Christmas Caroling

     Early in December, with Christmas music wafting  through every decked-out and  crowded store, mall,  and public space,

…giving us all – well, maybe not us all, but myself for one – that cheery holiday feeling , the thought came to me that I should invite some friends over to sing Christmas carols . After all, I have a piano, I have Christmas music, I have song sheets, and I have friends.
     So I invited a dozen of them over on Saturday, December 15 for carol singing and a pot luck.
      I spread the word that I’d provide hot roast beef au jus and hot chicken marsala sandwiches and I proposed that the others bring a side, dessert or some other edible  addition of their choosing.
     My Hot Roast Beef Au Jus Recipe:
      A  3- or 4- pound chuck roast
    2 1/2 cups of beef broth.  (I make mine  by dissolving 3 beef bullion cubes into          2 1/2 cups of boiling water.)
      1 cup red wine
      Onion powder
      Lawry's Garlic Salt

    In a large pot mix the beef broth and red wine. Season the roast with the garlic salt and onion powder. Place the seasoned beef in the broth and wine. Spoon some liquid over the beef.  Bring liquid to a boil then lower the heat to a simmer. Simmer on low heat for three hours,  best not to lift the pot lid. Check the roast after three hours. If meat is fork-tender and falling apart it’s done.
     Remove the meat from the broth, slice, then refrigerate the meat while you wait for the broth to cool. Cool the broth, then refrigerate it until the fat has solidified on top of the broth.  Remove the solidified fat from the broth, then pour the broth over the meat and re-heat the broth and meat.

My Chicken  Marsala Recipe (Actually my friend J’s recipe, passed on to me):
12 chicken drum sticks
1 small onion, thinly sliced
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
Fresh rosemary
Fresh parsley, snipped
Salt to taste
3 teaspoons olive oil
1 cup marsala
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
     Place the chicken wings in a baking dish.  Spread the onion, garlic, rosemary, and parsley over the chicken.  Salt to taste. Drizzle the olive oil over the chicken.
    Cover the chicken with aluminum foil. Bake for one hour covered, then remove the foil and bake for one hour uncovered,  pouring the marsala over the chicken during the last fifteen minutes.
     For hot chicken marsala, remove the chicken from the bone and refrigerate while waiting for the broth from the pan to cool. Remove the broth from the pan,  cool the broth,  then refrigerate it until the fat has solidified on top of the broth.  Remove the solidified fat from the broth, then pour the broth over the meat and re-heat the broth and meat in a pot over the stove or in a crock pot. If the meat needs more broth, add a cup (or more) of chicken broth. (I make mine by dissolving 1 heaping teaspoon of chicken bullion into 1 cup of boiling water.)
     As my daughter and son-in-law surprised Tom and I a few days earlier by Amazon priming us an apple peeler-corer-slicer like theirs (see post from  12/17/2018, "Thanksgiving 2.0"), which Tom used to whip up a couple of apple pies while we were visiting them in Los Angeles, we decided to make a big pan of apple crisp, with Tom peeler-corer-slicing the apples,

...after he'd figured out how to work the machine,

​ …while I made the almond  crisp topping.

     By 6 pm, the appointed time, the house was ready,

…and soon the guests began arriving,

...and the table filling with yummy dishes and desserts,

     And when all the guests and food had arrived, we feasted.

​    After we ate we moved into the living room for the carol singing.

     As one of my friends is an Irish fiddler, she played  the fiddle while I accompanied on the piano,

​...and everyone sang.

     Later in the evening our fiddler played some wonderful Irish fiddle tunes for us.

     Then we sat around talking,

​...and/or eating some more.

     Nothing like feasting and singing to put you in the holiday spirit.
     Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Everyone!