Christmas Brunch 2009
arrived to a beautiful home with hot cider or cold mimosas awaiting us.

The meal was delicious starting with the breakfast souffle in the bottom right corner.

Breakfast souffle
1 1/2 pounds fresh bulk pork sausage
8 slices bacon, chopped
9 eggs
3 cups milk
1 1/2 teaspoons dry mustard
6 slices bread, cut into cubes
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
Prepare the night before - Brown bacon and sausage together; drain well. Whisk eggs, milk and mustard; add bacon and sausage. fold in cheese and bread cubes. Pour into a greased 9 X 13 inch pan and cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Serves 12.
Okay, dig in ladies!

These are seriously tasty onion tarts.

Onion Tarts
(Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade)
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1 Vidalia onion or other sweet onion, diced, about 3 cups
- 1 box (15-ounce) refrigerated pie crust (recommended: Pillsbury)
- 3 large eggs
- 1 1/3 cups half-and-half
- 1 (1.3-ounce) envelope golden onion soup mix
- 1 tablespoon fine herbs
- 1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Melt butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add onions and cook until golden brown. Set aside to cool.
Unroll pie dough 1 at a time. Use a 2 1/2-inch round cutter and cut as many rounds as possible (about 14 to 16), reserving scraps repeat with second pie dough. Gather together scrap dough and cut out as many rounds as needed to make 36 in total. Fit dough rounds into cups of mini muffin pan. Place in the oven and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Remove and set aside.
In a small bowl, whisk together eggs, half-and-half, golden onion soup mix, and fines herbs. Set aside.

Baked Mashed Potatoes
<:od>(Giada De Laurentiis)
- 4 pounds russet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 stick butter, melted plus 1 tablespoon at room temp
- 1 cup whole milk, at room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella
- 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan, divided use
- 8 oz pancetta, diced, cooked and drained of excess oil
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 chopped fresh flat leaf Italian parsley
- 2 tablespoons plain dry bread crumbs
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Coat a 13 by 9 by 2-inch baking dish with the 1 tablespoon of room temp butter and set aside.
Cook the potatoes in a large pot of boiling salted water until they are very tender, about 15 minutes. Drain; return the potatoes to the same pot and mash well with a potato masher. Mix in the melted butter and milk. Mix in the mozzarella, 3/4 cup of the Parmesan and pancetta. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper and add in parsley. Transfer the potatoes to the prepared baking dish. Stir the bread crumbs and remaining 1/4 cup of Parmesan in a small bowl to blend. Sprinkle the bread crumb mixture over the mashed potatoes. Recipe can be prepared up to this point 6 hours ahead of time; cover and chill.
Bake, uncovered, until the topping is golden brown, about 20 minutes.
We decided to save dessert for later and so we had our ornament exchange.
I was lucky number seven! That means that I was seventh in line to select my gift from the pile. The bigger the number the better the steal!!! We take turns opening gifts one at a time. You can choose a gift from the pile or before you open a gift you can steal any one of the gifts that have already been opened. I was number seven so I got see almost all the ornaments opened and make my choice. 
Please, oh please let me get number TEN!!!!
Here is a satisfied customer.
But, here is an example of a "nice" steal. Notice the smiles and amicable exchange.
Now, here is an example of an "evil" steal. Notice the claw hands grabbing for the gift....
...and the smug smile of victory.
Even Frosty is wincing over that one.
Time for dessert.
The Red Velvet cake dwarfed the kitchen. I'm not kidding. It was so big that it held two live deer and a forest of pine trees. I wanted to put a penny beside it like the archaeologists do when they are unearthing a treasure to show the scale of this cake. It was huge...enormous...gigantic! 
Run, Bambi, Run!
The slices were bigger than the dessert plates.
How was the taste? Delicious!
Unfortunately, Janet is a member of the CPC (clean plate club) and we had to finish our cake before we could leave! Finally, as the sun set over the horizon, the last plate was cleaned and we all headed home.
Okay, not really. I just had this great photo of a sunset from the night before at my house and I didn't have anywhere to put it so I just made that last part up so I could use the photo.
Thanks, girly girls, it was fun!!





Love the blog Julie!! Thanks for putting the recipes online
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