Christmas is a feast.
Christmas is a beast.
Tasty, tasty
eat so hasty
now we gotta leave!

This time of the year is about joy and celebration and family – and excess! That last part is optional really – yet it does seem to be part of how many of us celebrate Christmas. Too excess.

Time for a slow down and a stop. Wind down, feet up. Pause. Today we do not cook!

The leftovers in my fridge are somewhat under control now. Prime rib turned into frozen stock and delicious soup. Turkey magically shrunk from a massive blob in my fridge into more frozen stock, and a hearty turkey soup.

What I seem to have an over-abundance of now is a bunch of odds and ends. Cold cuts, fruit, and cheese! This year I have an plethora of cheese. Whew – I have now used plethora in a blog post so that is off my 2013 bucket list of words.

So today we eat the remains of the soups, and sandwiches made from the cold cuts that need to move on before they become alive! For some reason I went a little wild on cheese so I have Cheddar, Havarti, Camembert, Swiss, and Mozzarella. I did say no cooking – but does toasting count as cooking? Not if the toast involves wine – Cheers!

Well yeah I am having wine with my lunch – because the bottle is open and needs to be saved from being wasted. And really there is nothing quite like wine and cheese to satisfy the palette !Fear not the wine will not be wasted! Other things may be wasted in the process…

I will also be toasting the cheese (not just with wine!) but also in a toaster oven. I don’t count this as cooking – it is simply placing cold ingredients on some bread and clicking a dial. I like ham and cheddar on rye (even if it hasn’t been toasted yet!). But toasted it becomes a warm gooey treat full of flavours.

I am quickly writing this as my open face sandwich toasts. Two pieces of bread. One holds the ham slices. The other holds thin slices of cheddar. If the cheese had not been sliced for an cheese tray I would shred the cheese to help it melt faster. Place on a toaster safe dish or cooking sheet and pop in the toaster oven for a few minutes at 375. Hotter if you like the bread crunchier and the cheese browned slightly.

Then flip the two pieces of bread together. Like a grilled cheese with no grilling!

DING!

My lunch is ready.

Now to go read a book and enjoy my leftover feast of the day!

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