Saturday night was our annual Christmas Dinner party where we have some friends over, drink a lot and eat a lot. Everyone started arriving around 6:30pm and by the time we sat down to dinner at 7:30, the group had gone through two and a half bottles of wine I had received from the wine clubs. We had two bottles open a red and a white and people loved both of them. It was an easy way o find some good tasting wine that everyone could enjoy. It also helped that the wine was accompanied by a new letter with suggestions and other tips and information about the wines themselves.

We cracked open a third bottle as dinner began and sat down to an excellent feast of pot roast, green beans, rice, gravy, squash and a veggie lasagna (gruntled is a veggie…) and proceeded to feast on roast beast until it was all gone. Its amazing how quickly a FIVE POUND RUMP ROAST can disappear. I cooked it following my father-in-law’s recipe. Friday night, I stuffed the roast with cloves of garlic and rubbed it down with Tony’s seasoning and then covered it in olive oil. Stuck that sucker in the fridge to marinate over night. Saturday afternoon, I put it in a large pot in the oven @ 400 for an hour, then knocked it down to 350 for the remaining time. The thing fell a part on your plate it was that good.

Next time I’m going to have to get a larger cut of meat so I have leftovers. We had fruit, brownies and pumpkin cheese cake (thanks rach!) for desert and kept drinking and eating until about 1:30am and despite the rain, several of us ventured out in to the cold to enjoy a soak in the hot tub. Its amazing how long you can go when there aren’t any kids around to chase after. Once I get some of the photos uploaded, I’ll at least show how good the table looked before we sat down to destroy it. Hope you all have a merry christmas!