What's for Christmas dinner?

My family has always done the traditional Thanksgiving dinner for both TG and Christmas. I didn't realize that turkey wasn't the national standard for Christmas until a couple of years ago. We've just always done turkey.

So yea, that considered, I'm hosting this year, so I'm making:

Appetizers:

• Cheese ball with Sociables crackers
• Stuffed mushrooms

Dinner

• Turkey (roasted in a bag)
• Homemade dressing with cranberry and apple
• Pan gravy
• Sauteed brussel sprouts with parmesan 
• Stuffed sweet potatoes
• Deviled eggs

Dessert:

• Chocolate drizzled pecan pie bites

For Oliver:

• Turkey giblets

What about you?

Although we do not celebrate this holiday, I am making it a good excuse to cook a nice dinner for my BF and I.  I'm making rabbit stew - something we both haven't had in years.  It will have a lot of veggies in it (carrots, leeks, potatoes) and will add red wine to it to help with flavor too.  

Not sure about an appetizer yet.  Desert will be apple pie.  Nothing too elaborate, just yummy.

We have a quiet day planned with just me and hubby and plan champagne, king crab legs for him, butternut squash lasagne, and Caesar salad (no anchovies! LOL)

No special dessert planned because we are loaded down with cookies, fudge, rum cake and other goodies we've received from friends over the holidays!

Cajun injected turkey, Emeril's wild rice stuffing, and squash casserole. My favorites!

It's just hubby and I. I'm making:

Roast top round of beef, with a Portobello mushroom/onion gravy (in the slow-cooker). If I can find a bottle of red wine, I may put some in the gravy.

Mashed potatoes, served with homemade roasted garlic butter (easy: just throw a whole head of garlic, with the skin on, in the oven for about an hour. Scoop out the hot garlic, mash into the softened butter)

Baby carrots

Roasted Brussels sprouts

Crescent rolls (from a tube! LOL)

Store-bought carrot cake (Wegman's makes tiny versions of their big cakes, which is just enough for us.)

Oh, and the CATS are dining on smoked salmon. Yes. SMOKED SALMON! We don't eat fish.  A few weeks ago, friends who just moved to Tacoma kindly sent us some gifts; this was in it. We'll just let them think that we ate it! Lucky kitties...

Not 100% sure of the whole menu, but what I know:

Turkey

Stuffing
Ham

Pistacio pudding dessert

Cabbage Rolls

Likely a potato dish, veggies, salad

And Nuts and Bolts (homemade) for snacking.

Well we were going to have grilled rib eye steaks 1 1/2 inch thick but within 6 minutes the grill caught on fire and they are indelible.
Even the bone is charred and flaking.
Only have eggs bread and bacon so looks like breakfast for christmas dinner.

Chicken noodle soup with extra chicken tenders in it and buttered sourdough toast.  YUM, quick and easy comfort food.

Appetizers - bacon wrapped smokies, turkey/stuffing cups, mini quiches

Dinner - Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, turnip, carrots and gravy. There was dinner rolls too but I didn't have one.

Dessert - I had a cupcake. There was also cookies and cheesecake

Too bad I didn't really get to enjoy dinner because my daughter was having a complete meltdown. She was happy again once dinner was over. 

We had a potluck at our campground.  Our management supplied the turkey, ham, dressing & gravy.  Everyone else brings a dish of some sort.  So we had all the American traditional meat(s) and a huge variety of side dishes with 42ppl participating.  Here on the Texas coast, we ate dinner on the clubhouse patio in shorts & T-shirts .. which was pretty darn nice  

Well, it certainly wasn't my traditional lasagna this year, but it was good lol. I was sick right before Christmas and didn't make it to the grocery store, so I improvised tonight.

I made Italian baked chicken with ingredients we already had on hand, and some multi grain Italian herbed bread to go with it.

I also scrounged our pantry for ingredients and came up with yummy side dish that I will definitely make again; everyone loved it! Top pic was before; bottom two pics were after.

(Garbanzo beans, petite diced tomatoes, sautéed bell pepper, Italian cubed stuffing, pine nuts, nutritional yeast, saffron rice, fresh grated sharp cheddar, chicken broth, EVOO, herbs and spices. It was delicious!) I normally keep good basics in our pantry for instances just like this!

I also made a yummy hot chocolate front scratch and tossed that into the crock pot! Frothed some warm milk and tossed in mini marshmallows, and topped with cinnamon sugar.

StarryEyedTiGeR said:

(Garbanzo beans, petite diced tomatoes, sautéed bell pepper, Italian cubed stuffing, pine nuts, nutritional yeast, saffron rice, fresh grated sharp cheddar, chicken broth, EVOO, herbs and spices. It was delicious!) I normally keep good basics in our pantry for instances just like this!

