Christmas Eve traditions!

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A Christmas Eve dinner Puertorican style! The essentials are pernil, tostones and arroz con gandules!

We lived in Puerto Rico many, many years ago and this is one of the traditions we  carried back with us!  That was 38 years ago.  Our daughters live in Anchorage, Alaska now and they also carry on this tradition!

A few years back, I changed the menu to something a bit easier and less messy to prepare because I thought the kids did not really care. Well, that was a big mistake!  They howled in disappointment! 

We still do prepare the basics but have  made a few “changes”. 

I no longer buy a fresh ham because they are too big and invariably I end up with too much dry meat! 

Instead, I buy a nice, decent sized pork roast with a nice layer of fat. The roast is juicy and tasty with a nice crackling outside layer.  It was SOOO tasty this year!


                                                    

The rice gets omitted occasionally when the boys are following a keto- type diet.  No rice this year! Mashed potatoes!


                                                

Tostones are a messy job. We have perfected their preparation by doing all of it early in the day except for the final fry. They were crispy and salty and remind us of our celebrations of Christmas on the beach!

                                             

The North American additions are veggies, garlic bread, stuffing and snow salad!  Almost everyone loves shredded Brussels sprouts fried in bacon grease and crispy bacon bits. 

This year I added corn and stuffing for the few Brussels sprout haters lol!! Garlic bread,  traditionally, gets too brown - to the point of being burnt and it’s always my fault! This year it was perfect but the photo I took to prove it was a complete blur! 


The snow salad was added about 10 years ago at the request of the grandkids! This year, I didn’t make the strawberry sauce that goes with it because I thought no one liked it, but of course I was wrong again, haha! They told me, too!


                            


We had a fun time opening gifts and had ice cream for dessert at the end:  flavors to choose- vanilla, strawberry cheesecake or salted caramel!


Until next year!

Merry Christmas everyone!!






















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