Christmas in the kitchen.

When I go home for Christmas, there are only two things I want to do: ski and cook. Fortunately, the weather this year provided me with plenty of snow on the trails and time in the kitchen. As my time spent x-country was uneventful (though thoroughly enjoyable), I'll spare you the details and focus instead on a couple of unexpected masterpieces and catastrophes that made their way out of my parent's kitchen.

With Erica's inspiration, and my father as my sous-chef, I attempted Gordon Ramsay's Beef Wellington. It was an adequate first attempt. Apparently neither my father nor myself have a great attention to culinary detail. He neglected to follow Gordo's very specific instruction to be careful NOT to over chop the mushrooms in the food processor, lest they become a "slurry." And slurry, they were.

My own mistake was equally unfortunate as I had taken out a box of phyllo instead of puff pastry to thaw throughout the day. I realized this in the eleventh hour and was forced to microwave a rock solid, frozen package of puff pastry. Needless to say, this was not ideal.

The dish itself did come together eventually but the mushy mushrooms and sub-par pastry did not bake perfectly and left more moisture (almost sogginess) than I would have liked. However, by the time we pulled it out of the oven, it was almost eleven pm. My hunger overtook my critical eye and we ate the dish as it was; soggy and slightly under cooked. I feel that if it was edible despite all these shortcomings, then my second attempt is sure to impress.

You may be wondering what I did with my mistakenly thawed phyllo. Well, being of the waste-not-want-not school, I incorporated all of it (yes, the entire package) into the following evening's meal. Specifically, I made a few dozen phyllo cups- some savory, some sweet. I baked into the savory cups goat cheese souffles, which I served as appetizers. The sweet cups were served as dessert with dark chocolate mousse inside.

These phyllo nightmares (though delicious, they were horribly time consuming. And let's face it, phyllo doesn't add much in the way of flavour), bookended an otherwise delicious meal. We made a duck confit served over greens, pears, blackberries and Gorgonzola. This was followed by a chermoula carrot soup and then a handmade butternut squash, prosciutto ravioli. Turns out, I'm not such a fan of butternut squash. Who knew?

Overall, I returned to Ottawa content with the time I'd spent cooking. Though really, I never get enough of my parent's ample counter space, stocked pantry, and plethora of kitchen equipment. *Sigh* One day, standing Kitchen Aid mixer. One day.