Christmas 2012 in an RV

I made Christmas dinner a bit differently this year. Every other year, I go all out with either a turkey, a ham or a prime rib. I make 20,000 side dishes (ok, THAT was an exaggeration, but you get the idea) and I have no room to put all the leftovers. We don't eat the leftovers, except for certain, select ones, anyhow. This year, I decided to make just a few dishes and make them really well.

 It's a festive meal...there MUST be a salad. This is my go-to holiday salad. The ingredients are few and simple: broccoli, roma tomatoes, diced red onion and crisped up bacon.

 I found, after all these years and finally having a "DUH" moment...my metal tablespoon works really well to get rid of the seeds in the tomatoes.

 The dressing is super simple, too: mayonnaise, salt, pepper, lemon juice, lime juice. No measurements because it depends on how many veggies you have in the bowl. I was able to scale this salad back this year and I used 2 smallish heads of broccoli, 1 tomato and a quarter of a red onion. I used a lot of bacon, though...about 1/2 a pound of it. There is a small bowl leftover just for me :) I truly do love this salad.

 I had gotten some sugar cured bacon at a meat market in Portland on our anniversary. I went to the store with full intentions of getting some asparagus. Asparagus was almost $5 per pound...too much!!! I settled for brussel sprouts, which were my plan B, at $1.49 per pound. I bought just a pound of them. I love brussel sprouts. I do not like brussel sprouts that are left whole and simply boiled. They taste too cabbage-y for me that way. I started to slice these up, but then...

 after cleaning the lot of them...

 and pulling my Hood River Apple Pie out of the oven and breaking the top of the lattice...

 I opted to just quarter them up instead. I did pull off the tougher outer leaves and trimmed up the root end. These were tossed with the other 1/2 pound of bacon that I crisped up and some thinly sliced shallot.

 I boiled 5 potatoes, whole, in their skins, drained them, let them cool and sliced them up. These are getting layered into a buttered casserole for Scalloped Potatoes with White Vermont Cheddar Cheese.

 Here is the star of the meal, twirling away and doing all sorts of yummy things. We used Mitchell Street Steak Seasoning from Penzey's on this, but you could use your favorite steak seasoning blend.

 Prime Rib...oh...Prime Rib...you surely look de-lish-us!!

 We've taken to going to Portland once a month or so and we go to Penzey's Spices, Gartner's Meat Market and Trader Joe's. TJ's has some awesome prices on some quality products, like this Vermont Cheddar. I grated half the block.

 I used each potato as a layer in this dish and sprinkled two healthy pinches of cheese over each...

 White Sauce

3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
Grey salt and white pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 cups heavy cream

Cook flour, butter and spices together for a few minutes in pan so that flour loses it's "raw" taste. Add cream all at once and whisk until combined and smooth. Once mixture starts to boil, the flour will do what the flour does and it will tighten the sauce. This sauce will be really thick.

 Bob did a temperature check on the prime rib and it was just done...we pulled it and let it rest for about 30 minutes.

 My line-up!!

 Back to the potatoes...I blame Blogger for this because they revamped their format and I can't just put my pictures in one by one anymore...after you add a sliced potato, sprinkle it with cheese (sing this to the tune of Candy Man by Sammy Davis Jr.), top it with some of that sauce. Keep repeating layers until you are out of potatoes. Sprinkle the top with a bit of paprika. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes or until the top is golden, all the layers and stuff in between those layers have gotten hot and bubbly. You'll know.

 Back to the Brussel sprouts. I tossed the sprouts, shallot and bacon with olive oil, pink Himalayan sea salt and some coarsely ground black pepper.

 Toss, toss, toss so that everything is coated with olive oil.

 Like this...

 Another Trader Joe's find!! I drizzled this over the Brussel sprouts.

 Roasted Maple Glazed Brussel Sprouts with Bacon. It's truly a simple, but oh-so-tasty recipe and it is "gourmet" enough to stand up to that prime rib roast.

 A perfectly cooked, medium prime rib roast...I truly love that rotisserie!!

 Since Puppa is on those meds for his epilepsy, the vet said NO MORE RIB BONES. This is the first time I'm able to make the Prime Rib Soup recipe from Allrecipes.com. I'm excited about that!!

 Here are those Scalloped Potatoes with White Vermont Cheddar.

 Roasted Maple Glazed Brussel Sprouts.

 My cuppa hot chocolate...I got this cup when I visited the Allrecipes headquarters in Seattle last December.

 So, here is the run-down: Broccoli Salad....super simple, super tasty and unique enough to be served with a holiday meal.

 Scalloped Potatoes with White Vermont Cheddar...make your white sauce with heavy cream and sit back and hear the murmurs of pleasure when people dig into these!

 Roasted Maple Glazed Brussel Sprouts...if you think you don't like Brussel sprouts, guess again!!

 And a Rotisserie Prime Rib with Penzey's Mitchell Street Steak Seasoning Rub...'nuff said!

 Our Christmas 2012 dinner.

 Oh, yeah...the ugly Hood River Apple Pie. Not a looker but tasty as hell!!

And Bob is getting rid of the evidence!
I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. So from our RV to your home...enjoy...PEACE!