So what's on the Christmas Menu.......

Regardless of whether you celebrate Christmas, if you're cooking and celebrating whatever you celebrate, what do you cook during this time? We usually have:

Ham basted with marmalade and stuck with cloves
Sweet Potatoes
Yeast Rolls with lots of butter
Green beans done the old fashioned country way
Stewed tomatoes
Salad with walnuts and raspberry vinegarette
Squash casserole
Scalloped oysters
Lots of wine and beer

And for dessert (which I don't generally partake of)

Ice cream with a bourbon sauce

Yes, and then it's off to the gym the next day!

Andrea

Andrea, we also have ham, but your sides sound more interesting. What time should I come through the chimney for dinner?

Along with our ham, we usually have a tossed salad with nice olives and various dressings of your choice, baked potatoes and yams, green beans, rolls, and lasagna. Dessert will probably be cheesecake for us and a cookie cake for the kids.

The usual. A patty-melt or two and a bowl of so-called chili at the Waffle House. Oh, and coffee.

Did goose for a number of years but found that the customary go-withs tend to be sweetish, fruity Mitteleuropaische stuff that degrades good red wine (and I don't like sweet anyway). So its been olde worlde Englande in recent times. Thinking about:

Triad of soups -- oyster stew, pheasant consomme with pheasant quenelles & smoked salmon bisque. An espresso cup of each, served with little Stilton biscuits.

Roast aged ribs of beef, preferably from the left side of the animal.

Yorkshire pudding (the popover kind)

Mashed Idaho potatoes & beef gravy
Oyster dressing (stuffing)

Brussels sprouts sauteed in duck fat left over from confit-making
Broccoli with hollandaise

Assorted cheeses, fruit & crackers, walnuts

Harrod's Christmas Pudding
Buche de Noel

Champagne with the soup, Bordeaux with the beef, port with the cheese. Brandy by the fire if we're still ambulatory.

Cabbage & onions...

Michael Hoffman -- when you do that, you make me want to come through your computer screen and plop you down in the middle of my extended family Christmas, stuff you with turkey and pumpkin pie, make you open presents......and then I think, wait, what'd this guy ever do to me????

Seriously though, we don't know WHAT to serve for Christmas dinner this year. We are SO tired of turkey or ham. Any ideas?

quote:

Originally posted by Pwingsx

Michael Hoffman -- when you do that, you make me want to come through your computer screen and plop you down in the middle of my extended family Christmas, stuff you with turkey and pumpkin pie, make you open presents......and then I think, wait, what'd this guy ever do to me????

Seriously though, we don't know WHAT to serve for Christmas dinner this year. We are SO tired of turkey or ham. Any ideas?

Leg of lamb, or rack of lamb. A Lamb roast.
Lamb makes for a great Christmas meal.

Pwingsx, there will be only four of us at the table this year and I'm having two lovely tri tips with roasted root vegetables (carrots, parsnips, onions and celery root), mashed potatoes and gravy, escalloped oysters, maybe cranberries done some way, and mini phyllo cups with lemon, orange and lime curd cream in them.

I think we will enjoy the change from the traditional meals.

Donna

I make Christmas Morning Rolls (kind of like monkey bread but gooeyer and better), sausage balls, and soft scrambeled eggs. Then for lunch we have homemade enchiladas. That evening we snack on "snacky" foods such as chips/dips, bourbon hot dogs, sweet 'n sour meatballs, cheese ball, etc. It's a day-long feast and enjoyed by all.

In recent years we have had crab imperial, shrimp & crab Norfolk,a crown roast of pork and a standing rib roast. There are different side dishes with each one.
A tradition in our family, no matter what the entree, is real ambrosia... just pared oranges, fresh coconut & a little sugar. My flesh crawls when I read the ambrosia recipes with pineapple!

We are doing something different this year because we have no one coming for dinner. So instead of our usual standing rib roast, we are having jumbo shrimp cocktails and lobster claws for late afternoon dinner.............along with slaw and homemade french fries!

For breakfast, we will have our usual egg, cheese, and sausage casserole with champagne and hot buttery ginger-cranberry scones.

If I have have the energy this is the plan, if not I save it for New Year's... sometimes we end up eating at a relative's house (mine is much better though)

Roast Beef
Yorkshire Pudding
Roasted potatoes
Green beans
Ceasar Salad
biscuits
For desert, my dad used to make us eat "Figgy pudding" with hard sauce, let me just say this...YUK! Bless him, he liked tradition, but boy we hated this, I have still not come up with a good Christmas desert, maybe too many cookies etc before, so our endings will be
leftover Christmas refrigerator coffee cake from breakfast
red and green m&m's
and cookies

KB

I don't cook it but I usually order some Kentucky ham (from Broadbent in recent years: http://www.broadbenthams.com/index.cfm ) and, since my Mom likes candy and New Orleans needs the business, I'm ordering her a big box of goodies from Laura's ( http://www.laurascandies.com/ ).

