Christmas Dinner

Our first stop for the holidays was my brother's place, where his wife Josée cooked her first turkey dinner. All anxiety aside, I'm sure it was the biggest and best dinner she's ever made. It turned out great. A fresh green and tomato salad, followed by moist turkey, mixed veg, stuffing and whipped mashed potatoes mixed with creamed corn, the whole kit and kaboodle (wow, you can tell I just spent some time with my mom using expressions like that!). Her dinner really brought us all together and made Christmas so special.

Since we've all seen turkey dinners before, I thought I'd put the emphasis on the one part of the meal that was new to me – pain au sandwich, or sandwich loaf. It's a tradition that Josée has with her family, her Dad makes it every year. He brought this one to Christmas dinner and it was so fun! After spending the day putting it together, we gobbled it down in minutes. From the outside, this loaf looks like a cake. On the inside are layers of bread cut horizontally and spread with layers of egg, chicken, salmon and ham salad. The entire concoction was held together with yummy whipped, cream cheese that was beautifully decorated with radishes, parsley, tomatoes, corn and cloves. Josée's dad even grabbed the parsley still growing from the ground in their backyard under the snow!! It was fantastic!

Thanks so much Josée for making our Christmas so special and for hosting dinner for our family. We had a wonderful time.