VanFoodies.com

Once again I’m trying to praise my mom’s cooking on this blog. On Christmas Day, we hosted my aunt’s family for dinner, and my mom cooked a dinner for 6. To “formalize” the evening, we typed up the menu as follows:

Appetizer

Cranberry Brie en Croute
served with croutons.

BC Mussels
with a tomato broth. coconut milk, onion, bacon and fresh cilantro.

Entrée

Braised Lamb Shank
with coffee, red wine and winter root vegetables.
served with mashed potato, zucchini.

OR

Oven-roasted Back Ribs
with house barbeque sauce and orange marmalade.
served with mashed potato, zucchini.

Dessert

Crème Caramel

Ice-cream Cake

You read it right. Other than the entree where we’re given the option of lamb or back ribs, we each had two appetizers and two desserts. And the results? It’s like dining at a restaurant!! The mussels were fresh and tasty; tomato broth was tangy and highlighted by cilantro leaves. The lamb was super tender, right off the bone; you can taste the coffee and red wine in the jus. Creme caramel was creamy and it had the right amount of caramel sauce. We even played with the plating and tried to imitate what you see at restaurants!

We were so stuffed afterwards I didn’t have my next meal until 6pm the following day. Praises all around the table. It was definitely a great dinner.