We have an open house brunch at our house from about 10 to 2 on Christmas morning and a supper open house from about 6-10 on Christmas night. My late mother could never see the point of tying everyone down to a time for a sit-down Christmas dinner, besides cooking instead of enjoying her company and it seemed to make sense to me too.

Brunch menu is usually something like ham, those breakfast casseroles you make the day before and/or quiche (always including some non-meat ones), oven roasted potatoes, various mini-muffins, mini-croissants, mini-bagels w/cream cheeses, cookies, fruit cup and beverages. Everything can be heated in the oven and most made in advance.

At night, we have a soup, salad and bread bar with a few kinds of each.

quote:

Originally posted by Donna Douglass

Pwingsx, there will be only four of us at the table this year and I'm having two lovely tri tips with roasted root vegetables (carrots, parsnips, onions and celery root), mashed potatoes and gravy, escalloped oysters, maybe cranberries done some way, and mini phyllo cups with lemon, orange and lime curd cream in them.

I think we will enjoy the change from the traditional meals.

Donna

Donna, I like cranberries done this way because I can make ahead and freeze in smaller portions. Good with ham or pork too.

HOLIDAY APPLESAUCE

4 lb. sweet apples (Red or Golden Delicious, Empire, Winesap, etc.), cut into chunks (don’t peel or core)
3 cups cranberries (12 oz.)
1 cup unsweetened apple cider
Two 3-inch strips lemon zest
1/ 2 cup sugar
3/ 4 tsp. ground cinnamon

In covered pot, simmer apples, cranberries, cider and lemon peel, stirring occasionally, for 1/ 2 hour or more, until apples are very tender. Add sugar and cinnamon. Simmer, covered 10 minutes. Discard zest. Pass mixture through a food mill. Add honey, sugar, or brown sugar to taste. Makes about 2 quarts. Can be frozen.

It's kind of funny. We've been married 20 years and Christmas is the one holiday for which the menu changes every year -- a little, or a lot. We've had a whole roasted beef tenderloin, salt-cured country ham, pork loin roast with apple cider (a friend who's Jewish says, "What better way to celebrate being Christian than by eating pork?"), even turkey breast. And the side dishes vary incredibly. Dessert has been everything from an elaborate chocolate mousse parfait to just a variety of homemade cookies and my chocolate apricot champagne truffles I make every year.

This year, we're doing what my Mom always did: Baking a ham, laying it out with breads, cheeses, condiments, relishes and side dishes and making what I always thought of as "Christmas sandwiches."

quote:

Originally posted by Pwingsx

Michael Hoffman -- when you do that, you make me want to come through your computer screen and plop you down in the middle of my extended family Christmas, stuff you with turkey and pumpkin pie, make you open presents......and then I think, wait, what'd this guy ever do to me????

Seriously though, we don't know WHAT to serve for Christmas dinner this year. We are SO tired of turkey or ham. Any ideas?

I appreciate the thought. It's very nice of you. The thing is, I choose not to participate in Christmas anymore. Since my wife died I just can't handle it, and so, except for getting gifts for my kids and grandkids I just sort of skip the whole thing.

Potato latkes, apple sauce,sour cream and lighting the menorah. And at the group home where I work;, mashed potatoes, turkey, green bean casserole, and assorted sides.

We have been doing the same dinner my entire life, but we love it.
The traditional English sunday dinner
Roast beef
Yorkshire pudding, gravy
Onion sauce
Brussell sprouts
Potatos, parsnips, turnips and carrots roasted in the meat fat.
The two "new" american type dishes, buttered corn, and a relish tray containing cottage cheese, olives and cut up raw crudites.
Dessert is hot apple pie with custard sauce
Plum pudding, steamed and also with custard sauce

Later in the evening
Stilon cheese and good cheddar cheese with water crackers
An assortment of english bakery, such as jam tarts, maids of honour and lemon curd tarts.
Sausage rolls
coffee, tea and wine all day long.

We'll have pizza and a big antipasto on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day we'll probably have something Italian...perhaps manicotti with sausage and meatballs.

I could go for some latkes, though. Maybe some kasha, too. That roast beef sounds good. I'd like it with horseradish. Potato kugel wouldn't be bad, either. I'd try to make the latkes, but mine are horrible. Can't get 'em to stay together. Too labor intensive. The recipe died with my mother. I should have paid attention.

But before I go through all of this on Christmas Eve, I'd like to stop in at the restaurant where Scrooge is eating in the 1951 "A Christmas Carol," starring Alastair Sim. Ebenezer asks the waiter for another piece of bread. "'tis a penny more," says the waiter.

"No more bread," says Scrooge.

I'd call the waiter over and say, "Give the old coot another piece of bread. In fact, give him a whole 'nother plate of roast beef. Gosh sakes, it's Christmas."

