December 24 - Australia: Cairns

Today we cooked.  That's it.  It was one big cooking day.

But before we cooked, we went to K-Mart and the Big W (Australian for Wal-Mart type of place) because we needed navy shorts for our work uniforms.  There, we fought our way through THRONGS of last minute Christmas shoppers (did I mention we finished our shopping in August?) to get the little things we needed.  Jon found his shorts at K-Mart and I got mine at the Big W.

Then, we cooked.

Today is Christmas Eve, and - according to ancient Connal tradition - Christmas Eve Dinner is always Mexican food.  However, since we have to work all day tomorrow, we've decided to re-arrange tradition for our purposes.  Today we'll make the big traditional Christmas dinner and we'll have Mexican tomorrow night.

Apple Pie a la Jon

Jon made his much-anticipated apple pie, which is something he's been preparing for for about a week.  He had his Mom send her famous crust recipe, which Jon claims is the greatest crust on the face of the earth.  But while he researched fillings, he ran across some variations of the recipe and decided to embellish just a bit.  If anyone is wondering, the Culinary Institute of America has an annual Apple Pie Contest that has always turned out some amazing recipes.  Jon and I made one last year at his Mom's house and it was great.  So Jon went to www.ciachef.edu again this year and found everything he needed.  Here's the recipe he used, sans bourbon and cherries.

Jon's INCREDIBLE Apple Pie

It's beautiful, isn't it?  Don't be deceived - it didn't come easily.  The whole process took quite a few hours and Jon was an absolute BEAR when he was making it.  In fact, I left him entirely alone and went to the bedroom to read just so I was out of his way.  I know by now that when he gets like this, it's like tip-toeing through a mine field!  Better to give him all the space he needs and not expect him to do anything complicated like, talk.

Christmas Dinner

After the pie was cooked and cooling, and the kitchen had been cleared of land mines, it was my turn.  The turkey breast had pretty much defrosted, so I mixed some spices and threw together some pseudo-stuffing and was ready to go.  Underneath the skin of the turkey, I spread a mixture of melted butter, thyme, rosemary, and sage.  Inside the cavity, I put onions, carrots, apples, walnuts, and celery leaves. Then I put it in our little convection oven at the appropriate convection oven temperature for the recommended two hours.  

The plan was to have dinner at 5:00 and then make it to 7:00 mass.  So at 5:00, after the turkey had been in for 2 hours, we went to take it out and have our dinner.

Nope.  Not cooked!  Not even close.

So we put it back in and checked again at 6:00.

Still not cooked.

Long story short: we didn't make it to mass and we didn't eat until 7:45. The turkey came out of the oven just a little after 7:00 and the rest of the food followed shortly thereafter.  

Our First Turkey!

We set the table and were settled down to eat at 7:45.  Despite the long wait, the turkey was delicious, as were the potatoes and the gravy (thanks Mom!).  Unfortunately, we'd forgotten about the broccoli, so we were sort of lacking the greens.  But I'm pretty proud of us for putting together an entire holiday meal without any terrible traumas.

Well, I DID spill an entire beer while we cooked, but that's just a "trauma" and not a "terrible trauma".

Our Christmas Dinner

After dinner, and after cleaning the OBSCENE amount of dishes we'd accumulated, we showered and got ready for our first day of work tomorrow.  Then, we broke out the pie.

Oh.  Wow.  THE PIE.  It was unbelievably delicious.  I didn't think things this good existed.  But they do, and Jon managed to find a way to put it on the table.  It was incredible.  Divine.  Scrumptious.  And it's all mine.

We were in bed early, because we have to get up bright and early tomorrow morning for work!