Christmas Eve Dinner

 Hi there, i wrote this on the 27th but didn't get the pictures into it til now...

Hi Marg,

hope you had a merry Christmas. Ours was a bit melancholy, being all alone with no family around, but we made the best of it. Dressed up fancy for Christmas Eve dinner and set the table with crystal and silver. Then we went xc skiiig on Christmas Day, which might have been better if we hadn't almost run out of gas and had to turn around 2 miles from the ski track to drive 17 miles down the mountain for diesel. And then back up.

Christmas Eve dinner was very good. We had ham (of course we are now onto the "definition of eternity" stage of the ham).

We had a wonderful potato kale gratin. The recipe came from Alison's co-car-pool mom at her blog Cooking SF. It was AMAZING. Creme fraiche, gruyere, potatoes and kale, what's not to like?

Braised leeks and steamed broccoli rounded out the vegetable part of the meal. 

I also made Eggnog Panna Cotta from the same blog, and when I read the recipe I knew it wasn't right. I've never seen a panna cotta with yogurt in it, and now I know why. It makes it taste like yogurt, which is not what I'm after in my panna cotta. I put it in beautiful little tea cups from Aunt Pat and it looked lovely which made up a little for the exceedingly mediocre taste. I like the idea of Eggnog Panna Cotta (I know, there are two kinds of people in the world) but next time I'm sticking to the basics.

Speaking of which, can you send me the homemade recipe that your friend makes?

Love, Elise