Christmas Dinner

I forgot to take pictures of what I fixed for dinner tonight...oh well! It was yummy. We ate a lot later than I intended. I took the roast I was going to fix out of the freezer last evening and put it in the bottom of the refrigerator. I really thought it would begin to thaw...unfortunately, when I checked on it this morning, it was still hard as a rock. I put it in the sink and about 2 pm, it was still frozen. So I got out one of my non-stick pans, took the roast out of the wrapping and put it in the pan. It was finally thawed about 4:30pm.

So here's the menu:
Roast Beef
Boiled Red Potatoes
Steamed Fresh Green Beans
Rice Salad
Ambrosia (Fruit Cocktail, Pineapple Chunks, Mandarin Oranges, Miniature Marshmallows and Cool Whip) - my very favorite!!

Everything was so good and we stuffed ourselves.

Here's how I fix the roast:
I try to get a Cross Rib Roast or Sirloin Tip Roast, about 3 lbs. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Put some kosher salt, black pepper and garlic powder on a dinner plate and roll the roast in the mixture...patting it on so it sticks. Roast for 1 hour at 425 degrees. At the end of the hour, turn off the oven. Do not open the oven door. The recipe that I follow says to keep the roast in the oven for 2 hours, then heat the oven up to 300 degrees and warm the roast for about 20 to 30 minutes. I didn't do that tonight because it was so late. After the potatoes and green beans were cooked, I took the roast out...it had been about 30 -35 minutes. It was a perfect tender, medium rare roast. It had a little bit of a thin tail on it and that got about medium. The crust that formed was so good.

I've had the recipe for the rice salad since the '70's. A girl that I worked with at the Fresno County Main Branch Library use to bring it for potlucks. I begged for the recipe and she finally gave it to me, making sure I promised that I wouldn't share it with anyone. I have pretty much held to that promise...Denise has it. I don't make it very often...usually just for Christmas dinner. I have seen recipes that are similar.

The Ambrosia is super easy...a large can of fruit cocktail, a 15 oz can of pineapple chunks and mandarin oranges, half a bag of miniature marshmallows and cool whip. Sometimes I put flaked coconut in it, also cut up red or green apples and sliced bananas. I made both of the salads Saturday night...they taste much better the next day.

I used some red glass dinnerware and we had Martinelli's to drink. Nothing fancy...so, so yummy, though.

Hope you've all had a great day!!