Trivial. Seasoned with ginger and/or cardamom.
• Millet Cake as seen here. The cake will likely be some rendition of fried savory millet spoon bread, which can be prepared in a fashion similar to polenta. Test run on millet cake was very promising. I'm leaning toward goat cheese, a little spinach, and oregano. Sweeter spices moved to the carrot puree.
• Asparagus spears or wilted swiss chard.

Bread: May attempt the bread painting technique because, wow, very cool.

• Sourdough Kalamata Olive Bread
• Cheese and herb rolls, shaped like Santa Lucia buns
• German-style many seed bread

Dessert: still fussing with ideas, so expect (even more) revision.

• Baked Apple Compote Calvados Crepe Purses with Butterscotch Pecan-Crusted Ice Cream. What a mouthful! References: Emeril's Apple Compote, Los Angeles Times Apple and Calvados Crepes and Review of Picasso at Bellagio II.
• Baked Pear Compote Crepe Purses with Honey Almond-Crusted Ice Cream or Mascarpone. The crepes and the compote may be finished with a fortified wine, like muscat, but I'm still debating options. Lavendar is on the table for the mascarpone, but I'm a little doubtful about how well these two flavors would work together.
• Honorable mention to: Pears Poached in Muscat-Saffron Syrup served with Homemade Mascarpone and Mont Blanc with Poached Pear.

Tyler’s Cookies: Chocolate and Peanut Butter, Because My Husband Loves Them. For future reference, I also considered chocolate dipped peanut butter balls, but Tyler preferred a higher ratio of chocolate to peanut butter.

1. Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies. Likely will be some adaptation of the New York Times Jacques Torres recipe, which has gained quite a following among online bloggers.
2. Chocolate Cookies with Peanut Butter Chips. Recipe adapted from Cook's Illustrated, as iterated by the Boston Globe and Allrecipes.
3. The interior of the third will consist of a homemade peanut butter cup. As to the exterior: I'm still debating between textures of (a) sponge, like cake (b) muffin (c) cookie (d) brownie. Tyler has spoken: brownie exterior. Recipe for the exterior will probably come from Brown Eyed Baker Better-than-Brownie Chocolate Cookies; a few people complained about runny batter, but for my purposes, that's just fine.

Jenn’s Cookies: Debating whether or not to make these, because yea they look good, but the calories!

• Chocolate Dipped Florentine Shortbreads from Food and Wine Magazine, Reprinted by Food.People.Want.

Hutzelbrot and Musings on Baking

I futzed around for a while, avoiding this baby while I hemmed and hawed over the Christmas menu. Eventually, however, Tyler needed new "snack" bread. So—knuckle cracking time.

In place of the more simplistic soaker I’m familiar with, hutzelbrot requires the use of a mash. The mash itself calls for an altus, old bread soaked overnight, and three hours in a warm oven. If that wasn’t different enough, Peter also instructs us to spread a raw paste of flour and water over the batard before baking. What an intriguing process! I didn’t do the usual quantitative measurements, as this was my first attempt, but qualitatively, the crumb was dense—though less so than the sample pictures in Peter Reinhart’s book. The crust was disappointingly less crunchy than I expected; that may be less the fault of the formula and more so the fault of the baker. Perhaps too much water in the paste, or not enough cooking time? Additionally, the bread may improve from more time during the first or second rise.

The taste was just slightly sweet, and not sweet enough to overpower the savory. (I think I’ve mentioned this before: sugary-mounds of flour are not my cup of tea.) I was particularly surprised by how well the dates partied with the tiny bit of cocoa present in the rye-wheat. Cherry, as well as currants, dried pear, or figs, might be delicious in here as well. Nuts could be incorporated, but I would do so sparingly to avoid destroying the subtlety of the rye.

As a side note on the subject of baking: the more I bake, the more aware I am of the variations in bread baking due to seasonal periods and kitchen conditions. I had hoped to publish more tailored modifications of Reinhart’s recipes based on certain quantitative variables, but I believe further long-term observation will be necessary for validity. If and when I do become comfortable with the data, I may publish it in the raw—just for fun. Until then, the baking continues.