A White Christmas

When I was a little girl, I always wanted a big family. On Christmas Eve, my sisters and I would hang our dad’s black socks from the mantel and I knew when I grew up, I would have a family who had a big stocking with my name on it. I married a great guy and now holidays are about 2 things: food and family.

Xmas morning is held at the White House (in Voorhees, NJ). The men do all of the cooking and the women get a chance to chat. Apologies to everyone who didn’t make it into these photos. There were over 60 people this year and I just couldn’t keep up.

The food at the White’s House is fantastic and plentiful. There were grilled pork chops, shrimp and grits, biscuits, eggs, quiche, homemade applesauce and lots, lots more. After the event, I could tell I was way more focused on food than people because I took 10 pictures of food to every one person. My family is fabulous and very attractive and certainly deserves to be photographed, but the food — oh my goodness, the food . . .

A few people near me in the food line laughed when I exclaimed, “Cream of Wheat. I love Cream of Wheat!”
They gently corrected me that these are grits.

These are potato cakes but they are different from Gram Elayne’s latkes. These are 3 times as big, crispy outside and soft and pillow-like inside. Both are good, it’s just a matter of preference.

This batter will become amazingly fluffy blueberry pancakes.
Also on the menu were one of Kevin’s favorites: chocolate chip pancakes.

I normally edit my photos so you don’t see the steam, but Tony looked at this one on my camera and said, “my shrimp is so good it’s smoking!” so I left it in. Tony, your shrimp is really, really good. Smoking doesn’t even begin to cover it.

My family is so nice and patient, that they even let me take pictures of their plates as they were eating.

Cousin Andrew kindly put down his porkchop so I could shoot it. Notice the teeth marks? The poor man got 3 bites before I showed up with my camera.

Then there were the desserts:

My additions were an oreo cheesecake and chocolate jingle bells (recipe at end of post).

Lessons Learned:
-I need to take more pictures of people. My extended family is huge, but you would never know it from these shots.
-Pacing is important. Food at these events is plentiful and there are several hours of eating. As one cousin said, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
-Also important is having a food line strategy. According to Doc aka Pop, it’s seniors first and then a free-for-all. That’s okay by me — too early in the line and you miss the stuff that’s still cooking, for example, pancakes. Too late in the line and you miss the limited quantity food like the applesauce.

Cake Balls aka Chocolate Jingle Bells (because it’s embarrassing and a little dirty to ask your MiMom if she wants to eat chocolate cake balls).
Ingredients:
-1 box chocolate cake mix
-1 container chocolate frosting
-1 bag chocolate chips
-5-6 Tbs vegetable shortening

Directions:
-Bake the cake according to the directions on the box.
-As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, put it into a mixing bowl and mix in the chocolate frosting. If you do this while the cake is still warm, the frosting will melt into the cake and become gooey.
-Once the cake and frosting are combined, put the bowl into the refrigerator to until the mixture chills and hardens (about 2-3 hours).
-Scoop out teaspoons of the hardened mixture and form it into balls. I store them in a casserole dish, separated by layers of wax paper.
-When finished rolling, put the balls back into the fridge to chill for an hour. This makes it easier to handle for the next step.
-Melt the chocolate chips and shortening in the microwave. Stir until smooth.
-Roll each ball in the chocolate and put it back into the casserole dish.
-Keep the balls chilled until ready to serve.

Related posts: