We Pulled off the Best Italian Christmas Meal

Greetings!  It is 2 days after Christmas 2009 and my previous post described my jitters regarding my brother’s suggestion to use recipes off my site for the big family Christmas dinner.   There would be 19 people (7 children and 12 adults) there and it would be my first time putting my Italian recipes on display in front of such a large crowd.    However I didn’t pull it off alone.   My mother made one of the lasagnas (we had 2, one she made and 1 I made) and the stuffed mushrooms, and my brother helped considerably with the preparation and the cooking of the lamb and chicken sausage and peppers dishes.   To them I give a huge “Thanks and It was Fun!”  We decided on the Italian roasted lamb with garlic, romano and parsley as the seasoning, stuffed mushrooms (which is my mother’s recipe), lasagna, anti-pasto, garlic bread, chicken sausage and peppers, breaded meatless meatballs, and salad.   Everything tasted amazing and here are a few things I learned/walked away with:

1.   We followed my “3 Keys to Successfully Working Together in a Kitchen” article and it worked.

2.  Do “taste tests” along the way to make sure it is coming out as expected. This also keeps you from getting starved.

3.  Do not use brown rice pasta spaghetti style as a wheat substitute.   I have to experiment with other pasta styles.  But it tasted like Asian noodles with pasta sauce.  Fortunately this was not the main meal as it was for those who require gluten free food products.  Not a big hit, but there was plenty of other food for them to eat.

4.  The lamb was done on time when expected and was amazing!   Checking the temperature periodically the last 30 minutes was helpful.   The second leg of lamb was slightly over cooked (unless you prefer it well done, which lots of people do) as a result of being smaller than the other leg of lamb.  The larger was registered at 155 degrees F, while the smaller was at 165 degrees F.  I forgot it would keep cooking a bit once out of the oven.  Both legs however retained their moisture, and were not dry at all.

5.  Taking the time to remove and cut out as much fat from the lamb as possible prior to cooking was also key.  I got the tip from America’s Test Kitchen website.   This extra step prevented the lamb from having too much gristle or fatty tissue.   I will do this every time from now on.  But allow for at least 15 minutes for this prep, that’s 15 minutes per 5 lb. leg.

6.  Keep the lamb covered until serving.   It had cooled more than I would like after plating because it took a while for everyone to get seated.  Serve with parsley as a garnish.  This was my brother’s idea and it lit up the dish.

Ok, I’ll stop there for now.   I could go on, but I’ll work it into some other posts

Liz
Simple Italian Cooking Recipes

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