I will be roasting a goose and a ham, and serving them with sprouts, roast and mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, gravy, bread sauce, cranberry sauce, and a couple of kinds of stuffing (at least two, maybe three). Christmas pudding and mince pies I trust will be made by my mother, not my culinarily-challenged sister (who gave us all food poisoning last year but we can’t tell her that), and will be served with brandy butter and cream. There will also be a trifle, cheese and biscuits, nuts and clementines. No starter. We eat around the Queen (main before, pudding after), then have leftover sandwiches some time in the evening.
I’m about 700 miles from my nearest relatives, so I’m thinking microwave Michelina’s.
I’ll be cooking ham in the crock pot and hope to procure three rotisserie chickens from a grocery store’s deli dept.
Slight hijack, but on my 22 pound turkey this Thanksgiving, there were directions how to thaw and cook printed on the label. I had to laugh out loud when, under the category of “Microwave” it said, “Best results are cooking in oven. See your microwave manual.”
I was just trying to imagine what size of a microwave oven I would have needed for that 22 pound bird, and what it would have looked like and tasted like afterward.
Whenever I have my way, I try to have some of that “good solid food” the hobbits had at bree: hot soup, cold meats, a fruit pastry, good bread, lots of butter, and cheese.
We normally have a crockpot of french onion soup simmering, and a layout of assorted breads, crudites, chips and dips, arranged plate of christmas cookies and slices of stollen [mainly whatever I feel like baking and/or are given by friends] that is ready whenever people wake up. We tend to like to sleep in. We were strange kids - not up at the crack of dawn. Very civilized.
Typically we open presents around 1030-1100, while munching the brunch buffet.
Dinner is later, around 7pm and what we have varies.
This year we decided to do a classical baked ham [never a spiral sliced yuckky, we want nice thick slices we do ourselves.] Sides are probably going to be the classic scalloped potatoes made fairly cheesy, wilted spinach salad with bacon, and for after a brie baked with sliced almonds, apple slices and cinnamon in puff pasty. The usual coffee, tea or cocoa to round up the evening.
Christmas Eve:
Ham
Homemade mac n cheese casserole
Homemade baked beans
Greenbeans w/almonds
Brussels sprouts w/bacon
Corn muffins
Christmas Morning:
Breakfast pie made with left over ham, spinach, red potatoes and cheddar cheese
We generally rotate between ham, lasagna, beef stroganoff, enchiladas, brisket in wine sauce, or prime rib. It’s brisket in wine sauce this year.
For years, my sister and I have wanted to do appetizers and candy and cookies for Christmas but Mom always insisted on the full turkey dinner. Well, Mom’s been dead for almost 2 years. I looked at my sister a few weeks ago and said “this is the year.” So we are having pigs in a blanket (hot dogs stuffed with cheese wrapped in crescent rolls), Wavy Lays chips, whatever other snacks we feel like having, homemade cookies, and I bought a 6 pound tin of Harry London individually wrapped chocolates. The chocolate will be delivered the week of December 10 so it may not make it til December 25.
We do Norwegian Christmas on the 24th and American Christmas on the 25th, because we can.
Our Norwegian Christmas has tended to be ham-centered, but one of the boys really doesn’t like ham and the other has said he’s getting bored of it, so we’re thinking of a smoked leg of lamb. Because we can.
Our American Christmas has never had a fixed menu beyond “something special”, and we haven’t decided for this year yet. Roast duck has been mentioned.
When I was a young flod, Mom would generally roast a ham on Christmas Day and serve it with potato rolls and whatever sides she felt like making. She’d put it all out mid-afternoon and people would eat when they were hungry. I’ve reached the age that I’m beginning to understand the appeal of this set-up, from the cook’s point of view.
Sounds like we could swap houses and not notice the difference.
You forgot a honey-glazed ham on Boxing Day. And turkey curry the day after.
And a glass or two of sherry at about 10am. Nobody normally drinks the stuff, but it feels appropriate.
Lunch is at One, so we can watch the Queen’s speech at 3pm.
