Ryan's Roast Turkey

Just 4 days before Christmas and my birthday! As always, my family and I are excited preparing for this special day. It's the time of the year when we have a back-to-back get together with our close friends to celebrate not only Jesus' birthday but my birthday too! We have two consecutive parties on the 24th and the 25th...we host a Noche Buena feast for our close friends at home on Christmas Eve, and then on Christmas Day, we have another party at a friend's house where we bring some food as part of my birthday celebration.

Last Friday, I shared with you our Noche Buena Menu which is a combination of Filipino and American favorites. The said menu includes Roast Turkey which is something Ryan (the hubs) loves making for special occasions. This morning, I got a comment from a reader asking me to share the herbs and spices and the procedure for roasting turkey. I know that many of you also want to have roast turkey as part of your Christmas feast, so today, I want to share with you Ryan's way of roasting turkey. He has been doing this for the past 7 years, and I must say that his roast turkey has already achieved perfection. It's not only flavorful, it's also tender, so moist and juicy --- something that a Holiday Roast Turkey should be! 

Ryan's Roast Turkey has always been a big hit on our Thanksgiving and Christmas table...and today, I'm proud to share with you his recipe. Hope you will find this helpful...

Chicken Sotanghon Soup and our Noche Buena Menu

Just 9 days to go before Christmas...and I couldn’t help but get nostalgic about the holiday celebration back home. For me, nothing compares to celebrating Christmas in the Philippines! It's not just about food and parties...it's rich in traditions, and that makes our celebration unique among other countries. 

The Philippines is known for having the longest Christmas celebration in the world. Though it begins formally on December 16 with the start of the Simbang Gabi (a nine-day novena that culminates with the “Misa de Gallo” on Christmas Eve to welcome the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ) and continues until the first Sunday of January which is the Feast of the Epiphany, Christmas carols start ringing in the air and colorful lights and decorations can be seen everywhere as early as the first day of September.  It's like four months of celebration! 

When I was a kid, Christmas celebration starts in our home on the first weekend of October when my family and I set up our Christmas tree and hang parol (Christmas lanterns) by our windows. Following that would be the endless shopping and wrapping of gifts for our close friends and relatives. In the month of December, we used to observe Filipino traditions like going to Simbang Gabi (night mass) from Dec. 16-24, watching the Panuluyan (reenactment of the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem) on Christmas Eve, having Noche Buena (Christmas Eve feast) and doing the Pagmamano (visiting godparents and elderly relatives) before noon of Christmas Day. And since my birthday falls on Christmas Day, we always had a party in the afternoon, and my late mom used to cook all kinds of Filipino food. I just love how food overflow in our house on this special day! It's one of my favorite things about Christmas! :)

Though we are now far away from home,  I want Christmas to be fun for my daughters just as much as it was for me. Because it is impossible to do most of the Filipino traditions that I grew up with, all I can do is to start some new ones that can give my daughters the same wonderful holiday experience that I had. I believe that the secret to a memorable Christmas is doing things together with your loved ones without forgetting that Christ should be the center of it...so that's what we do! Together, we would put up the Christmas tree and other decorations the weekend before Thanksgiving...wrap Christmas presents...give gift to the Angel Tree at their school and at church...bake cookies for our friends...attend Advent masses and Christmas mass...and prepare for the Noche Buena feast that we've been hosting for the past seven years that we've been here in Texas. Every year, I cook a combination of Filipino and American food, and that's what I'm going to share for this month's Kulinarya Cooking Club Challenge. This month, Kulinarya's challenge is hosted by Joy of Gastronomy by Joy and Sherilyn of Senorita Sisa, and they've chosen  Noche Buena as the theme.

So here it is...our Noche Buena Menu for this year which includes Chicken Sotanghon Soup that has always been part of our Christmas feast since I was a kid. It is such a comforting noodle soup that gives us warmth after attending the Misa De Gallo.

 

My daughters love this as much as I do. It may not be the star of our Noche Buena...but our feast won't be complete without it!