Making Christmas dinner for two is easy, but boring. It’s hard to scale traditional holiday classics down to size. Corey and I debated going out to eat for Christmas, but the holiday menus we perused were overpriced and uninspired. I knew I could do better than that! We threw a few ideas around and finally settled on something I’ve always wanted to try: cornish game hens. They’re little, they’re quick to cook, and they’ve got that Dickensian holiday flair. Plus, it’s pretty cool to present your husband with his own personal mini-bird.
These were less than 2 pounds each, and much of that weight was in the bones, so the end result was a nice serving of meat per person with minimal leftovers. The flavor was pretty interesting – sort of like a milder roast chicken. Considering how much I love roast chicken, I’m not sure I’d consider these a substitute, but they were a nice alternative considering they cooked in less than an hour and made a significantly smaller mess of the inside of my stove. You don’t really need a recipe for this one – simply take two small hens, rub them with salt, pepper and olive oil and stuff them with wedges of onion and your preferred citrus fruit (I used an orange). Place them on top of assorted vegetables (I used potatoes, carrots, celery, parsnip and onion) that have been drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast the whole kit ‘n’ caboodle at 450 for 45 minutes. Perfect one dish meal!
Oh – and about dessert…
I definitely made my best pie crust to date! It was light. It was flaky. It rolled out decently well. And I attribute my success to my trusty pastry cutter! I finally pushed aside my desire to make a high tech crust with the food processor or Kitchenaid mixer, and did that mamma jamma by hand. The pastry cutter worked BEAUTIFULLY. My mom (who told me to use the pastry cutter to begin with) explained that doing it by hand allows you to get a greater feel for the ratio of dry ingredients to water. Adding the proper amount of liquid ensures the dough isn’t too dry and crumbly to roll out, which had been my Achilles heel up to this point. SCORE! The crust is an old Joy of Cooking recipe (which I can post if anyone is interested?) and the filling is from fellow blogger Joy the Baker – check out her recipe for Sweet Potato Pie.
What a perfect holiday dinner for two! I’ve always loved the idea of game hens, and a single serving roast poultry for one!
Yum! I love the photos, and this looks like a perfect holiday meal built for 2
Scaling down for holiday meals is hard to do, but it looks like you did a great job! My husband would have been all over that meal! I looks delicious!
Now that looks like a good ol’ comfort meal to me