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.

Thank You Hostess

No not for a Twinkie. To Maria our hostess at the Hilton Garden Inn at Midway.

Friday night we stayed in Chicago after Novali's Christmas program. She was an angel, did a fantastic job and looked beautiful as an angel. Since it was a late program we decided to stay the night in town and get some swimming in to kick off the holiday break.

I had a reward coupon to use, so we picked this hotel based on location and free parking. I looked at the website and they had a pool so I booked it, confirmed my coupon and off we went.

When we arrived at the hotel we noticed it was under renovation and right away my first question was... pool? They explained no it was closed, but that the Marriott next door had a deal so we can swim there.... ah. The front desk lady was good, when presented with my coupon she mentioned needing to get help to process it. I appreciate that, so many times front desk people just walk away and don't tell you what they are doing. The guy who came was polite, said hello again and walked her through processing it. They offered us bottles of water and then explained where breakfast would be in the morning.

Our room was nice, I have come to enjoy Hilton Garden Inn (and likewise Hampton) as my favorite Hilton properties (been let down too many times by Double Tree and Hilton). We ate ice cream to celebrate Novali's performance and watched TV and got a late night tuck in.

Our morning was great, we went down to breakfast and let Novali sleep in. The staff at breakfast were great, obviously serving breakfast in a conference room and not their typical diner but they made it work. Maria was our server/hostess and she was nice, checked on us regularly and helpful with Cruz. Obviously a mom, cause not many people understand how hard it is to be out with a nearly 3 year old little man with lots of items in front of him at breakfast.

Later when I brought Novali down for breakfast, Maria once again said hello, so did the rest of the team. I asked for a to-go box so we could take her meal up stairs. We got that, but we also got a nice to go tray, with cups of OJ on it and condiments, napkins, etc. WOW. We didn't even ask.

They rocked out breakfast (which is my favorite part of Hilton Garden Inns) and then when we called to ask about the pool they were great. They told us which door to go out so we were closest to the Marriot to walk over. We went, we swam, all was good, Cruz was a champ in the pool, Novali enjoyed some hot tub time...

Even when in the elevator with one of their house keeping staff they made eye contract and told me to have a nice day. Usually they avoid you in elevators and don't know how to reply when you say hello.

This morning I got an email from their manager asking how my stay was... it seemed like a real direct email. Not those spam surveys I get from most hotel stays. I wrote her a quick note, and thought... for all the negative rants I do on Twitter about customer service (BTW Enterprise never replied) I need to do a nice positive rant. Thank you Gabriella and your team for a good stay.

Now if you guys can do something about that crazy Chicago traffic... I might visit even more. HA.

Check out their hotel WEBSITE next time you are in the area or flying from Midway.