I always like to do some sort of Mexican food for Christmas Eve. This year, I chose a Mexican-style chili that I’ve wanted to make for a long time. Chili with pork shoulder is intriguing to me, and this one is nice because it’s just pork shoulder with a complex tomato-chili paste. – We served the chili with whole wheat tortillas, chopped onions and cilantro, guacamole and chips. The pork shoulder could have been more tender – I think this chili is a good candidate for a long(er), slow, simmer or the slow cooker. But otherwise, it was excellent – Larry really liked the chili paste.

– I was ready to start a pumpkin pie (which I hate but Larry loves), when I made a complete change of course and made this decadent Chocolate Tart. The filling is intensely chocolate, but the sweet creamy topping is a perfect foil. This was really simple to make and I had almost all of the ingredients on hand. I think I might want to make 1.5x times the crust – it ended up being a little thin on the bottom. Larry also bought some fantastic raspberries at Whole Foods, so we had those with it. I loved this tart, and so did Larry.

• Mexican-Style Chili (Fine Cooking #29, November 1998, p. 39)
• Chocolate Truffle Tart with Whipped Vanilla Mascarpone Topping (Fine Cooking #68, Holiday Baking Winter 2005, p. 54)

Wine: Sapphire Hill 2001 Tom Feeny Ranch Zinfandel (Russian River Valley, California). This wasn’t a wine for dinner – the chili would be best with beer, but I opened this to have a glass while I was making dinner. Explosive fruit, yummy, yummy, yummy.