Christmas Dinner

For Christmas day I thought it would be fun to have a little dinner party with some friends that didn't go anywhere for the holiday. It was really fun and a TON of cooking, my favorite!! Here I set up a little snack table while we waited for people to show up. 

I LOVE these cheese balls soo much, I only get to have them once a year. I know they are fatty but what the heck it's the holidays. I gladly helped myself to a few servings. For the Main course I made a turkey with stuffing, a slow cooked ham, mashed potatoes and a green bean casserole. Everything came out really awesome and I was soo happy to share with everyone.

The star, my turkey with gluten-free stuffing. I did one for Canadian Thanksgiving and I felt way more confident having done it once before. I have a system now, the key is the brine.

My turkey gets a little brine bath for around 24 hours before it goes in the oven. Almost like a little turkey spa day.

Once it's out I rinse it and soak it for about 20 mins before I stuff it full of my yummy stuffing. I kind of stuffed it a little too full and was fearing my turkey was going to explode like in the movies. I was lucky it didn't and it came out perfect.

The stuffing I made is one of my Mom's recipes, oh man, talk about comfort food. It was nice to have it around, not being able to travel to see my family this year. I used her recipe with one minor change, I used gluten free bread for the bread crumbs. 

Personally I love making my own bread crumbs. I use different breads for different recipes, some of them are free flavor. I ended up with extra, makes me happy I can use them for other things.

My ham was soo good!!! It said to cook for 8 hours, I ended up cooking mine for about 12. It just fell apart in your mouth, I really enjoyed it. I am also happy I have the bone and extra meat for lentil soup. My Grandma makes it every every year with the left over ham and I and truly excited to make her recipe. 

Even Chad got in the cooking, he made us a gluten free pumpkin pie. He's made it before and I really like this pie. He uses potato flour for the crust that adds this really awesome flavor to the pie, takes it to the next level I think. I didn't get a chance to take more photos of the green beans or the actual party, again throwing dinner parties are pretty busy. I did have a wonderful time with my friends and my love, I really couldn't have asked for anything better.

Robot tree topper agrees, Merry Christmas <3