CHAPTER XIII
The Christmas Dinner Party
Our little cook, after her experience at Thanksgiving, will probably be most eager to take part in the preparations for the Christmas dinner. Consult her now, as before; tell her all your ideas, get her suggestions, and then make all plans at least a week beforehand. Holidays should be holidays for the hostess as well as the guest, and can be made so by the choice of a dinner that is good and at the same time easily prepared. The suggested menu following will be found attractive enough for any party, and at the same time it is neither expensive nor very difficult to get ready.
Let the little girl again make out the bill of fare and hang up in the kitchen for reference, make out her list for market and grocery, and help in the selection of the goose, the vegetables and the fruits. Thus she will learn the best kinds to buy and what they cost, and incidentally mother and daughter can have a regular little lark out of the expedition and become better chums than in almost any other way.
CHRISTMAS MENU
MENU FOR CHRISTMAS DINNER
Raw Oysters, Horseradish
Roast Goose Apple Sauce Celery
Mashed Potatoes Lima Beans
Tomato Jelly Salad
Plum Pudding
Fruit Nuts Raisins
Coffee
The first dish to make, strange to say, is the last one on the list, and the plum pudding is better if made several weeks before it is needed, and then simply steamed up again for a couple of hours just before serving. A fine old recipe that had been in a friend's family for years, was once given me, but as it filled six molds I reduced it to the following proportions, which is ample for a mold large enough for eight people:
PLUM PUDDING
One-half cupful butter, three-quarters cupful sugar, one-quarter pound suet, two and one-half cupfuls flour, one-half pound seeded raisins, one-half pound currants, one ounce citron, three eggs yolks and whites (beaten separately), one-half cupful milk, one-quarter cupful almonds (blanched and chopped fine), one-quarter cupful brandy (or boiled cider if preferred), one-half teaspoonful cloves, one-quarter teaspoonful nutmeg, one teaspoonful cinnamon.
After getting all her ingredients out on the table and ready, the little cook should cream her butter and sugar, beat in yolks, add milk, and then stir in the flour alternately with the stiff whites. Then put in the brandy and spice, and last of all the fruit and nuts, dredged with a little flour. This should be well stirred, and then packed in a thoroughly greased covered mold and steamed for four hours.
HARD SAUCE
Two kinds of sauce are nice for this pudding, served together. A hard sauce is made by creaming one-half cupful of butter in one cupful of fine sugar, adding half teaspoonful of brandy or vanilla and one teaspoonful cream and stirring until light and creamy. It can be set in a bowl of hot water at first to help make the butter cream, but after being beaten light should be set in the cold to harden. A teaspoonful of this hard sauce is served on each portion of the pudding.
HOT SAUCE
The following hot sauce is poured around: one-quarter cupful butter, one cupful sugar, one teaspoonful flour. Mix flour and sugar, add butter and one cupful cold water, and stir until it boils and thickens. Flavor with nutmeg.
The day before Christmas repeat the lesson in dressing a fowl, and let her make the stuffing from the recipe used before, only this time she should omit the sage or oysters and season with a small onion chopped fine.
APPLE SAUCE
For the accompanying apple sauce, let her peel and quarter half a dozen tart apples, put on to cook in a cup of cold water, and when tender press through a colander, sweeten to taste, and then put in a pretty glass dish and grate nutmeg over the top. This should then be covered and set away until ready to be carried to the table.
OYSTERS ON THE HALF SHELL
As we intended to have as little work as possible about this particular dinner, I have suggested raw oysters for the first course instead of a soup. Serve on the half-shell if you can get them that way, putting a little chopped ice on each plate to hold the shells in place, giving four or five oysters to each person, and putting one empty shell in the center to hold the horseradish or slice of lemon. If the oysters are opened at the market all you have to do is to see that they are kept on ice until served.
TOMATO JELLY SALAD
For the tomato jelly salad, first boil together until very tender one quart can of tomatoes, one small sliced onion, six cloves, one-half cupful chopped celery. Strain through a jelly bag, season with salt and pepper, and add gelatin which has been dissolving in a few spoonfuls of cold water. As different brands vary, however, study the directions on the box in order to get the right amount to stiffen one quart of jelly.
If the gelatin does not thoroughly melt with the warm tomato juice, set over the fire for a few moments, and then pour into small molds (wine glasses or after-dinner coffee cups will serve nicely), and set away to harden over night. Next morning fix the required number of salad dishes with lettuce leaves or tender cabbage cut in strings, and turn out carefully the molded tomato jelly. Over the top of each drop a large spoonful of thick boiled dressing.
CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS
A pretty idea for a Christmas table is to carry out as fully as possible a color scheme of red and green. The centerpiece, of course, should be of holly, and a novel one it will be if large beautiful pieces are put in the upper part of a double boiler and set out to freeze. I did this once by accident, and when I went for my holly there it was—imbedded in a solid block of ice. The shape of the oat-meal kettle, like a flowerpot, allowed the ice to turn out easily, and it could then be set on a plate and trimmed around the bottom with the holly leaves. A couple of bolts of red baby ribbon will be enough for streamers from the chandelier to each plate, at which should be a pretty piece of the holly—or better still, if you can get them, three or four red carnations for each lady, and one for the buttonhole of each gentleman.
COLOR SCHEME
To carry out this color plan, the oysters should be served with catsup and garnished with parsley, the tomato jelly be turned out on lettuce, the plum pudding (ablaze with a spoonful of alcohol) decorated with holly, and the candy—red and white peppermint wafers—tied with green baby ribbon.
If the details of preparing the dinner have been followed out as I have suggested, and everything possible done the day before, on Christmas morning there will be little to do: the goose to put into the oven and roast, the potatoes to mash and the beans to dress, the plum pudding to heat up, the sauce to prepare, with the gravy and the coffee to make at the last moment. Our small cook of course has the celery cleaned preparatory to cutting up, and the nuts all cracked, and she can tie up the candy and assist with the decorations. Having helped set the table for the Thanksgiving party, she will feel perfectly competent to undertake the arrangement now, alone, and you, Mother, can say, "You have gotten along with everything so nicely, and remembered so well, I will let you put on the dishes and silver all by yourself." Then when she reports that all is ready, look over the work yourself and see that it is all right. Possibly she will have misplaced some pieces, forgotten others, but if you point out the errors and have her remedy the mistakes herself, she will likely remember next time and make her table a well-appointed one.