I wanted to open this post with a picture of an almost-but-not-quite holiday sign, like I did last year. that one said "MERRI XMIS" and the one I found this year said "MARRY XAMS." but. it appears the store in which the sign was hanging discovered their mistake and fixed it by the time I went back to snap a photo. so instead, Christmas roses. [the school sells them as a fundraiser, and Husband brought some home for me again this year.]
even though Husband had to work and all our family was far away, we still had a fantastic Christmas. we decided to keep it low-key and stay in this year, and have a couple friends over to join us.
I was skeptical about the pre-cooked turkey dinner we ordered from the import grocery store. the sales person described it to us as "turkey, with vegetable, pizza, and red wine juice sauce." Taiwan's take on American food follows the almost-but-not-quite rule, so just in case it turned out to be inedible, I prepared some appetizers and sides.
[side note: my inner food photographer is cringing at the lighting in these photos. but I can't make the sun shine inside my apartment on a December night, so I'm letting it go.]
we started with Mexican layer dip [beans, salsa, cheese, olives, green onion... no sour cream or guacamole but I'll take it] and this baked spinach artichoke dip. I almost cried this dip was so good. soooo, so good. so good that I just had to get up and have some leftovers because I was thinking about it.
I'll be sharing the recipe with you all soon, because it's too amazing not to share.
the boys brought home the boxed meal [apparently it came from a hotel in Taichung] and we opened it up to investigate. I think the most hilarious part was the shrimp and corn pizzas... which we did not eat. we also skipped on the vegetable. but the gravy, stuffing, and turkey were fair game.
we had ourselves a feast. the turkey was quite tasty, and we have leftovers for making soup. the "red wine juice sauce" that the sales person had described to us... was cranberry sauce. I made green bean casserole from scratch [another recipe I'll have to share,] and we had plenty of wine and whiskey on hand. it was a delicious meal, and I think the start of a new tradition.
our holiday outside of the food was pretty amazing as well. I know presents aren't the point of Christmas, but I'm excited about what I got: Husband ordered me a box of camera gadget goodies from Photojojo, and I got plenty of gluten-free food items, candy, and even some beauty booty!
I hope you all had a great holiday, and I can't wait to see how you celebrated.
[PS: ad spots are still on sale until tomorrow with the code HOLLYJOLLY25!]
No comments:
Post a Comment