Christmas Feast - What're You Serving?

Indonesian.

Nasi Goreng, which is a spicy fried rice
Sate, roasted meat with a peanut sauce
Bami, which is a noodle with spices.

We were also supposed to have Babi Pangang which is a beef dish with sauce but I think my mom is going senile because she completely does not not remember us asking for it or her asking me to come early to help her cut the meat. It's not even an "omg i totally forgot that" it's a "no we never discussed that".

We have this Christmas eve. We don't do Christmas day. That's for everyone to spend with their in-laws. And it's a casual thing, plate on our laps while the kids play with their toys.

I don't know what we're having because I don't have to cook this year. My contribution to Christmas Eve is shrimp and cocktail sauce, bread, and a bottle of red wine. For Christmas Day I am bringing corn. I'm sure whatever we have will be good, if for no other reason than someone else cooked it.

MM

A hot pocket.

My husband's work gave him a ham, so we're having ham. I am making AuGratin potatoes (ala betty crocker), baked beans (ala bush's), acorn squash(ala moi), and probably green beans (ala green giant.) oh oh oh and a pumpkin pie. (libby's pumpkin, eagle brand sweetened condensed milk, pilsbury crust.)
I am also making cookies mainly to give away. I've had a request for white chocolate macadamia- so that's on the list, and mr.groove's fave is chocolate chip/peanut butter chip.

Basically the same stuff we had at Thanksgiving - a turkey, cracker dressing, baked mac-n-cheese, potato salad, pie, cookies. Everything will be made the day before and heated up. We like to keep it simple on Christmas day.

"Dry brined" turkey

stuffing (cornbread, yellow onions, Granny Smith apples and chestnuts)

cranberry sauce (ginger, tangerine juice and Craisins added for zing)

potato rolls

buttered peas with fresh dill

Pies.

Booze for the adults. Juice for the kids.

I asked family member X to bring the side dish of her choice and will pray that her choice does not include that benighted slimy green bean thing with the slivered almonds and the Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup again, or that candied yam crap with the little marshmallows, two of her heretofore favorites. Blergh, ucch, pttttui.

I'm going very English this year:

Fruit 'n' Nut selection

Roast Beef
Yorkshire Pudding
Roast Potatoes
Peas and carrots
Homemade Gravy

Booze-soaked Fruitcake with Custard

Both sets of parents live less than an hour away, so we 'do' Christmas with my husband's folks on Christmas Eve, and with my folks and sibs on Christmas Day.
Christmas Eve we'll be having salmon (a personal favorite--and we already cooked turkey for both sides of the family on Thanksgiving, anyway). Apart from that, would you believe I don't know yet? (Hubby is grocery shopping as we speak.)

Christmas Day we're only responsible for the desserts (again, due to doing Thanksgiving this year), and we have lots of chocolate lined up (toffee brownies, highland toffee, nutball cookies, chocolate cake, mint chocolate cookies), and pecan pies if I can finish up with the wrapping tonight.

We're having

Roast Goose with apple stuffing
Daughter's bringing Green Bean Casserole because she loves it
I'm making pickled beets as an alternative
Black cherry jello with black cherries and marshmallows on top
Whole cranberry sauce
Cranberry and orange "salad"
Black Olives (husband and daughter love them)
Mint Surprise Cookies, Fruitcake, plus some storebought options

Don't think I'll have time for more baking before the big day. Puma

Ah, a summer Christmas...

at last.

Fresh gathered shellfish - pipi, tuatua and mussels - in wine sauce.
Home made crusty Kiwi bread.
Huge mesclun and herb green salad with wine vinegar or French dressing, Mediterranean salad of olives green and black, tomatoes, basil, home made soft cheese.
Broad beans in herb sauce. Petit pois, mange tout, and French beans with butter.
Roast sucking pig - young wild boar.
Locally caught crayfish and paua.
New potatoes and baked kumara.

Syllabubs, cherry trifle, raspberry pavlova, gooseberry fool, home made berry ice cream, and a big bowl of cherries, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries with lashing of pure 100% butter fat cream from the Guernsey cow.

