Amazing variety of food for Christmas dinner here - in the UK, we all pretty much eat the same thing:
Some kind of cold fish starter (smoked salmon, prawn cocktail etc)
Roast turkey
Roast potatoes
Chestnut stuffing
Pigs in blankets (small sausages wrapped in bacon)
Various veg, both roasted and steamed
Obligatory sprouts in various guises (I shred mine and fry them with bacon)
Cranberry
Turkey gravy
Then Christmas pudding served flaming in brandy, with cream and brandy butter.
On Christmas Eve we go to the zoo mid day and in the evening I make up some Jambalaya (it’s a tradition).
Christmas usually is a snack fest of various charcuterie, cheeses, fruit, nuts, breads, dips, and wine/cider. That way no one has to cook versus relax.
I’m surprised how many other people have beef tenderloin.
Mom’s cooking this year, and she hates turkey, so it’ll be a beef tenderloin. I don’t know what else we’ll have with it, but she always makes something yummy.
I do have to do something about the wine. She isn’t good at picking wine, so I’ll have to make a little trip to the liquor store.
Second Singapore Christmas for us - last year we pretty much found everything we needed so I’m hopeful we’ll manage again. So, pretty much the same as SanVito:
Smoked salmon and potato rostis for starter
Then:
Three bird boneless roast - turkey, duck, chicken
Little sausages in bacon
Mushroom nut roast for the veggie (me) which acts as stuffing for the rest of them
Metric tonne of roast veg, including potatoes and parsnip
Sprouts
Homemade bread sauce
Roast garlic
Dessert:
Christmas pudding I made in early November
Home made custard
Cream
Brandy butter
Lots and lots of wine of all kinds
Plus, we have two types of crackers - nice ones for grown ups and reindeer ones for the kids. I had to buy them in the UK and bring them over with me from my last trip, mind. They’re available here, but running about 100 Sing dollars +.
We have five of us, plus a friend, her husband and little boy. Very very much looking forward to it.
The SO said she thinks I surpassed myself this year. I admitted that much of the credit goes to the Meat Manager at Costco for cutting me off the prime-est cut of prime he had. The meat was so tender that the knife virtually cut through under its own weight.
I’m not going to roast brussels sprouts anymore. They’ve never come out right. Fromnow on it’s boiled and buttered. We didn’t have baked potatoes. The SO said they would be too much after the French onion soup and the escargots. (The snails always turn out well.) But the prime rib is the star of the show.
I had a glass of 14 Hands ‘Hot to Trot’ blended red, and the SO had champagne with sugar and angostura bitters mixed in. We still have Trader Joe’s blue-box cheesecake to go, but we’re both too stuffed to eat it. And we have six big slices of beef and the three ribs for leftovers.
I baked the best ham ever this year. No glaze, just 275 wrapped loosely in foil for most of the day, then at the end a dusting of brown sugar and a squeeze of honey to make it all sticky. It fell off the bone, was juicy, tender, and delicious. I also made two boxes of Stovetop cornbread stuffing, broccoli with cheese, and corn on the cob. There was cranberry jelly in the can. I made biscuits but they didn’t rise at all. The dogs love them though! Dessert was several of the 21 dozen cookies we’ve made over the past three days. Sugar, black and whites, pecan sandies, cinnamon pinwheels, chocolate chip sandies, coconut butterscotch, plain butterscotch, butter pecan (box mix) softies, chocolate dipped pretzels, and five kinds of fudge. OH and my favorites, snowballs (mexican wedding cakes?) and raspberry thumbprints.
My son and I had a Christmas Eve dinner of grilled tri-tip* + green beans/bacon/onion side that was excellent. Then we watched movies together then exchanged gifts. A very nice evening.
*Something I’m quite good at, and my son had asked after this summer; I live with him part-time so it seemed a waste to prepare such a large piece of meat for two – but it’s Christmas, so what the hell. And it came out fantastic! – pink end-to-edge. Num! And now I have two pounds left over; anybody want a tri-tip sandwhich?
Indeed. You can’t do a prime rib with fewer than three ribs. Less meat than that, and you just have a couple of steaks. Good thing we like leftover prime rib! The SO said she’d starve herself all week if she could eat like this every weekend. Not in the budget though.
Holy shit, was that paella good. Even better than last year, I think, and that would be going some. The recipe that I’ve put together is just amazing. Our friend brought fruit cake that has been marinating since October. Huge burp.
Christmas 1.0 was today at my husband’s father’s house. I brought a broccoli casserole and a selection of sweets (caramel apple cheesecake bars, fudge, peanut brittle,) and the in-laws cooked the rest, despite my several offers to cook and bring. I really should have offered once more…
The greens were seasoned with artificial bacon bits, the bread was frozen Pepperidge Farms garlic bread, the corn was from a can, the ham was tough and dry, there was nothing like potatoes or mac & cheese, and the pies were from the supermarket. The real kicker? Cynthia had never made a green bean casserole before, but her mother used to make it, and C found the recipe. She decided to add her own creative twist, though: she sprinkled the casserole with cinnamon. Cinnamon, y’all. Because nothing says creative cook like canned soup, French fried onions, canned beans, and cinnamon!
Christmas 2.0 will be at my house, with immediate family for breakfast & gifts, and then an open house for the remainder of the day. (The big kids were at their dad’s for the real day, and the little ones are small enough to not understand calendars, so Santa arrives tomorrow night.) I’ll make my family’s now-traditional Christmas breakfast - eggs benedict, cinnamon rolls, muffins, warm drinks. The rest of the day’s meal/meals will be a selection of hearty soups, homemade breads, appetizers, and desserts. And many, many guests - looks like about 50 throughout the day. I can’t wait to cook some more tomorrow, to wash away the taste of today’s meal!
Dinner on the actual day of Christmas was what we do every year… Lasagna. We make it ahead so nobody has to spend the day cooking other than putting it in the oven. But “Christmas Dinner” which was on Christmas eve was a tenderloin from a great local butcher shop. They have three grades and we got the top one. It was costly but like butter. Au Jus, Horseradish sauce, roasted baby Yukon Gold Potatoes with Rosemary, Carrots Broccoli and Cauliflower in cheese sauce, Yeast Rolls, and plenty of wine.
It was myself and five friends and we’d decided to have a vegetarian Christmas dinner. It was excellent. I made mushroom bourguignon and latkes. We also had broccoli salad, green bean casserole, green salad, Stilton with mango & ginger and chocolate cheese, home made hummus and pita chips, spiced apple cheesecake and sweet potato pie…yum!
