[Sca-cooks] My Christmas dinner...

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

...featured macaroni and cheese and cucumber salad...

This was a planned maneuver of sorts: I was down with a cold, spouse 
brought Evil Spawn (tm) and Report Card to face Certain Doom at 
Grandma's house. I remained home to cough and watch "Kind Hearts And 
Coronets", "The Lavender Hill Mob", and "The Ladykillers" in rapid 
succession. Did not get a chance to watch "The Captain's Paradise" or 
"The Horse's Mouth", but you can probably sense a pattern developing, 
and those were lower-priority items.

Spouse returned home mid-afternoon (sans E.S.) and realized that our 
lactose-intolerant child (a.k.a. E.S.) was not present, and that it 
was a chilly, but not cold, day, and that we had a large hunk of 
cheddar cheese in the fridge. Spouse immediately requested macaroni 
and cheese, in spite of the various more festive options available. 
(Fridge contained, among other things, a side of smoked salmon, half 
a rare roast eye round, barded, soy-marinated chicken wings, and half 
a smoked ham, among other things, and gosh knows what else in the 
freezer...) Bear in kind that for a Chinese-American child (of which 
my wife is a slightly older version), anything that does not contain 
rice or long noodles, especially when it does contain potatoes or 
pastry, can be exotic holiday food.

Standard mac and cheese, but not to be sneezed at, even on Christmas, 
if done right. Ours was (roughly, and by memory) approximately two 
Tbs. unsalted butter,  two heaping Tbs. flour, stirred and cooked 
briefly into a blonde roux. Added about 1 ounce finely minced onion 
and cook until wilted but not browned, then whisked in about 1 pint 
(that's a 16-ounce US pint) milk, let it come to a boil, stirring 
occasionally, skimmed and simmered about 20 minutes. Added about two 
ounces of cream (optional), reduced another few minutes and then 
added around 10 - 12 ounces grated sharp cheddar, and whisked until 
smooth. (Smooth with chopped onion, that is.)

While boiling pasta (approximately half a pound elbows), melted 
another Tbs. butter in black iron skillet, added a chopped garlic 
clove, a little marjoram, and about half a cup of bread crumbs, 
stirring to moisten the crumbs just a bit with the melted butter. 
Removed mixture from pan and reserved, poured cheese sauce into pan, 
boiled. drained pasta into sauce, mixed, topped with the crumb 
mixture, and baked for around 20 minutes in hot oven.

Cucumber salad equally non-ambitious: peeled and thinly-sliced, 
tossed with salt, pepper, a pinch of sugar, cider vinegar, olive oil, 
half a teaspoon English mustard, and some chopped dill.

Christmas Eve dinner was the whole roast beef thing, Yorkshire 
pudding, roasted potatoes, celery, onion, carrots, mushroom gravy, 
sauteed broccoli-rabe, sweet pickled gherkins. Spouse requested no 
dessert, then produced a jar of imported Swedish cloudberry 
preserves, which, she said, she'd been told by the guys in the 
Scandinavian import store, went extremely well spread on Yorkshire 
pudding. It did. (And leftover Yorkshire pudding isn't as good as 
fresh, anyway...)

Rumor has it that, on Christmas Day, Evil Spawn was forced by an 
angry grandmother to choke down Lobster Cantonese (the real stuff 
with the ground pork and black beans in the sauce), Soy Sauce 
chicken, and shrimp sauteed with silk squash. But because he was 
being punished, grandma didn't serve the barbecued pork. That sure 
must have showed him. He'll think twice about bringing a report card 
like that one to Grandma's house next time, I can tell you!

<sigh>

Adamantius