I'm sure you can guess that I've never spearheaded a holiday before. I've only been cooking a few months, and I never had a reason or an excuse. Today, though, I was determined to let my wife relax and take care of Christmas dinner by myself.
Well, mostly by myself.
We found a very good sale price on a roast earlier this week, and I'd had an eye on the Pioneer Woman's Perfect Pot Roast recipe. It's a simple enough recipe that I had almost everything in the house. I did have to substitute the white wine we have for the red called for, and I don't have any fresh herbs, but neither of those turned out to be dealbreakers.
When I pulled it out of the oven I was worried about the dark crust on the very top of the roast, but the meat itself was falling-apart tender once I got into it, so it turned out not to be a problem at all. Overall, it was fantastic. I also had the opportunity to face my hot oil fear at the beginning of the recipe, so that was a bonus. (And I didn't get burned today!)
To go with the roast, I made a green bean casserole. Well, to be precise, I made two green bean casseroles. Since my wife can't have dairy or soy, and therefore most mushroom soups are out, I took some inspiration from this vegan green bean casserole recipe. I say inspiration because I modified almost everything. I substituted a coconut half-and-half for the soy called for in the recipe. We couldn't find a half-and-half I could eat (I'm allergic to coconut) so I settled on halving the recipe instead. (This is how I ended up making two different green bean casseroles.) In retrospect, I think I would just make it with almond milk instead; the coconut milk didn't end up bonding very well with the mushroom "soup." My wife thought making the onion topping from scratch was too much work and I shouldn't bother (The store bought ones include soy.) so she went without.
As I was trying to do the math to put both green bean casseroles in the oven at the same temperature, she started in on the potatoes without me having to ask. The baby was in a good mood and she wanted to eat sooner than my admittedly-divided attention span would allow me to address yet another side dish.
The result was delicious, and while I'm a little hesitant to count this as "my first Holiday Dinner" because it was just the two of us and the baby, I would definitely call it a success. I'm glad I got back up and back in the kitchen, even if I'm still nursing the burn from the pork chops.