Christmas Eve at Bluebird Meadow Farms

So part of our New York trip for Christmas include a Christmas Eve celebration like no other at Bluebird Meadow Farms. Andy and Kelli were kind enough to include our family in their families' holiday gathering, and wow was it fun and tasty! Even before we got there Andy was working on the series of snacks that we'd get to taste through the night. Here's Andy, with his dad supervising...


In addition to wonderful holiday delights, we were presented with some of the most offensive things I've ever seen - SUGAR COOKIES!!!!


What - you missed the offensive part? Here - take a closer look!



ROFL! Ok, seriously there is NO WAY we were offended. Honest. I love Andy and Kelli for their wicked sense of humor (which we share with them). I thought these were very creative. Hm. Y'know, while most of the other cookies were gone by the end of the night, I don't recall anyone eating those two... ;-)

And speaking of treats...



Brett had Watson (Andy & Kelli's dog), Doogie, and Mave (Kelli's parents' dog) pretty much wrapped around his finger!


Kelli fired up the Wii, and some of the gang got into a serious game of Wii golf.


Dad's supposed to be pretty good at golf, both in the real world, and on the Wii...


Bring on some more food! Here's dad's infamously presented pineapple, which Andy decorated with clementines and pomegranate - what a great combination! Trust me - this was NOT "too pretty to eat!"


Another of the tapas-like presentations was this asian-style chicken, which we wrapped in lettuce leaves to eat. Talk about TASTY!!! I wish I'd gotten more pictures of Andy's meals...the pictures I DID get here just don't do them justice!


And how do you eat the asian chicken with lettuce? Andy demonstrates...





While the matriarchal women-folk sat and chatted...


...Kelli and I got it on with a couple serious boxing matches.


See, the thing is, I would like to think I was using some actual boxing moves, while Kelli just rapid-fired her arms back and forth in front of her.


And while I might crack on her technique, it works. In addition to whupping my ass, I believe Kelli kicked Brett's ass as well!


Time for another round of food. I don't remember what Andy actually called this dish - I lovingly referred to it as "scrambled eggs, wrapped in proscuito and tied together with chives." Good stuff!


Anything that tastes this good MUST have lots of meticulous work put into it...


Voila! Like little chicken and pig Christmas presents!


And a little later, there were oysters broiled in an herbed butter sauce (I don't remember the exact details of what he served - hopefully Andy will post a better listing!). Here's Andy having some fun with preparing the dish:





And finally it was time for me to strut my stuff - the dessert I spent DAYS on!


And let me tell you, my log was pretty damn hefty! (Uh, remember what I said about being offended over the cookies?)


Hm, maybe I didn't "glue on" (with warm piped chocolate) enough mushroom?


NOW we're talking a serious fungal outbreak! (Hey, when you make this many mushrooms, you want to use as many as possible!)


We decided the yule log looked best after it had some evergreen sitting next to it!


Now it was a little earlier than this that we'd realized the winds were kicking up. Andy and Kelli's farm is on about 35 acres of land, with the farm house sitting up on top of a hill. A big hill. And the winds really whip through there. Andy's had more than one occasion where he's had to replace shingles. As we realize the winds were picking up, and a cold breeze was even getting in around the kitchen door, they lost power. FUN! The good news is we'd already had all of the food that would require any heat. The bad news is they were not only losing individual shingles to the wind (you didn't dare go out the front door!), but an entire section/sheet of shingles on the roof peeled up - like someone was rolling up a sheet! And it was plenty big!

After they'd called the electric company (who wasn't yet aware of the outage!), we lit candles and Andy went out to light the generator.


Since they didn't want to use up the fuel in the generator too fast, it was just used to power some of the more important stuff - the furnace, the fridge and freezers, and the Christmas tree. Here's Kelli's mom enjoying the candlelight...


Well we weren't going to let something like a power outage stop us from enjoying some log! MMM! Tasty stuff! And even though I didn't manage to fit all of the meringue mushrooms on the log, we found they made tasty snacks. This is what was left of the log after everyone but Andy had a piece (he was still outside playing the dark).


At least there was enough juice for the Christmas tree! Honestly, while Andy and Kelly were rightfully worried about their roof and the power outage, it really was a wonderful evening, and the power outage just made it look that much cooler... What a great night! Thanks guys!