Christmas Dinner

Okay, so these are a little bit late.....but I still have to post them, because it was an awesome Christmas dinner!Above we have the famous Allen Family Cheeseball....with imported cheese from the USA. Of course, we couldn't get our hands on parsley (the stuff I'm growing is too small) and I can't eat the nuts, so it was a naked cheeseball....but still delicious! And it was our appetizer.
And below we have the table.....it turned out pretty well considering the limited resources I had to work with. I really wanted a cool tablecloth..but maybe next year. Do you like my cool modern Asian dishes? I loved shopping for all of the dishes and stuff, way fun!!First course.....Pumpkin Soup. Fabulous! And though we tried with all our might, we couldn't eat it with the pretty chopsticks....so we resorted to spoons. Second course...delicious salad. I must give credit to Costco for providing this salad blend...I'm sure I would never find the individual salad ingredients (except tomatoes) anywhere here.
Brian says that this is what I look like when I am bossing everyone around. Can you blame me? I'm trying to pull off a Martha meal here!!!
Third course.....lasagne!!! This lasagne features homemade noodles and a special cheese mixture for the inside....special meaning what I could find to throw together here in Taiwan. All baked in an asthetically pleasing individual ramekin, and baked in my fabulous toaster oven straight from the 1950's. Wow....sometimes I even impress myself.

Mmmmmm...that was good....lets see another picture......mmmmmmmm!!!
A little break for digestion and dress up. Don't let the picture fool you....I'm sure Brian put that stuff on himself!
Ahhh...fourth course.......homemade cheese ravioli with bolognase sauce..(okay, so it was Prego with hamburger in it) along with homemade fettuccine noodles with alfredo sauce. I ruined the first batch of sauce....so I ended up making up my own recipe. All pulled together with perfectly steamed frozen veggies......yummy!!And here is Erika and I preparing the finale.....chocolate muffins (leftover from Christmas Eve brunch....and generously provided by Costco) with the centers hollowed out and filled with chocolate sauce......And what am I doing to this poor innocent muffin????
Ah yes, injecting it with more chocolate.......you can never really have enough, you know. Then the top is replaced and the whole thing gets thrown in the toaster oven to heat up....
And here we are with the finished product.......served alongside vanilla ice cream and topped with whipped cream and garnished with more chocolate sauce.........mmmmmmmm!!!We had a great day of presents and eating and talking to family!!!! I hope you all had a great Christmas....and Happy New Year!