[disclaimer: picture above not taken from actual meal - I wish, hehe]

I have now made dinner on Christmas Eve for three years in a row. I think that finally makes it a tradition. Considering this is the only meal I make each year, I think this is a tradition that I can stick with. Unfortunately, I have to get in the habit of reviewing my past posts because I certainly would have benefited from looking at lessons learned from 2005′s cooking experience, since I repeated two of the mistakes that I made last year (meat thermometer and taking pictures).

This year, I decided to make stuffed breast of veal, spinach fritatta and mushroom, sausage risotto. I’ve been trying to do more shopping at Trader Joe’s (I just think it’s a cool store with interesting stuff and usually decent prices) and found most of the ingredients that I was looking for except for the veal breast. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to head over to Bristol Farms (they have the best meat section in the area, of course at a price premium), so decided to check out Gelson’s (I went once before to the Newport Beach store, and wasn’t impressed, I should have learned my lesson). Suffice it to say, I was sorely disappointed with their selection. They most certainly did not have veal breast and they practically didn’t have any veal cuts at all. I finally settled on my backup and got pork chops cut in a row.

The risotto turned out fine, practice makes perfect, it’s just that since I only cook once a year, it takes a couple of years to actually practice . The fritatta turned out pretty good too, except that it was slightly burnt, since I nearly forgot it was in the oven on broil, just a bit overly crispy, but still good. As for the stuffed pork chops, the stuffing turned out fine (interesting use of raisins), but I think I still need practice cooking thicker cuts of meat with the bone in, because even though the meat on the outside was good, near the bone was still too rare. I did remember to sear the outside of the meat this time and that seemed to help to keep it juicy, but I think I need to let it cook longer at the end to finish the meat all the way through. Gotta get that meat thermometer and some better cuts of meat.

In the end, the judgment still lies with the ‘users’, the girls liked the risotto and the fritatta, and at least no one got stomchaches from the pork chop, which still tasted good, just should have been more done . Until next Christmas…