Two Pies!

I told you about the Christmas presents I made. Now what about the people to whom I brought them?

My husband and I enjoyed a fun but picture-free Christmas Eve at my dad's in Vero Beach. My grandparents on that side are proper to the point where they leave the rum out of the jingle bell punch (everybody's jingle bell punch... not just theirs), and I didn't know how well snapping pictures at the table would go over. So my dad's famous crab au gratin casserole will have to be a story for another day. I exercised the eating muscles plenty and rested up the picture-taking muscles for Christmas Day at my mom's.

Visit her blog if you want to hear her whine about leaving the green beans in the microwave overnight. Stay if you want to hear me rave about what a porktastic, cosmotastic, pietastic meal we were treated to.

Stuffed pork loin for dinner, cosmopolitans with a secret ingredient (she knew I'd suffered through the previous evening booze-free!), and a two-pie breakfast for Boxing Day... how much more completely awesome does it get? TWO PIES, PEOPLE. Quiche and apple-cranberry. COUNT 'EM, TWO!!

Now, as far as what the pork loins were stuffed with... I see she hasn't put either recipe up on her blog. Luckily she gave me a copy of one. It appears to be from page 234 of the December 2009 edition of Cooking Light. The unfortunately punctuated title is, "Fruit and Walnut-Stuffed Pork Loin" [sic]. (Or am I old-fashioned for wanting to add that extra hyphen after the word "Fruit"? Tasty Trix? Copyranter? Someone help me out here.) The other one was stuffed with sun dried tomatoes and gorgonzola, and I'm not sure what else. She made it up herself though, so don't expect to find it anywhere else in the known universe. I'm sure if you pop over to her blog and ask real nice in the comments, she'll let you have the recipe.

Boxing Day was spent as it should be... catching up with old friends. This meant my diet consisted of leftovers and takeout. Nothing exciting.

The 27th was my husband's grandfather's birthday, so my mother-in-law pulled out all the stops and served both lobster tails and beef wellington.

I snapped a picture of my beef after it was cut as well, but standard dinner party lighting rendered my camera fairly useless. Which I'm sorry to report, because that beef wellington was TO DIE FOR. The color, texture... everything was perfect. Oh, well. Sometime when you run a food blog, you have to stop, take a deep breath, and remember that food is fleeting. With cooks like the ones in my family, there will be plenty more pictures to take!

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.