What We Ate - Christmas Around the World

Back to life, back to reality. We had a very enjoyable two weeks with the girls out of school. We spent Christmas at home, then headed to Disneyland for a few days, visited family for another few days, and then came home.

We call one of our Christmas food traditions "Christmas around the World." Every Christmas Eve we make food from a different country or culture. In past years we've done Switzerland (fondue--yum!), Greece, and India. This year, we did France. What is not to love about French food? (The answer is NOTHING, in case you were wondering.)

We made Supremes de Volaille a Blanc (Breast of Chicken with Cream), pasta, and French baked beets. We purchased the baguette and the brie, and we received the sparkling cider as a gift.

We topped it all off with these delicious cream puffs (minus the heart shape) for dessert. There are several steps to making the cream puffs, but they weren't too tricky, and the results were worth the time.

I love our Christmas around the world tradition, but I think this is going to be hard to top next year. Maybe we should quit while we're ahead and just make it a Christmas in France tradition??

Oh. My. Yum.

That Julia Child really knows what she is talking about. Yesterday I made the Supremes de Volaille a Blanc (Breast of Chicken with Cream) from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. There are several variations of the dish and I made the one "aux Champignons" - with mushrooms. The chicken was so flavorful and the cream sauce sent me over the moon. I served it with angel hair pasta and a side of fresh asparagus sauteed in butter with garlic and onions. I was oohing and ahhing and tooting my own horn all through the meal. Everyone else cleaned their plates too. (It might have helped that we told the kids they had to clean their plates before we could go swimming at the YMCA--but still, they didn't complain which speaks volumes.)

Overall, this is really quite a simple dish. If you're interested in the recipe, HGTV did an article that includes it here. They include a few more veggies and a rice dish, but basically the chicken and sauce is the same. I made a few minor changes such as using basil instead of parsley on top, and cooking it a little lower for a little longer.

This more than makes up for Tuesday night's flop. It felt good to redeem myself!