"But guvner, the bloke's a millionaire, he is," the waiter, let's call him Jack, might respond.

"Ah, he's nuts, Jack. He can't part with it, man. Give him the food. Here...here's a pound. Buy your whole family a Christmas goose."

"The really big one in the window that's just now at the butcher's?"

"No, the second biggest one. You know Scrooge is going to buy that one after he gets visited by the three ghosts."

The Bear

Berndog ya'll are invited for Christmas dinner but I have to say RJB's menu has pretty much put mine to shame!

Andrea

quote:

Originally posted by AndreaB

Berndog ya'll are invited for Christmas dinner but I have to say RJB's menu has pretty much put mine to shame!

Andrea

No shame whatsoever. Yours looks delicious -- I often do ham for Easter, but like the roast beast for Xmas.

Couple of amendments: going to swap the mashed potatoes and (probably) the oyster dressing for a potato gratin with black truffles. And I couldn't get hold of a Harrod's pudding, so its being replaced by sticky toffee pudding, which I like better anyway (though it doesn't have quite the same Dickensian connotations).

Reminds me I'd better hunt up a Stilton today.

It is kind of nice that the first night of Chanukah and Christmas fall on the same day. First time since 1959. Very cool that so many people will be eating festive meals at the same time.

Anyway, for us it will be Latkes and Fried Chicken. We usually do the latkes and a rib roast with a vegetable. However this year, my wife decided she wanted some good fried chicken as she has not had any in so long. At least this artery clogging meal is holiday appropriate as we are cooking with oil.

The best part is that my paretns are coming up and my mom will be cooking latkes on one side of the stove, while I fry chicken on the other. That alone is worth it.

Was going to do the prime rib and yorkshire pudding, but since it's Chrismakah this year and we have a mixed group we're doing Bouef Bourgignone (said in a Julia Child voice), and telling people it's French Tsimmes.

Revived.

I will be doing a standing Rib Roast this year for Christmas eve, Boyardee is looking for a PORK standing Rib roast recipe or two, which sound interesting...I'm more of a Beef man when it comes to Rib Roast, but who knows.

Haven't finalized the sides as of yet, but looking through the past posts on this thread, I am sure gettting some great ideas!


What are you making this year?????


DD

Since grandma actually let us know her plans (more than a day ahead this year), we know that she won't be cooking for Christmas.. so I've decided to host a Christmas Brunch featuring sausage gravy and biscuits, bacon, a baked egg dish of some sort, fruit salad, assorted pastries and hot beverages.

Don't celebrate Christmas. I do celebrate winter solstice/Yule. Unfortunately this year it falls on a weekend - I work every weekend apart from sickness and annual leave, and with the staffing situation at my weekend job the way it is, there will be no chance of getting that weekend off. So any celebration will be rather limited. I usually try and cook something seasonal, so I'm thinking venison steaks which I've become somewhat addicted to this year. Potatoes sauteed in goose fat, roast red onions, creamed spinach, glazed carrots with lemon butter and some kind of berry based sauce or jelly will go with those. And a small glass of ale ( no more than a small one with having to get up for work at 05.30 the next morning )

Even when I was forced to do the whole Christmas meal shebang thing I always much preferred the leftovers and cold stuff the next day and am on call for weekend job over the Christmas so not much point in planning to do an roast dinner. So will probably cook a small beef roast and a gammon joint to have cold with salads, pickles, chutneys etc - I'll do a pan of roast potatoes and one of mashed potatoes because I really love those cold too !! that way I can either pick at then happily or if I am called in to work have delicious stuff to take in for packup.

Like others on this thread, we do the tradtional English Sunday dinner for Christmas (Roast Beef, Yorkshire Pudding, roasted veggies, brussels sprouts. etc.). In the past we have had plum pudding for dessert. It is tradtional, but I'm not sure that anyone actually liked it! This year we are breaking with our tradition and having a much tastier English sweet-- Sticky Toffee Pudding. Yum!

Our menu :
Bloody Mary's and Mint Juleps
Oysters Savannah
Roast Goose with Baked Stuffed Apples & Oranges
Roast Fresh Ham with Gravy
Mama's Eggbread Dressing
Dumplings
Mashed Potatoes
Green Bean and Artichoke Gratin
Fresh Mixed Greens
Mama's Corn
Twenty-Four Hour Fruit Salad
Homemade Rolls
Charlotte Russe
German Chocolate Cake With Fresh Coconut
Mincemeat Tarts With Homemade Mincemeat
Homemade Eggnog and Russian Tea in the late afternoon

Christmas eve:
Cheese Ravioli, tomato sauce
Salad
Garlic Bread
Wine
Cookies

Christmas morning:
Pandoro and Pannettone
butter, jelly


Christmas Day Dinner:
Roast Pork
Yellow rice
Black beans
Italian Bread
Salad
Flan
Beer and Wine
Turrone