Day 1: Christmas Eve in Kailua, Hawaii

We flew to Hawaii to spend Christmas with Lauren's family once again this year.  Lauren took a very early flight on Monday morning, with me (Will) following along on Christmas Eve.  The Exit Row Gods (great band name, that) smiled upon me, and I got to stretch my legs out as I flew from cold(ish) California to heavenly Hawaii.

Lauren's family greeted me in early-afternoon Kailua with smiles, hugs, and a heap of very welcome leftovers to snack on.  Then, we jumped in the car to deliver presents and Christmas cheer to a few great-aunts and -uncles.

After delivering presents, we went back home for some pre-dinner napping (Will) and jogging (Super-Lauren).  Then, a dozen or so members of Lauren's extended family showed up for the annual tradition of Christmas Eve dinner and carol-singing.  There are so many talented musicians in Lauren's family!  We had multiple guitars going, a ukulele, and carefully copied sheet music for everyone.  Once again, I found myself wishing I'd practiced some of these songs beforehand.  Just a great time and a warm and wonderful tradition.

The singing finally wound down around midnight.  Once most of the revelers had left, we opened presents for and from Lauren's grandparents, who stayed late for the occasion.  What a wonderful (and full!) Christmas Eve.

Strongbadia Christmas Party 2008

After some time decorating we were finally ready for guests to arrive:

The house looked great.  I did food, Albert did lights, and Will hung the tall ornaments that you see on our windows.  Inspired by the Neiman Marcus butterflies, we used fish line, Walmart ornament hangers, and plastic blue and silver Christmas ornaments to create a "winter" scene (we decided NOT to go for red and green).  Here's a close-up of our window idea with Albert's candles in the foreground:

I also used Ellen's "lifts and lofts" idea -- place different shaped objects under a second table cloth -- to create a food table with some depth:

And here's Albert's birthday cake.  I was so excited about this new idea that I found on the back of a Betty Crocker cupcake box, and it turned out very cute -- colorful and easy to share.  However, right singing Happy Birthday, we had a miscommunication (read: Lauren did not communicate to others) and Albert told two of our friends to eat the top cupcake.  So this cake is perfect only in memory and in pictures:

We spent a while decorating.  Here's a picture of the mantle:

It was a crowded party, with about 40 total folks, and mixed Albert's friends from work, Will's friends from work, our friends from Strongbadia, and my friends all together.  At its height there was almost no place to sit:

Altogether a great time.  You can view Albert's complete pictures here on his Smugmug.

"Lazy Chicken" and steamed kale

For dinner last night, Lauren picked a favorite Rachel Ray recipe, the "lazy chicken."  We also steamed some kale with bacon (thanks to The Joy of Cooking for that one).

Tasty.  Nothing much to say, except that I dream of someday being able to make one of "Rachel Ray's 30-Minute Meals" in under 30 minutes.  Our record at this point is somewhere around 60...

Uncle Chuck's sauce recipe

By popular request, here's the recipe for Uncle Chuck's spaghetti sauce:

Ingredients:

• 2.5 lbs ground chuck
• Ragu spaghetti sauce, 1 lg (48 oz) and 1 medium (27.7 oz) jar.
• 2 large onions
• cooking sherry
• 12-oz Hunts tomato paste
• sugar
• 1 box chopped fresh mushrooms

Brown beef and drain in colander.  Dice the onions.  Brown the onions in butter and 1/2 cup sherry in a large pot.  At the end of browning, add mushrooms.  Add the tomato paste, 8-12 tbsp sugar, 1/3 bottle of sherry and the Ragu.  (Use some of the sherry to rinse out the Ragu jars).  Add the meat.

Cook over LOW heat (be sure it does not burn) for several hours.

Serve over thin vermicelli.

Uncle Chuck's spaghetti sauce

When I was growing up, Uncle Chuck's spaghetti sauce was a go-to dish in Mom's kitchen.  We never got tired of it, and we didn't really understand why anyone ever put any other kind of sauce on their pasta, not when Uncle Chuck's was an option.

So, brimming with childhood memories after the trip to Georgia, and feeling ambitious after our recent culinary successes, I decided to try making the sauce myself.  I couldn't help hyping it up to Lauren, Bill, and Albert.  But after all these years ... could the sauce really hold up?

Could it?

The answer is a resounding YES.

An unprecedented quad thumbs-up for Uncle Chuck's spaghetti sauce.  It turns out that sherry and beef are like the cheat codes for sauce cooking, and this sauce is largely comprised of sherry and beef.

The oddest thing about the experience was that this sauce tasted like my birthday.  I don't just mean that the sauce was as delicious as birthdays are wonderful.  I mean that Mom made this sauce whenever she was hoping to pamper us kids (birthdays, exams, etc.).  I was surprised at how strong the association was; it hit me with the first bite.

So: Great sauce.  Great memories attached.  And easy to cook, too!  I'm glad I had a chance to introduce a new batch of friends to it.

A Pie and a Soup (Key Lime Pie and Three Bean and Pasta Soup)

Thanks to Ellen and John, we had key limes from the Will and Anna tree, brought to Georgia and then back to California:

And to the left you can see the adorable cookbook that Ellen made for Will when he left for college.  From these key limes I made a pie:

Which looks just delicious here, but BEWARE!  I did not know that key lime juice freezes well, so I tried to use all of the key limes in the pie ... which made for a very, very tangy pie.  Part of the fun was watching people's faces about five seconds after taking that first bite.  Whew!

Also for dinner, Three Bean and Pasta soup, a recipe taken from the back of a can of Anne's Organic Soup at Whole Foods (actually the canned soup is terrible, but it gave me ideas of what to include:

Recipe:

Cook some pasta -- not the whole bag; it expands.  Drain and rinse.

Chop and saute in olive oil:
1 small onion
Some celery
Slices of spicy sausage
Garlic
Carrot

Boil for a while in chicken broth.  Then add thinly sliced potatoes.  Boil some more.  Then add cans of three beans (cannellini beans, kidney beans, pinto beans), can of crushed tomatoes, chopped kale leaves.  Heat.  Right before serving, add the pasta and heat.

Woot!  Delicious!

Martha Stewart's Summer Corn Chowder

The beautiful thing about this Martha Stewart corn chowder is that everything in it is fresh:

Fresh potatoes, fresh corn off of the cob (could not find fresh yellow corn, so I used white corn), fresh celery, poblano chili, fresh thyme from my garden.  Will suggested that we add a dash of Tabasco sauce, and that made it PERFECT.