Joanne Fluke Christmas Bundle: Sugar Cookie Murder, Candy Cane Murder, Plum Pudding Murder, & Gingerbread Cookie Murder (25 page)

SHRIMP LOUIE SPREAD

Hannah’s Note: This is best served well chilled with a basket of crackers on the side.

Mix the cream cheese with the mayonnaise. Add the chili sauce, horseradish, and pepper. Mix it up into a smooth sauce.

Clean the green onions and cut off the bottoms. Use all of the white part and up to an inch of the green part. Throw the tops away.

Mince the onions as finely as you can and add them to the sauce. Stir them in well.

Chop the salad shrimp into fine bits. You can do this with a sharp knife, or in the food processor using the steel blade and an on-and-off motion.

Mix in the shrimp and check to see how salty the spread is. Add salt if needed.

Chill the spread in a covered bowl in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours. You can make it in the morning if you plan to serve it that night.

Yield: Makes approximately 3 cups.

HOLIDAY SQUASH SOUP

sour cream and/or parsley for toppings

Hannah’s Note: If you don’t have a large enough blender to do this all at once, blend half of it at a time and stir it all together when you get it in the crockpot.

Cook the squash according to package directions, drain it and put it in a blender.

Add the chopped onion and the chicken bouillon beads.

Add the heavy cream.

Zoop it up in the blender and make sure all the onion pieces are pureed and the mixture is smooth.

Add the pepper and the softened cream cheese.

Zoop it up again until it’s all smooth and then dump it in the crockpot you’ve sprayed with Pam.

Once your soup is in the crockpot, give it a final stir and taste a little bit for seasoning. If it needs more salt, DON’T ADD IT. Add another teaspoon of bouillon beads instead to make it really chickeny. If you want to make your soup sinfully rich, this is the time to cut a half-stick of butter
(4 ounces, ¼ pound)
into little pieces and throw them in the crockpot.

Turn the crockpot on LOW and cook for 4 hours.
(This can go an hour or two longer if your company doesn’t arrive on time.)

Check for seasonings again right before serving. When you dish it into the bowls, you can top it with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of fresh parsley if you like.

Yield: approximately 4 cups.

Hannah’s Note: If your soup gets too thick in the crockpot, thin it with a little chicken broth.

PINEAPPLE CRANBERRY JELL-O SALAD

Dissolve the Jell-O in the boiling water. Stir for at least 30 seconds to make sure it’s dissolved.

Add the cranberry sauce and stir until well blended.

Add the pineapple
(with the juice)
, orange juice, lemon juice, and walnuts.

Mix everything together and pour in a ring mold.

Refrigerate until firm. This should take about 4 hours, but you can make it the night before your dinner and keep it in the refrigerator until you’re ready to unmold it and serve it.

Hannah’s Note: Andrea got this recipe from Sally Hayes.

CHRISTMAS BELL SALAD

Hannah’s Note: If fresh bell peppers are not available in your area, use a bag of frozen, multi-colored bell pepper strips. Let them thaw naturally in your refrigerator overnight and dry the strips with paper towels before using.

Assemble the pepper strips, onions, parsley, and spinach in a large salad bowl. Mix in the golden raisins and nuts and toss.

Put the vinegar, olive oil, sugar, pepper, and salt in a small bowl. Whisk them until they are well blended.

You can dress the salad now and refrigerate it for up to an hour, or dress and toss it at table-side.

Yield: Serves 4 to 6 people.

JEWELED PORK ROAST

Cut your pork loin into 2 pieces. Each piece should be no longer than 8 inches.

Stand one piece of pork loin on the cut end and run a barbeque skewer all the way down the middle lengthwise, just like you’re skewering a giant hotdog from one end to the other.

Move the skewer around and turn it to enlarge the hole you’ve made through the middle of the pork loin. If you have a second skewer, push it in right next to the first skewer to assist in enlarging the opening.

When you’ve enlarged the hole as much as you can with the skewers, withdraw them and insert the handle of a wooden spoon. Again, twist it around to stretch the meat and enlarge the hole. Work at this until the hole through the middle of the pork loin is large enough for you to insert your finger.

Lay the fruit out on a sheet of wax paper so that you can pick and choose. This is going to be an awe-inspiring entrée if you alternate fruit color as you’re stuffing. Start by examining the prunes to make sure they’re pitted. You don’t want one of your guests to crack a tooth!

Insert a prune into the hole. Push it down to the halfway point with your finger or the end of the wooden spoon. Follow that with an apricot, then a pear, a peach, and two apple slices. Insert as much fruit as you can stuff into the hole.

Now go at it from the other end, stuffing the fruit in random order, alternating types and colors. When your piece of pork loin is chock-full of fruit and it’s practically popping out the ends, either skewer the ends closed or sew them closed with kitchen string and a large needle.
(I lived dangerously – I just left mine open and was very, very careful when I browned the pork.)

Repeat with the second half of the pork loin and then heat the butter and olive oil in a skillet large enough to hold both pieces of pork.

Brown the outside of your pork roasts, turning them with tongs so that they’re brown all over. Salt and pepper your pork as you go so it’s seasoned all over.

Take out a roasting pan large enough to hold both roasts and deep enough to also hold the cream, wine, and milk. Spray the inside of the roasting pan with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray and pour in the white wine and cream.

Place the roasts in the roasting pan. If you haven’t sewn or skewered the ends closed, try to jam them up against each other and the sides of the pan so the fruit won’t fall out during baking.

Pour enough milk into the pan so that the liquid comes halfway up the sides of your roasts.

Cover your roaster with the lid or with a piece of heavy foil tucked down around the sides, slip it into the oven, and turn the oven on to 350 degrees F.

Bake the roasts for 2 hours or until the meat no longer resists when poked with the tip of a sharp knife.

Remove the pan from the oven. Remove the foil or cover carefully—steam will escape. Then remove the roasts from the pan and place them on a cutting board, cover them loosely with foil and let them rest for at least 10 minutes.
(15 minutes is okay, too.)

Throw away the liquid in the pan. It won’t make good gravy.

When your Jeweled Pork Roasts have rested, use a very sharp knife to slice off the very ends. Then slice the roasts into 1-inch thick pieces and arrange them on a platter.

Pat yourself on the back when you carry the platter to the table and everyone oohs and ahhs. You deserve it.

Yield: Serves 6 to 8 guests.

LINGONBERRY GRAVY (OR APRICOT IF YOU CAN’T FIND LINGONBERRY)

Hannah’s Note: This is not homemade pork gravy. Since you cook the pork in milk, you don’t have all that wonderful brown stuff in the bottom of your pan that makes gravy taste so yummy.

If you want to make this the way my grandma did and you can find lingonberry jam, by all means use it. If you can’t find lingonberry jam, you can substitute apricot jam, seedless raspberry or blackberry jam, or even apple jelly.

Make the 3 packets of Pork Gravy Mix following the directions on the package. When it’s ready, add the half-cup of lingonberry jam
(or substitute.)

If the jam thins the gravy too much, use as much of the other gravy package as you need to thicken it.

SCANDINAVIAN SPUDS

Choose a bowl large enough to hold all of the potatoes and fill it with cold water. Add a teaspoon of salt and a squirt of lemon juice to the water. Set it on your counter and…

Peel a potato, rinse it off, and find a wooden spoon or serving spoon that will cradle the peeled potato almost halfway up its sides. Put the spoon on a bunched up towel on the counter so it won’t roll from side to side, and nestle the potato inside. Turn the spoon sideways so that the long side of the potato faces you. Start about a half-inch from the end and slice straight down in quarter-inch intervals, stopping a half-inch from the other end of the potato. The bowl of the spoon will stop your knife from cutting through the potato all the way so that it’s only partially sliced. Drop the partially sliced potato in the cold water so that it won’t discolor and start in on the next one.

Hannah’s Note: The peeling and slicing of the potatoes can be done several hours in advance as long as you store them in cold, salted water in the refrigerator.

If you do slice all the way through a potato, don’t worry. Just bump the two pieces tightly together in your baking pan when the time comes and no one will be the wiser.

One hour and ten minutes before you want to serve your potatoes, preheat your oven to 425 degrees F., rack in the middle position.

Once your oven comes up to temperature, the potatoes will take about one hour from start to finish.

Choose a baking pan that will hold all of your potatoes in a single layer. If you don’t have one that large, use two smaller ones.

Use the 2 Tablespoons of softened butter to coat the inside of your baking pan.
(If you have a pretty one that can be carried to the table, by all means use it!)

Take the potatoes out of the water and pat them dry with paper towels. Place them in the buttered pan, cut side up in a single layer.

Drizzle the melted butter over the tops of the potatoes and sprinkle on the salt.

Sprinkle the Scandinavian Spuds with sweet basil and paprika.

DO NOT sprinkle on the bread crumbs yet.

Place your pan in a 425 degree F. oven, UNCOVERED, and set your timer for 30 minutes.

When the time is up, take your pan out of the oven and sprinkle the bread crumbs over the top of your potatoes
(the slices will have spread out a bit so some will go between the slices)
.

Melt the cold stick of butter. Drizzle it over the top of the breadcrumbs.

Slip your pan back into the oven, uncovered, for an additional 25 minutes.

Test your potatoes to make sure they’re done by spearing one gently with a fork. If it shows no resistance, take the pan out of the oven and let the potatoes cool for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Yield: 12 potatoes.

You can cut this recipe in half, of course. Or you can double it if you’ve invited Mike to your Christmas Eve dinner. He’s been known to eat three on occasion.