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[Bar-B-Lew]

Way to go, McGuyver!  Awesome creativity to recover multiple times.  Glad everything worked out great.  The music at the beginning and end of the meal sounds like a great idea too.  Looking forward to the pics.

[jdmessner]

Just woke up from my long winters nap. Here is the good, the bad, and the ugly. However, in the end it was all good!!

Thought about just calling it Cajun, but it was about 5 shades blacker than that! However I do have a theory as to what went wrong.

I put the meat on oven liners that my wife found on clearance the other day. They looked like they would be worth a try even though I had never used them before.

Normally I try to put things on racks over trays to cut down on clean up. With the Pit Boss being smaller than my other grill I just put down the liner because there was not enough room for trays and I didn't even give racks a second thought. If I had, it would hve made a big difference. As the meat cooked the juices carmelized with the brown sugar in the rub and burnt onto the meat. The meat itself was not burnt.

It did not turn out as planed, but it turned out OK. I guess that is kind of the way it goes for life in general!

Just off the grill
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The final product
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Filling balled up an ready to serve.
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I'll put up more later. Time to check out a hot tub and sauna!!

[hughver]

Ouch, great recovery.

[jdmessner]

Appetizers were:

Deviled Egg Dip with mustard, white wine vinegar, mayo, cream cheese, and a bit of hot sauce. My daughter said she likes it because it has all the best parts of deviled eggs, with out all the work of deviled eggs!

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Puff pastry with olives (self explanatory), blue cheese dressing and stone ground mustard for dip.

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Butternut Squash Hummus: Squash blended with chick peas, salt and pepper, garlic, and lemon juice.
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Baked brie with cherry preserves and walnuts.

Tossed salad with mixed greens, Mandarin ornoranges, pamagranit,  cashews, and grated parmesan cheese. Served with a pamagranit vinagerett dressing.

[jdmessner]

Decided at the last minute to go with chicken spinach pie. It was easier to make and looked good on the serving table.
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Rolled beef with cream cheese and smoked onions and peppers. I reheated the roll ups with a balsamic vinagerett marinade.
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The twice smoked salmon was a hit. I made garlic toast out of dinner rolls. They were the perfect size.
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Kristen's potatoes were really good and easy to make. Added cream cheese, sour cream, garlic, salt and butter. I steamed the potatoes and broccoli in a turkey frier. Best garage sale find of the summer.
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Cashew broccoli and citrus carrots with clementines and lemon juice, brown sugar and butter.
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[Bentley]

Great mixture in the hummus.  My mom used to do something like that with olives, boy were they good.

[Trooper]

Supper tonight (Sunday)?  LEFTOVERS!

Late this afternoon, Bonnie and I met up with JD in Holland for a little hot chocolate, coffee, and a BS session.

JD had brought along a "care package" of leftovers from the Friday night dinner.

So, tonight, we began polishing off the chow.
We went through the package of rolled beef with cream cheese and smoked onions and peppers. Also in the container was a quantity of Kristin's potatoes. Gone. Then I sampled the smoked salmon on rolls. Then finally finished things off with a large piece of the eggnog filled cake.
Way to go JD!
We're stuffed. We'll have to dive into the pork tenderloins at another sitting.
Much appreciated and a job = well done!

[jdmessner]

Supper tonight (Sunday)?  LEFTOVERS!

Late this afternoon, Bonnie and I met up with JD in Holland for a little hot chocolate, coffee, and a BS session.

It was really good to see you again and to meet Bonnie. Enjoyed the conversation and was glad to move some leftovers!! Hope you enjoy them.

[jdmessner]

Just a couple of more notes to wrap things up.

Someone was interested in the cake. It was a White Chocolate Eggnog Cheesecake Layer Cake. You can google it and look for the recipe on itsybitsykitchen. It wasn't too hard to make, but different enough to make an impression.

The candies were white chocolate coconut truffles (and they were really good). For the filling she heated cream and coconut until it got to a simmer and then took it off the heat, covered it and let it sit for 1/2 an hour. this allowed the cream to be infused with the coconut. My wife has problems with her wrist when she uses a scoop repeatedly to make the balls for the candy. This year she spread out the filling on a sheet pan, cut out squares, and rolled them into balls. It seemed quicker and was much easier on the wrists.

One thing that is really cool (literally and figuratively) about cooking ahead this time of year is that there is no shortage of refrigerator space. Anything that needed to be cooled off could be put in the back of the van and it was like having an extra refrigerator or freezer!

On the other end of the spectrum it was nice was being able to borrow some cambros to put pans of heated food into. I had enough space for seven hotel pans at a time. I am amazed they are able to hold the temp piping hot for at least six hours. By heating things up and then storing them in the cambros it freed up a lot of oven space. I started pulling things from the oven around 1 p.m. and just kept heating and storing. It was slick.

I started purchasing the meat a couple of months before the dinner. If it was on sale I would buy a little bit and throw it in the freezer. Wet aging the beef not only added to the flavor, but allowed me to get that purchase out of the way about a month ahead of time. That really helped with the budget.

I should give a couple of shout outs. One to my neighbor Sue who came down and helped at crunch time and helped get things out on time, and also to friends Jeff and Bev who were out of town, but returning home the night of the dinner. They didn't make it back in time to eat, but they did make it back in time to help with clean up. That was HUGE!!! Also, thanks to my family for being good sports and going along with this project, and again for all the help and advice along the way. If it wasn't for your help they may have been stuck with Sloppy Joes!!!

It was a fun effort with several challenges along the way, but people seemed to enjoy it. Let me know if you have ideas for next year!!