Christmas Roast Beast

Merry Christmas! This Christmas was spent in South Bend... we Skyped, Facetimed and called family. It was a nice day to stay inside, just the four of us. While it was nice to not travel, I did miss family traditions so I tried to keep one alive with my little family today... 

A favorite family Centellas tradition of mine is picking at whatever is in the oven... being the first to sneak a piece of crispy skin... or calling dibs on a turkey wing or the perfect end slice of meat. Yum... so I figured if we were home all day, I needed to take advantage and try my hand at some more cooking. I have done a turkey, I have done a ham, a big pork loin is fun... but this year I wanted to try a big cut of pork, crispy skin, bone in, a real piece of Christmas Roast Beast.

Meijer had their Picnic cut pork shoulder for under a buck a pound, for the price I figured it would be a fun experiment. I did some online recipe reading, and made a plan of attack... that would start when we returned from the Christmas Eve service. Heather was prego and beaming at service, Novali was all dolled up and beautiful (Cruz told her he liked her dress clothes), and Cruz was not only cute, but a tad of a spectacle singing "Oh Christmas Tree!", but luckily not out of control. 

I scored the skin lightly and did a dry rub on the beast before bed. A generous blend of carne asada mix (yes I put it on everything), onion powder, garlic salt, black pepper and salt.  I set her in the breezeway overnight, and then once everyone went to sleep I played Santa. I then beat everyone awake and brought the meat in to sit room temperature for an hour or so. While she sat I rough cut a big white onion and made a bed for the beast and layered her up and stuffed her with a few garlic cloves. 

I made coffee, and then everyone got up and it was present time... while present time started I pre-heated the oven to 425 and my big roasting pan to 300. Once we got to temp, I put the beast in the oven for 30 minutes to give a little crisp layer, and then moved her to the roasting pan for four hours. You might of seen my live Tweeting of the roast beast phases... 

We had fun opening presents, it was fun watching Cruz open stuff, getting excited about not just the presents, but the big cardboard boxes they came in as well... ha. Novali loved all her girly items, and spent the following few hours curling and curling and curling her hair. Plus it started to snow as we unwrapped gifts and it was a beautiful Christmas morning.

Presents were done, Cruz was napping.... the final 30 minutes in the roaster I turned her up to 400 to help crisp the skin, sprinkled the sea salt and basted her a few times. Heather did a great job on all the sides... stuffing, corn, and my favorite, green bean casserole. Paired with a nice Bells Christmas Ale it was the perfect holiday meal.

On one side, it was nice not fighting with any of my family for the crispy skin.... but in reality, I wish they were here, and it was a big Centellas Holiday gathering... well now I have a good recipe to make next time we play host to a Centellas gathering, and I get to make a Big Centellas Christmas Roast Beast.