Why you should NEVER attempt a new recipe at Christmas

I hope that you & yours had a sweet celebration of Christmas and New Year’s.

Even though I enjoy the season of Christmas I always find myself gleeful come January, when it’s time to put away all those Christmas trappings. I’m a bit of a minimalist and limit how much decor we put up each December, but it still seems to take over the house. I am secretly thrilled when everything is boxed back up for another 11 months.

This Christmas & New Year’s season I learned a vital lesson, that I’m really hoping I will remember in future years…

Don’t attempt a recipe for the first time at Christmas {or Thanksgiving or New Year’s}

Why is it, that we put all this pressure on ourselves {or maybe you are smarter than me and don’t do this to yourself!} to have an immaculately decorated house, perfectly selected gifts, and oh yes, amazing meals each time you find yourself at the table between December 24 & 25.

I could go on & on about my food failures over the last 4 weeks.

It all started when my husband came in from hunting the morning of Christmas Eve, took one look at my face and said “Did one of your recipes not work out?”

I lied.
I said, no, it’s all good.

In reality, the yet another failed attempt at gluten free cinnamon buns were already in the trash.
I should just give up trying to make them.
Every year I tell myself This Is The Year.
But really, I don’t think GOOD GF cinnamon buns exist.

Then there were the gluten free pigs n’ a blanket I was planning for Christmas Eve.
I had already talked myself into being okay with barely edible gluten free crescent rolls.
I just needed GF lil’ sausages.
Unfortunately, I didn’t realize until Christmas Eve that only Wal-Mart carries them.
At least I made the wise decision to not go to Wal-Mart the day before Christmas.

Then there were the the scalloped potatoes my husband requested for our Christmas lunch.
That couldn’t be too difficult, could it??
Well, when you don’t read the whole recipe until 30 minutes before Christmas lunch, you realize too late it will take an hour and a half to get them on the table.
And at that point, you are simply done. Mashed potatoes will do just fine.

But the real cooking failure was…

The Christmas Ham literally tasted like mush.

Serious.
I’m actually not being dramatic at all!

And if I had just read the recipe well beforehand, I would have realized one major hiccup.

The recipe was for an UNCOOKED ham.
Uncooked requires quite a different recipe than a Cooked Ham.
Mostly, that an already cooked ham only needs heated up.
Nope, not thinking here on my part.

So what did I do??? Followed that recipe to the T!

Marinated that COOKED ham for 8 hours in pineapple juice {which breaks down the fibers in UNCOOKED ham} then I preceded to cook the COOKED ham for 2 hours.

Once again, it literally tasted like MUSH!

It was so bad, that my father in law drove back to their house to get their Christmas Eve ham leftovers.

And yes, I know I may tend a bit towards the dramatic.
No one else cares that they didn’t have homemade cinnamon buns or had to eat mashed potatoes or eat leftover ham. But me, I care.

So next year, I’m going to go the route my friends suggests….
doughnuts {not homemade!!} and coffee for Christmas breakfast and a grocery store catered dinner.

But if you happen to have a cinnamon bun recipe that is GF, I’d love to have it.
Because as much as I’d like to say I won’t ever attempt them again, I’m simply a gluten for punishment.

I hope your cooking adventures fared much better than mine!

Happy New Year’s,