A Merry States on My Plate Christmas!

Merry SoMP Christmas to one and to all!! To celebrate the holidays, we decided to choose three dishes from three different states. One state we re-visited, and two states we haven’t yet visited. Can you guess which states?

The three dishes we chose are: Kalua pork from Hawaii as our main dish, Lefse from North Dakota (also a Kolander and general Norweigan tradition) as a side, and bread pudding from Kentucky for dessert. Sounds like quite a meal!

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Calling all elves for Christmas meal preparation.

First up: Hawaii. Since we couldn’t exactly dig a hole in our backyard in the middle of an Iowan winter to roast our Kalua pork, we had to find an alternative. And after a bit of digging, we found a recipe that said we could use our crockpot instead of a fire in a hole. So the night before, we got the pork ready by lathering some pink Himalayan salt and liquid smoke onto the pork and stuck it in the crockpot to sit for 14 hours. The pork was by far one of, if not the, easiest meal I have made in my SoMP experience.

The North Dakota Lefse was not as easy, though. We started this dish the night before, as well. The Lefse is started by thoroughly, and very finely I might add, mashing potatoes. Once mashed, the potatoes are then put into the fridge to “simmer”, as Mom puts it.

And the last item on the list for the night was the bread pudding from Kentucky. We took out a loaf of French Brioché (my favorite bread) and diced it into one inch-sized cube. We put the pieces into a tray and let them dry out overnight.

And then I went to bed.

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Lefse get the day started.

After waking up, we started by rolling the Lefse mashed potatoes into a log. We sliced them into smaller sections which would each become a flat, 'tater-tortilla. But this is where we started to have problems. We had small bits of potatoes in our mashed potatoes, which were causing big problems since they made the tortillas tear once they were rolled out. Due to this, we had to roll the potatoes back up and knead them again to smooth out any potato chunks.

Once they were less chunky, mom and me worked together to roll them out and fry them on the griddle. Once they were fried, we placed them in the oven to keep them warm.

Once the now-lefse flatbread came out of the oven, me and Grandma DeGrote buttered and sugared the lefse. She said this was her job growing up and was excited to share it with me. Then we rolled all the lefse up into not-so-neat rolls. Though what did I honestly expect from rolled-out baked potatoes? Once all rolled up, we organized the lefse into a neat-looking “pile” and brought them to our rather bare table.

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Bread pudding = mushy bread.

Next up: bread pudding. We got our cubed french brioche and mixed some eggs, vanilla, salt, and nutmeg into them. Once they were all incorporated, it didn’t look quite as expected. It was wet. We then slopped our bread pudding into a pan and put the pan into the oven to bake.

The Kalua pork was ready to come out of the crock-pot. We were intending to slice it up but that didn’t work because the meat was tender. So we decided to shred it instead. I’ve shredded meat before, but this practically came apart at the slightest touch. It was tender! We then brought this into the dining room to join our lefse. Once the bread pudding was out of the oven, we brought that to the table as well.

We all dug in. The Kalua pork was so tender and smoky! It almost tasted like we really did roast it over a fire in a pit out back. The lefse was sweet and somewhat floury at the same time, and we all loved it. And to finish off out SoMP Christmas, we got out our bread pudding. I must admit, based off of the appearance I didn’t think it was going to be good. But it was great! I really think we all had a wonderful States on My Plate Christmas!