Christmas Dinner 2007

My hub invited his secondary school buddies and their wives to our house for a Christmas Dinner.

I thought it was going to be an easy affair since we bought the so-called ready-made turkey/pork ribs/ham from NTUC and would be using disposable plates and cutlery. But I was oh, so wrong. :P There were certainly much more preparation work than just that.

Just the food alone took me nearly 2 hours to prepare. >_<"

Ham: To make it look presentable, I had to slice the ham into equal thickness. However, it wasn't easy to do so.

Pork Ribs: Cutting this into pieces was easier than it seems. I had all the pork ribs cut into sections in a jiffy. :)

Turkey: Then we need to stuff the turkey with the necessary ingredients (aka good stuff), namely Gourmet sauce and waterchestnut stuffing (that has to be steamed for 15 minutes before it can be put 'in place'). See, I used plastic gloves in the preparation of my food. Hygienic hor? ;)





We roasted the turkey in Healsio for a good 30 minutes. My good ol' Healsio.



Beef: The meat was really tough. It was like sawing a piece of wood. My dearest hub was so worried that I will cut myself as I was using so much strength. I kept telling him I wouldn't. I don't know if it was self-fulfilling prophecy or what, but I did poke myself on the hand in my haste to cut that piece of meat into half. :P

This was followed by the roasting of the ham, pork ribs and beef for 8 minutes each. The end products...

Roasted Turkey

The torn skin is such an eyesore, isn't it? My hub wanted to stuff ALL the waterchestnut stuffings and the gourmet sauce given to us into the turkey and in the process of doing so, tore the skin apart. *shakes head*



This is embarrassing, but I have never tasted a roasted turkey before. Thus, I was really looking forward to have a slice of it this Christmas dinner.

I was a little disappointed. It tasted like chicken and the meat was a tad too dry and bland for my liking. What's more the 'ho leow' (good stuff) didn't seem to have any effect in enhancing the flavour of the meat. I had to add tomato sauce to it. Maybe the part my hub has cut for me, just wasn't the 'right' part?

Ham

Pretty standard. It tasted very nice when it was just taken off the oven but it didn't taste as nice after it has turned cold.



Pork Ribs

I thought that was pretty nice and savoury. However, it was rather difficult to handle it as we were using plastic forks and knives! :P



One of the girls commented that it was a guys' gathering as there were no vegetables around. I didn't realised that until she mentioned it. I told my hub that this is just like the 'Carnivore' dinner we had in Vivocity and he agreed. hee!

Beef

I overcooked it. I guess this kind of 'habit' was inherited from my mother. My mother is someone who would rather overcook than risk letting us eat something that is not fully cooked. His poor friends have to spend minutes just to chew on that bite-sized meat. I was so paiseh on this. :P



I did not take the beef (as usual) nor the sauce, but the latter looks absolutely tasty.



Assorted sushis from Sakae



From the empty space (the size of a sushi), It seems as though I have popped a sushi into my mouth while preparing the food, huh? But nah... I didn't take much from this plate of sushis. In fact, I only had one! The star shaped egg. :P

Just the above orders from NTUC costs $155. We ordered 2 medium pizzas from Canadian 2-for-1, some tidbits, drinks and a bottle of wine. That sums up to more than $200!

We were so busy over this seemingly simple dinner, but I guess it was really worth it because my hub said he really enjoys going through the planning, purchasing and preparation (3 Ps!) with me. I thought that was rather sweet of him to say that. :)

I am also glad to be able to co-host this get-together to give his friends a simple, but enjoyable dinner. Now, that's the spirit of Christmas eh?

Merry Christmas, Everyone! :)