Precooking for Christmas Dinner

As some of you might have noticed, I have not been posting regularly the past months. This has a simple explanation: I did not cook for several reasons. Anyway I missed cooking very much, and of course my head was almost exploding with ideas: what and how and when to cook. That brought me to the decision to prepare this year a 7 course dinner for Christmas in order to catch up with my long "to cook" list. I planned already everything and it is going to be quite a task to prepare each course on time. One thing is sure: it is going to be a lot of fun! Yesterday I cooked beef jus for the main course and froze it.


Ingredients:
4 kg beef bones
200 g carrot
200 g parsley root
200 g celery
200 g leek
2 onions
200 g tomato puree
2 garlic cloves
1/2 bunch of thyme
2 bay leaves
2-3 cloves
10 black peppercorn
500 ml red wine
4 tablespoon oil


Wash and dry bones. Either you roast them in the oven or heat oil and roast bones for about 10 minutes while stirring occasionally. Add a glass of hot water and let it cook until it is absorbed. Add sliced vegetables, tomato puree, spices and herbs and roast for another 5 minutes. Pour wine on it and let it reduce. Add 4-4,5 liter water and cook for 4-5 hours. Skim often! Sieve and let it cool, remove fat from the top and store in the freezer in small portions.