I'm not cooking, however the housemate has planned:

Prime rib roast (she usually braises it)
Some kind of potato, probably baked
Waldorf salad
Some kind of salad (whatever greens look good in the market tonight)
Wine (to be picked up today and chilled over night)

I'll probably bake up some more pumpkin bread tonight, and if I'm really industrious, will do Rice Krispie treats for post-dinner tomorrow (assuming any of the above make it through the night).

I'm taking an Upside Down Apple Pie which is to die for to add to a Prime Roast, green beans, corn and a cranberry/pineapple gelatin salad.

Ah, but...

Holy hell, pdr, I asked what you were eating for Christmas, not the whole month of December!

it's an all day feast for twelve and any waifs or strays people know of and bring.

Just a little update. The Indonesian food was awesome, I have enough left overs for a week. Oh and you know how i said my mom was senile? yeah, not so much. Apparently, I missed the bit where everyone decided making babi pangang was too much trouble and they voted it down. Where was I? I have no idea. But the good news is my mom's not senile. Yet. kidding. lol

sassandgroove said:

My husband's work gave him a ham, so we're having ham.

Click to expand...

I'm also doing baked ham. Never did one before, but when I was at the supermarket the hams were cheaper than the turkeys and the roasts. (And my mom hates lamb.)

And then this recipe

http://www.recipezaar.com/Awesome-Baked-Ham-46922

just looked SOOOOOOOO embarrassingly easy, I decided to go for it.

It's in the oven right now. We'll see what happens at 2:00 when the oven door opens again.

sassandgroove said:

I am making AuGratin potatoes (ala betty crocker), baked beans (ala bush's), acorn squash(ala moi), and probably green beans (ala green giant.) oh oh oh and a pumpkin pie. (libby's pumpkin, eagle brand sweetened condensed milk, pilsbury crust.)
I am also making cookies mainly to give away. I've had a request for white chocolate macadamia- so that's on the list, and mr.groove's fave is chocolate chip/peanut butter chip.

Click to expand...

And I am likewise getting help from Betty and Libby and Mr. Bush.

Just the two of us today (actually quite happy about not to have to produce for a crowd)

Last night ate cod, potatoes and vegetables for Christmas Eve-a traditional Seasonal Portuguese meal around this time. Had 'formigos' for dessert, which is made of honey, bread and raisins and thats it, plus king cake, and at the end of the night a birthday cake, and champagne. A dessert made in the Northern Portugal, well one my mum grew up with. Now eating old clothes which is the left overs from yesterday all mangled up together. We celebrate my mums Birthday, but not Christmas, so we don't do anything today in form of anything seasonal.

Husband is of Polish ancestry & the big day for his family was Vigilia, or Christmas Eve. So last night we made the traditional ushki (uszka), which is kind of like mushroom-filled ravioli, floating in a bowl of borscht. Then for dessert I made a spice cake with cream cheese icing. I added 1/2 bottle of rum to the cake & the same to the icing, of course the alcohol cooked out of the cake, but not out of the icing!

Today I'm making cranberry chicken and a sweet potato praline casserole.

We had our traditional Xmas Eve dinner, which is cold cuts, cheese, crackers, a couple of loaves of hot French bread, and cocktail meatballs (regular meatballs in a ketchup-and-Worcestershire sauce, which sounds weird but is really delicious). We usually have scalloped potatoes too (Thanks Betty) but those aren't available here, so, sigh, we'll have those next year.


And Christmas day we had beef bourgingon (which I can never spell correctly, so please forgive me.) I use the recipe my mom used; you have to marinate the meat overnight, and it has bacon, mushrooms, and cocktail onions in it (although, again, you can't get cocktail onions here so I had to make do with pickled silverskin onions instead.) It's one of my favorite things to make--one of my dinner-party dishes--and is lovely for Xmas too. I serve it over rice. We've done that the last couple of years and I think probably will continue to do so.