Question of the Day - Monday, March 14, 2016

Sorry I'm late again this week.  

Do you have special meals you make for certain holidays?

I'm making my grocery list for this week.  I may not do it on Thursday; but it's time to make my corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's day.    I'm going to put it in the slow cooker.  My problem is always having enough beef to go with the cabbage and veggies.  It's just too tasty! 

I know some people do black eyed peas for New Years and things like that too.  But this is my big "gotta have it" dish.  One of my friends makes a big-to-do of making turkey salad after Thanksgiving.  That's pretty much a Black Friday tradition in her house.  For other holidays we vary what we cook based on what we are in the mood for.  I haven't even started thinking about Easter dinner.  We may just roast a chicken since my parents don't eat beef or pork anymore.  A nice piece of salmon might be good too though.    Easter is too early this year.  I'm not ready! 

Indeed I do have special meals for special (holi)days, several of them, the problem is that I'm too lazy (remember, I'm a cat) to prepare them in a very special way, so they're rather ordinary special meals.

I make special dinners for nearly every holiday including those I don't personally celebrate as long as I have time to do it.  

I'm doing the typical corned beef, cabbage and potatoes next week for St. Pats.  I may do colcannon instead. BF isn't nuts about plain cooked cabbage but he will eat it mixed with potatoes. I'm going start it the night before in the crockpot so it will be ready in the morning.  I'll just reheat when I get home from work.  There will be Ruben sandwiches the next day!

Passover and Easter are up next. Probably making lamb on Passover and the ubiquitous ham on Easter.  Which means homemade split pea soup after yay!   

the main thing i do is to make turkey enchiladas with leftover roast turkey, some time after the Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays.

since it's just me and the cats, i reserve holidays as no-cooking days and quiet days that we can all spend together relaxing.

Turkey is a staple with many holidays

We usually have turkey for Thanksgiving and ham  for  Easter.  Christmas is an either/or  thing.  If money is right then it's a standing rib roast, if not then it's ham.

We never did anything special for St Patrick's day.

We cook corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's Day. We don't really do a special meal for Easter. On the 4th of July we usually BBQ. Of course on Thanksgiving we have turkey, stuffing, cranberries, mashed potatoes, pies etc. And on Christmas we have been doing prime rib for the past few years (we do not like ham, it's always a disappointment being pre seasoned at the store and full of sodium... we're just not ham people unless it's in mac & cheese or lunchmeat), mashed potatoes and gravy etc. It is usually a light meal on Christmas because we do a lot snacking on Christmas Eve.

Also we don't really do anything special on New Year's except snacks that kind of thing.

I've never made corned beef and cabbage for St. Pat's day, but it's the only time you can find corned beef. This year, the local market had some a couple of months ago, so I got my corned beef fix then. The others are the same as everyone's - turkey on Thanksgiving, ham at Easter.

sivyaleah said:

 
Passover and Easter are up next. Probably making lamb on Passover and the ubiquitous ham on Easter.  Which means homemade split pea soup after yay! 

 

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I just finished off the split pea soup I had frozen after our last ham dinner.  It is SO good!!  And I had no idea its so simple to make that in a crock pot!  My DH isn't a soup person and even he enjoys it!  

I really only do the corned beef and cabbage this time of year to get my fix.  I don't have any special connection to the holiday; I've never used it for drinking either. Although I do send DH to get beer for the corned beef.   I never know what kind to have him buy though.   Most of my family is Catholic and growing up that meant fish fries on Fridays for Lent.  They don't have them where I live now and I miss that!  They were SO good!  I think we are pretty traditional with our big holiday meals.  it's the ones in-between that I think are more interesting for cooking.  Like today; a friend of mine baked a cherry pie for Pi Day.    

St Patrick's Day - corned beef and cabbage (I just starting making this a few years ago as Rick is not a fan of corned beef. I am, however -- Reubens rock, IMO -- and do I make this once a year.

Easter - stuffed ham with all the sides. It's just a ham, hollowed out, and stuffed with a cornbread mixture, then baked. I always make red beet pickled eggs as they are expected.

Memorial Day - shredded pork and my Louisville wings on the grill

July 4 - my nephew does an excellent bbq'ed brisket on the grill over at my sister's (I'm usually in charge of the potato salad and the cookies)

Labor Day - huge steaks on the grill with all the sides

Thanksgiving - the turkey with all of our favorite sides

Christmas - a stuffed crown roast of pork (I try to change the sides around a bit, but my suggestions are usually met with quite a bit of squawking from various members of the family). I used to do prime rib with Yorkshire pudding (because that's what Rick's mom always made), but the guys love the crown roast, so that's what I make.

New Year's Eve - it's called a Big Sandwich in our family and I make one, in addition to some appetizers for our movie watching. If it's not too crazy weather-wise, we'll grill some wings, too.

New Year's Day - pork and sauerkraut over mashed potatoes

Other than St. Patrick's, a lot of this is pretty much tradition at this point. I know Dear Richard would be very disappointed if we didn't do the stuffed ham at Easter, the shredded pork on Memorial Day, etc. OTOH, he could live without the pork and sauerkraut and the corned beef (he's already complaining about Thursday's corned beef.   )

ETA: I forgot about Valentine's Day....don't do much in the way of a special meal, but I usually do make a heart-shaped cake, usually angel food.

If I didn't make both Portuguese stuffing and French meat stuffing on Thanksgiving there would be a riot at my house. :lol3: