French Christmas Traditions

The first Christmas I was in Ireland was the first Christmas I had ever spent away from my family. And I’m a sentimental girl, I really like Christmas and I was pretty worried about not being in China Village for the first time.

And, really, when China Village looks like this on Christmas, it’s kind of hard to be anywhere else!

But the neat thing about having our first Christmas as a little married couple in our own apartment in Dublin, was that we got to start our own new traditions.

That first year, we had just returned from a quick wintry trip to Paris and we were hooked on all things French.

On Christmas Eve, we decided to re-enact Paris as much as we could. I made baguettes, and we munched on clementines, soft cheese and hard sausage. And because my mom would always make French Onion Soup, we added that to the mix too.

Oh, and I made chocolate mousse, just like we had in just about every little lovely restaurant on our trip.

And on Christmas morning, I made cinnamon rolls and we had real hot chocolate while we opened our presents.

We have big sweet teeth in our family!

That first year, I made this recipe for cinnamon rolls. It’s a pretty great recipe, but this fall I made these No-Knead Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls and they are just on a different level. So we’re going with them. The recipe makes lots of them, giant ones. It’s going to be awesome.

Now here are a few recipes, in case you want to re-enact Paris anytime!

French Onion Soup

5 generous cups onions, sliced
3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
3 tbsp flour
2 quarts beef broth
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp rosemary
crusty bread and grated cheese to serve

Melt butter and olive oil in a pot, add the onions and cook, covered, over low heat for 15 minutes. Uncover and add salt and sugar. Raise the heat and cook for 30 minutes. Stir in flour and cook for about three minutes. Heat the beef broth and white wine. Then add the onion mixture and season with salt and pepper, thyme and rosemary. Cook for 30 minutes. Serve with crusty bread and grated cheese. Ooh la la!

Chocolate Mousse

1 cup plus 2 tbsp margarine (they have this in Irish grocery stores)
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs (or the equivalent in Egg Beaters, which they don’t have in Irish grocery stores)

Mix everything except the eggs with a mixer. Add eggs one at a time, beating for 5 minutes after adding each egg. Spoon into individual dishes and refrigerate until ready to serve!

Did anyone try Nancy’s buttercrunch recipe from yesterday? I did and I’m so proud of myself! It worked perfectly! And in the end, it was very easy. The hard part is managing not to eat it all!