We typically do a honeyed ham, and possibly a turkey breast, if there are enough people showing up. Everything else is munch-on-the-go type stuff. Deviled eggs, meat/cheese/crackers, veggies and dip, and of course waay more cookies, cakes, pies and candies than are strictly necessary.
I’m usually much more excited about Christmas breakfast, which is GOOD coffee (Dad usually buys the cheap stuff) with fresh cinnamon and orange rolls, and possibly banana nut bread.
Leaning toward oyster stew and gravlax on toast points as starters; goose with oyster stuffing and duck with apple stuffing as the main course, along with chestnut puree, spiced apples, and red cabbage. Maybe a Christmas pudding and mince tarts for dessert. And a cheese board, of course.
For libations, egg nog with brandy, hot buttered rum, and Athol Brose. Apple cider and cranberry juice as beverages with the dinner.
Standing rib roast
Yorkshire puddings
Roasted taters
gravy
My brother in law’s wine cellar
Something green nobody will eat
The rest is irrelevant.
Is there a Chinese restaurant nearby? They’re usually pretty full on Christmas day and you wouldn’t have to be alone.
shrimp!
We’ll be with my husband’s folks again this year, and I’m pretty sure my MIL will do ribs, which she does rather badly. She boils them for a while, then puts them in the oven covered in BBQ sauce. They’re usually tough and the only flavor is the sauce. She’s also of the school that cooks the life out of veggies. But she’s an amazing baker, so desserts will be good.
Unfortunately, they live 800 miles away, so there’s no practical way for me to make the dinner, even if she’d let me take over her kitchen. Oh well…
Christmas Eve at my mom’s will be a traditional (somewhat Americanized) Slovak feast.
Raw garlic
Oplatky, a communion-like wafer we buy from church
Bolbalki, dough balls in a honey and poppy seed glaze
Fried cod
Peas
Pagach, bread dough stuffed with mashed potatoes, cheese and sometimes fried cabbage, rolled thin and baked, then brushed with browned butter
Fried eggs with mushrooms
Pirohy, dumplings filled with cheese and mashed potatoes, slathered in butter and onions
Kapusta, a kind of gravy with lots of my Dad’s homemade sauerkraut in it
It’s a wonder that any of us can move after all that.
Then after midnight mass we eat the ham that’s been cooking all day. Drives my non-catholic husband nuts that we eat anything after midnight mass instead of just going to bed.
I get to go home and do Christmas ‘English Style’ or at least in the style of our family this year.
Christmas Eve - My mam always cooks the turkey Christmas Eve to make things easy in the chaos of Christmas Day. Christmas Eve brunch is usually bacon or sausage sarnies in really good homemade rolls. Then Christmas Eve night we usually have a kinda open house with the neighbourhood. Crack open the bubbles around 5PM ish and over the past few years if I am home I make the nibbles always chips and dip, stuffed mushrooms, shrimp, home made cheesy biscuits with gooood ham, cheese and crackers and I am doing some bacon wrapped scallops. And a good time is had by all.
Christmas Day - pick at nibbles from the night before for breakfast if you are starving and bacon & eggs if you want it. Crack open the bubbles at 10AM ish Lunch is at 1 or 1.30 and is roast turkey stuffed at one end with pork sausage and the other with my mam’s family stuffing recipe. New potatoes (from my Dad’s garden in the summer) roast potatoes out of my Dad’s fresh crop, peas & broad beans picked in my Dad’s garden in the summer and frozen and brussel sprouts picked out the garden the previous day and trimmed & cleaned by me and tons of gravy. No one ever eats dessert after that.
Christmas Day Evening - Turkey and/or Ham sammiches, cheese and biscuits and dessert which is usually pavlova of some kind and teh good ice cream. Used to be trifle but we don’t do it anymore.
Boxing Day - Everyone goes out for fresh air. Either a walk along the local beach or local parks then turkey sammiches for lunch. Supper is cold turkey, ham, stuffing sausage meat (if you want it) bubble and squeak and the one day of the yeah my mam makes home made chips.
I LOVE Christmas. mr ems and I are doing our own US Christmas on New Years Eve when we get back and ordering pizza and doing our presents then.