What are you cooking for Christmas - your traditional foods?

[Selvaggio]

Dolomites are wonderful aren't they? And the bombardini are very good to warm you up in the snow !!!
B.

Sure are! The thing about i bombardini is...I don't know if they make me ski better or worse...but they definitely make me ski faster:eusa_doh:

 

[Lincsong]

A friend of mine's mother buys a couple dozen whole crab every Christmas Eve. So I stop by and have a crab. Been doing it since Jr. High School.

 

[Wally_Hood]

We tend to do Chinese food. This year I think we're buying some and making some. We have a family dinner and its pretty nice.

a la the Parker family in A Christmas Story?

 

[Babydoll]

The traditional food that I'm bringing to my parent's house on Friday is Hardangerlefse - a Norwegian flat bread (kinda our version of a flour tortilla, but much more tasty!). We spread melted butter, cinnamon and sugar on it, roll it up, and devour!

This year will be my 16 year-old niece's first time helping to prepare the lefse. She's very excited!

As for the meal... pizza. We used to do a big fancy meal, but five years ago on Christmas Day my Mom had a stroke while we were opening presents in her living room. After almost losing her, we realized that the fancy foods really don't matter to us. Just having everyone together for another year is what counts. So we do pizza.

 

[23SkidooWithYou]

This year will be my second Christmas alone but I'm still going to make a big meal. Roast chicken (I couldn't justify a turkey or afford a duck...) with stuffing, roast potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes with caramelised onion topping, roast carrots, roast onions and garlic, a few sprouts more out of duty than want. I'm going to make a heavy port and redcurrant laced gravy with some chicken stock I made last time I did a roast - gravy is the best bit of any roast.

Should feed me for a week!

I've bought all the other bits and bobs, mince pies, pudding etc. Couldn't be bothered baking anything for just little old me.

Open a window and let the aroma of this fabulous meal you are preparing waft outside. I can almost guarantee, you won't be alone for long! Make sure you save a bit for your best fella, your Shorthair boy. (sorry, forget his name but he's a knockout!)

 

[23SkidooWithYou]

The traditional food that I'm bringing to my parent's house on Friday is Hardangerlefse - a Norwegian flat bread (kinda our version of a flour tortilla, but much more tasty!). We spread melted butter, cinnamon and sugar on it, roll it up, and devour!

This year will be my 16 year-old niece's first time helping to prepare the lefse. She's very excited!

As for the meal... pizza. We used to do a big fancy meal, but five years ago on Christmas Day my Mom had a stroke while we were opening presents in her living room. After almost losing her, we realized that the fancy foods really don't matter to us. Just having everyone together for another year is what counts. So we do pizza.

Babydoll...my Mom had quadruple bypass in May. I understand, first hand how Pizza can be the best dinner ever! Merry Christmas to you and your family!

BTW Those Lefse look sooo good. Think I could eat my body weight in them, lol. Oh, and with a cup of java...heaven!

 

[Ephraim Tutt]

As an alternative to the traditional Christmas cake I've baked a 4 Spice Ginger Cake (Taken from last weekend's "Weekend Australian"):

Four-spice ginger cake, by Arnaud Valade of Chouquette, Brisbane
5 free-range eggs
100g caster sugar
250g butter, softened
5 drops vanilla extract
2 pinches of salt
250g plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
65g sultanas
185g crystallised ginger
2 tablespoons quatre-epices (four-spice powder),
or Chinese 5-spice powder
½ tablespoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of ground cloves
Preheat oven to 170ºC. Place eggs and sugar in bowl of an electric mixer. Mix using slowest speed until slightly white and foamy (about 5 minutes). While still mixing, add softened butter and vanilla extract. Once combined, add remaining ingredients. Continue mixing for about 2 minutes or until all ingredients have been well incorporated. Transfer batter into a non-stick rectangular cake mould about 20cm x 30cm. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until a cake skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Allow cake to sit for 5 minutes, then turn out on to a cooling wire. Once cooled, dust with icing sugar and scatter a dried fruit and crystallised ginger mix over top. Serve slices spread with butter, if you like (bear in mind the style of cake is in the drier, continental-European tradition).

 

[Babydoll]

Babydoll...my Mom had quadruple bypass in May. I understand, first hand how Pizza can be the best dinner ever! Merry Christmas to you and your family!

BTW Those Lefse look sooo good. Think I could eat my body weight in them, lol. Oh, and with a cup of java...heaven!

Yeah, it really put priorities in order for the whole family. Being together with those you love is always more important than all of the trappings of the commercial holiday season. I hope you give your Mom an extra big hug and celebrate having her with you. I am definitely going to do that to mine!!

Lefse is so, so, so good. My entire family loves it. Even my husband is a convert. He'd never even heard of it until he joined the family five years ago. Now he's the first one in line for it. Definitely worth the effort of making it. Unfortunately this year I have to skip it (dagnabit, gestational diabetes!!), but you can bet once our little one is here and I'm cleared for a "normal" diet I will break out a celebratory box of the lefse and stuff my face with it!

