All about the Christmas food

After putting the kids down to bed, Dallin and I got cooking. If you knowDallin or I, you know that holidays and travel (for us) are ALL about the food. Since I'm Hispanic, we always celebrated Christmas Eve with a traditional dinner that included Guatamalan tamales, sweet bread, and hot chocolate. So over the years, Dallin and I have combined our traditions and this is what the Christmas Eve meal has turned into. First, we always have lobster tails for dinner. We have a fantastic recipe and Dallin cooks them on the grill. They seriously are the best lobster I've ever had.



Next we cook up fire-roasted artichokes out on the grill as well. This is a recipe that we've perfected over the years. We had these at a restaurant years ago and spent several years trying to imitate the recipe at home. And we finally did it (although I think our artichokes are actually better now!) The pictures don't do them justice, but trust me, these are dee-lish!

And lastly, we spend the last couple of weeks before Christmas trying to track down some good Guatamalan tamales. Last year, I ordered them from a lady Dallin knew but I was not impressed with them. This year, we found a little Guatamalan restaurant here in Reno and ordered a few for Christmas. They were pretty good -- not as good as the ones I ate growing up, but they were up there. For those of you who don't know, Guatamalan tamales are made of up of a soft maize filled with pork, olives and red peppers and wrapped in banana leaves. Christmas, for me, just would not be the same without them. And for dessert, we had a peppermint pie that is a DeMordaunt family tradition.

Christmas morning always includes family recipes as well, including the Christmas kringle which seriously is to die for. It's a dough ring filled with raisins soaked in an almond filling, with icing on top. We make two rings and they're gone in a blink of an eye! Okay, I think my next post, I will finally blog about Christmas day!!