A Christmas Feast!

I hope you had a very relaxing and enjoyable Christmas day!   We spent the day inside, watching movies, sleeping in, opening presents and I cooked us a feast!

First, we started with breakfast: a sausage, tomato and bell pepper fritata with fresh squeezed orange juice.  This is one of the things my boyfriend absolutely loves.  He has a couple of local restaurants that he frequents that hand squeeze their juice=as you order it.  So I planned this as a surprise for him and squeezed us a pitcher of juice on Christmas Eve before he got off work.

  

Then we opened presents and vegged out on the couch till midafternoon!

Then I started preparing our feast.  I pretty much stuck to the planned menu from yesterday and everything was delicious.  

We started with a cheese plate... cracked pepper and mango jalapeno cheddar cheeses with Fig Butter (from Trader Joes).  This stuff is seriously good.  Go get some now!

I made the citrus glaze for the cornish game hens.   

 

I made these citrus ginger carrots (defiintely making these again. They were incredible!)  

I think I bundled too many beans in my bacon bundles.   Two of the 4 came apart...but they were good!   This is one of the risks when you make a smaller batch than the original recipe calls for.

Crispy Brussel Sprouts and the Sausage Stuffed Peppers were kind of a made up recipe, after checking out a few - I threw together seasonings and made these myself.  The brussel sprouts were just halved, thrown in a pan with some grass-fed butter and salt and pepper.  I cooked them on the top shelf for about 30 minutes at 375.  The sausage was seasoned with sage and pepper, then stuffed in mini bell peppers and baked for about 40 minutes at 375.

Everything came together perfectly - with only one problem.  We barely saved room for dessert! The most un-paleo, un-homemade dessert on the planet.  Costco's ginormous pecan pie.  No worries, we each enjoyed a bit of this...one of us more than the other!  :)  

It was an amazing day.... I love that I was able to leisurely prepare a homemade meal, all of these yummy foods, while we relaxed and enjoyed time away from work and time with each other.  We watched more movies today than are probably good for you (saw a few good ones too!) and seriously were lazy bums all day.  It was a fantastic Christmas!

And I just wanted to share this FREE adorable chalkboard printable from LilLuna.com