Tonight's menu is roast beef, potatoes, carrots, and green beans. I may not be able to have sweets, but I still eat well!!

 

[Lillemor]

Christmas is well over here. Having left overs tomorrow when my dad who just flew in from CA today, will be here to celebrate Christmas day. Pork bellies were fine and crisp. They were probably alright straight out of the oven but since I cut them off anyway, I gave them a short blast under the grill while keeping a close watch on them. We don't really eat them I just wanted to prove that I can get them right each time. I only messed up on a small part by spilling some grease on the middle so that part wasn't dry enough to bubble and turn crisp. Everything else was fine though. Duck was fine but I won't make it in a roast back again. It worked out fine making both the pork roast with rind on and duck roast together. I prefer to turn the duck over from breast down to breast up after an hour. Gravy is better my way than it the recipe so I'll be modifying the gravy tomorrow. My way is better all the way!

Last year when I made turkey I made it breast down the entire time because I didn't want to risk losing any juices just to get golden skin. It was just us and the boys as usual so no one cared what the skin looked like. I suppose one could turn the turkey breast side up the last fifteen minutes and give it higher heat. I just didn't want to bother. Best turkey I've ever had!

 

[Atticus Finch]

I'm cooking collards and side meat. In fact, they are cooking out on the porch as I type this. My collards and I have been banished to the porch because the collards would stink up the house...forever...if I cooked them inside.

AF

 

[Gilbey]

Peking Duck!

 

[JimWagner]

I cook a traditional Thanksgiving dinner each year (turkey, dressing, ham, mashed potatoes, baked beans, etc.), but on Christmas we do a Chinese hot pot. My wife is Chinese.

For those not familiar with that, think fondue, but in broth instead of oil, with thin sliced beef, shrimp, and chicken and Chinese greens. The family around the pot in the center of the table cooking one piece of meat at a time, just like fondue except with chopsticks instead of forks. Everyone makes their own dipping sauces. And steamed white rice, of course.

 

[Lone_Ranger]

Chinese Turkey?

 

[Anneloes]

We always have a big dinner with family and friends (about 20 people) at my parents' on boxing day. When I still lived at home we would have a small dinner with the four of us, but now that I moved out I'm not doing anything very special tonight. I'm making portobello mushrooms out of the oven with garlic, onion, parsley and tomatoes, then a little bit of simple pasta al aglio olio peperoncino, and then semolina pudding with fruits.

Traditionally, my father cooks the whole christmas dinner (for the 26th). This year he has given it a new twist by offering everyone a menu when they come in around 4, offering them about 3 choices for each course. The majority of the meal is vegan, for the first time ever, because I am vegan. It's such a nice gesture! He makes all soups bases vegan, I think it's cauliflower cream soup with avocado, and then can add shrimp and salmon eggs for others. The main courses are guinea-fowl, deer steak, and one vegan course that I am bringing (seitan roulades with chestnut, celery and mushroom filling). All are served with Dutch stewed pears (with cinnamon and red wine) and fried celeriac. Then the dessert is vegan ice cream, which is DELICIOUS and comes from a recently opened shop here, in several flavors, with fruits, and vegan bonbons/chocolates!

I'm really excited! It's a nice mixed up dinner this year, not very traditional, but not extremely modern either. I hope everything goes well with my dish, haha, seitan can be quite tricky sometimes.

 

[Chas]

T-Bone steak for one. $100 bottle of Burgundy. I have relatives, but no family. Not the way I figured it, just the way it turned out.

Could be worse.

 

[Gilbey]

Chinese Turkey?

Something like that. With steam rice of course!

 

[TessTrueheart]

I enjoyed a very traditional southern Swedish Julbord (Christmas smörgåsbord), with four kinds of pickled herring, cured salmon, ham and mustard, meatballs, brown cabbage and green cream stewed cabbage, beetroot salad, Janssons frestelse, julmust, glögg and Ris a la Malta. Perfection!

 

[davestlouis]

I made frozen Banquet brand turkey pot pies (60 cents each) in the microwave, and a handful of potato chips. Everyone is out of town but me and the dog, so I didn't bother to do much. Made a pot of coffee too.

 

[John in Covina]

I made frozen Banquet brand turkey pot pies (60 cents each) in the microwave, and a handful of potato chips. Everyone is out of town but me and the dog, so I didn't bother to do much. Made a pot of coffee too.

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I am fond of the turkey pot pies myself, if the Marie Calendar ones are on sale I splurge and get one sometimes.

 

[John in Covina]

My pastor and his wife had her family over mom and dad, an aunt plus her sister and brother in law who is also an LCMS pastor. Add me in as an "orphan" since my family Christmas dinner plans were scuttled about a week ago.

They got a massive standing rib roast that was seasoned at the butcher shop and slow roasted it on the Weber kettle BBQ with mesquite smoking chips soaked in port! Delicious! Served with Yorkshire pudding and green beans amondine. We drank a Tobin James Syrah with the meal.

Afterwards they put up a chocolate "thing" with a fresh raspberry sauce that was pretty much over the top.

With excellent conversation all around and an evening watching the movie Christmas with the Kranks plus lots of laughing.