I also made a yummy hot chocolate front scratch and tossed that into the crock pot! Frothed some warm milk and tossed in mini marshmallows, and topped with cinnamon sugar.

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• starryeyedtiger
• Dec 25, 2013

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• starryeyedtiger
• Dec 25, 2013

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Your side dish sounds yummy, what's it called?  And what's EVOO?

Here's my butternut squash lasagne with marinara sauce, it was really good.

betsygee said:

StarryEyedTiGeR said:

Well, it certainly wasn't my traditional lasagna this year, but it was good lol. I was sick right before Christmas and didn't make it to the grocery store, so I improvised tonight.


I made Italian baked chicken with ingredients we already had on hand, and some multi grain Italian herbed bread to go with it.


I also scrounged our pantry for ingredients and came up with yummy side dish that I will definitely make again; everyone loved it! Top pic was before; bottom two pics were after.

image.jpg

• starryeyedtiger
• Dec 25, 2013

(Garbanzo beans, petite diced tomatoes, sautéed bell pepper, Italian cubed stuffing, pine nuts, nutritional yeast, saffron rice, fresh grated sharp cheddar, chicken broth, EVOO, herbs and spices. It was delicious!) I normally keep good basics in our pantry for instances just like this!


I also made a yummy hot chocolate front scratch and tossed that into the crock pot! Frothed some warm milk and tossed in mini marshmallows, and topped with cinnamon sugar.

image.jpg

• starryeyedtiger
• Dec 25, 2013

image.jpg

• starryeyedtiger
• Dec 25, 2013

Click to expand...

Your side dish sounds yummy, what's it called?  And what's EVOO?

Click to expand...

Thank you! EVOO= extra virgin olive oil.
I have no clue what to call it, but feel free to name this dish; I literally threw it together and hoped it tasted good! (It was yummy!)

betsygee said:

Here's my butternut squash lasagne with marinara sauce, it was really good.

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• betsygee
• Dec 25, 2013

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That looks delicious!

What wonderful dinners you all had! Everything sounds and looks delicious!

We had the crown roast of pork; I did the roast in the Nesco roaster back in the computer room. That saved my ovens for the potatoes and the roasted vegetables. For a change from traditional mashed potatoes, I made a potato casserole with lots of crispy bacon and caramelized onion....think scalloped potatoes, but with combined chicken and beef stock instead of the cream and milk. It's really good; this is the second time I've made it and it's definitely a recipe that I will be making often.

Instead of corn pudding, Rick asked me to make dried corn. He loves dried corn and we haven't had it in years because I always make corn pudding. So our side dishes, in addition to the potato casserole were dried corn, roasted vegetables (butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots). And the stuffing for the crown roast, which was done in the crock pot. I made asparagus with leeks because it's a family favorite, especially with my MIL. We also had pickled cabbage and the leftover cranberry relish from Thanksgiving (I had thrown that into the freezer on Thanksgiving night to save for Christmas). 

Our desserts were pecan pie, apple pie with homemade French vanilla ice cream, and the white coconut cake. I also set out a tray of Christmas cookies and a container of almond brittle, much to my MIL's joy. She just loves almond brittle.

After Rick took his parents home, we took the rest of our desserts and a bottle of Six Dwarves Mint Wine over to my sister's house as her kids came in last night. So we all got together for more desserts and wine. 

We have three pork ribs left over from the roast and I'm going to make our pork and sauerkraut dinner from the pork on New Year's Day.

My mom always did turkey for both Thanksgiving and for Christmas, so turkey was pretty standard for us. Rick's mom always did a huge standing rib roast. I've done the rib roast from time to time, but I started making the crown roast of pork several years ago and that's what everybody seems to want now. I even asked the guys if they wanted rib roast or crown roast...they all said crown roast. So that's what I did. My sister did a gorgeous ham this year and brought that. So we had pork and ham.

BBDOLL22 said:

Well we were going to have grilled rib eye steaks 1 1/2 inch thick but within 6 minutes the grill caught on fire and they are indelible.
Even the bone is charred and flaking.
Only have eggs bread and bacon so looks like breakfast for christmas dinner.

Click to expand...

Oh no!  I hope you enjoyed your 'breakfast' anyway....

StarryEyedTiGeR said:

Thank you! EVOO= extra virgin olive oil.

I have no clue what to call it, but feel free to name this dish; I literally threw it together and hoped it tasted good! (It was yummy!)
That looks delicious!

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Very creative--I love garbanzos, it sounds like a great dish.  

betsygee said:

Oh no!  I hope you enjoyed your 'breakfast' anyway....

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Thanks betsygee
I ended up making pasta and chicken Parmesan instead.
Hubby was so upset. He was the one that forgot to clean the grill before the summer ended. He put the steaks on came in washed the platter and went out to find the whole thing up in flames.