So what are the traditional foods or new

[Fran]

your family will be eating this holiday.
I always get some good ideas from these threads.

Christmas Eve we have fish(throw back to the old Catholic ritual of no meat on the vigil of a holiday). This will be the first time we will eat out since there aren't so many of us.

Christmas day will be Italian wedding soup, standing rib roast, scalloped potatoes, green beans in olive oil and garlic. The trifle for dessert is something we all look forward to.

What's on your table?

 

[klmno]

Nothing special this Christmas- salad, baked ham, potato/cheese casserole, rolls, zucchini

For the past 5-6 years, the New Years dinner (no matter how cold or snowy or rainy) has been steak on the grill, crab legs, salad, baked potato, bread. It was a tradition I wanted to start to give us hope for a better year to come. (It might not happen this year LOL!)

 

[Marcie Mac]

Leg of Lamb with garlic and lots of mint, and the usual veggies and potatoes, and sweet potatoe pie.

Usually I have a hugh batch of pizalles but lost the pizalle maker in the quake

Fran, wanna share that Italian Wedding Soup recipe. Jamie LOVES that soup.

Marcie

 

[jal]

Christmas day at Mom's this year is shrimp cocktail, filet mignon en crute, gorganzola and spinach souffle, rice pilaf and roasted veggies with-a bread pudding for dessert. If we were staying home this year would have been a spiral ham (got a great deal last month), the above souffle and veggies and rolls. Last year I did baked stuffed shrimp. OK, now I am starving!!

 

[donna723]

I always share the holidays with my son and he doesn't like for anything to vary from year to year. No experimenting allowed! He loves ham, so we always have a nice ham, potatoes, green beans (with a little onion and ham in them), big biscuits, maybe a salad.

And for dessert he always has to have his "Jello cake". He even emailed me to make sure I hadn't forgetten his Jello cake! It's the super-easy recipe that was in all the magazines years ago. You just make two white cake layers, then when they're cooled, poke big holes in them with a knife handle. Dissolve two different flavors of Jello in water the usual way (for Christmas red & green I use lime and raspberry) then pour the hot Jello in the holes in the cake - red in one and green in the other. It makes little 'tunnels' of Jello through the cake layer. Put them in the fridge to firm up, then put them together and frost the whole mess with Cool Whip! It comes out very light - the perfect thing after a heavy meal. And it's EASY!

 

[Fran]

Marcie, I will write it down when I watch mom make it. She doesn't use pastina in it but something called stratchadella. (grated cheese, eggs and bread crumbs)

jal, please post the recipe for gorgonzola and spinach souffle. Sounds wonderful.

 

[everywoman]

Standing rib roast--this has become a tradition since I started hosting in my home, scalloped potatoes, squash casserole, cream cheese corn, vegetable casserole, Janet's brussel sprouts (trying for the first time), and homemade red velvet cake.

 

[hearts and roses]

We're doing things a little backwards this year. We will have 4 days of grazing going on...hahaha.

We're having our Christmas dinner tonight instead of tomorrow. So, tonight I am making a roast turkey breast with some brussel sprouts and mashed potatos and yams (for difficult child and me) along with some popovers. No stuffing this time round though. I am making enough food so we can nosh on it Christmas evening.

Christmas morning we're having a large brunch featuring Swedish pancakes with jam and powdered sugar, egg souffles, hash browns, cinnamon buns, coffee, & juice. We will then veg out (digest) or nap, then go to the movies in the afternoon. When we return home we can pick on Christmas Eve's dinner.

On Friday, my sister is flying in so I am making garlic roasted black bean tacos for dinner - a fave around my house.

On Saturday, when my entire family is up at my house (there will be roughly 17 of us) we will have a honey baked ham, baked apples, roasted root vegetables with herbs from our garden, sauerkraut, and garlic-buttered green beans, with rolls and other fixin's. That will be a buffet.

I do not have any of this food in my house except the ham that was delivered yesterday. I have to go to the food store after I get out of work at Noon today. After I go home I still have some more baking to do....I've just run out of time I think. And I haven't wrapped anything yet!!

I am just so discombobulated this year - I have to plan better or cut waaaaay back.

 

[DDD]

Jo, do you do anything special with the sauerkraut? My husband has memories of succulent sauerkraut that was served each holiday by a now deceased relative back when he was a teen. I've tried different methods but have not found "it". If your recipe is a goodie I'd like to try it.

We are having crumpets, strawberries with-powdered sugar, eggs, sausage, bacon, homemade hashbrown potatoes, pancakes, brie, fresh juice etc.
...just "the usual" for breakfast...LOL. Dinner will be prime rib, oven roasted potatoes, asparagus topped with crushed anchovies & garlic.

P L E A S E...nobody even whisper that four letter word that starts with a D. (Maybe after New Years??)

Happy Holidays, everyone. DDD

 

[totoro]

Tamales and Fajitas... with lots of salsas and Guacamoles... cabbage and chips for dipping. The chips will local made.
I actually did not make the tamales this year, we bought them from a local lady, her tortillas also.
Salsa and guacs will be mine though.
K and husband faves. My family being Hispanic and extended from Mexico, this is kind of a tradition. (Not the in-laws tradition )

 

[muttmeister]

Tonight we'll have oyster soup, chili (for those who don't like oysters), shrimp0 and dip, mini appetizers from Sam's, relishes and dip, homemade cranberry relish salad (my grandmother's recipe), steamed Christmas pudding (my other grandmother's recipe) fruitcake (a homemade chocolate/cherry/nut one), Cranberry ice (also an heirloom recipe), and FROZEN CRANBERRY MARGARITAS.

For Christmas dinner we always have a cranberry glazed pork loin, crock put corn with cream cheese, bean casserole (yes, that one), sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, and pumpkin and miince pie. I just, last night, made a new batch of mince meat. I will freeze it; it is enough to last several years. The recipe is my grandmother's grandmother's. I guess we're pretty traditional.

 

[tiredmommy]

Very simple: spiral ham, scalloped potatoes, green beans tossed with almonds and crusty Italian bread. Christmas cookies for dessert.

Tomorrow will be turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, corn, and carrots. More cookies for dessert.

We'll live off leftovers through the weekend.

 

[ThreeShadows]

Passionate foodie here! From Wikipedia:

Stracciatella (from Italian stracciato, "torn apart") is an Italian egg-drop soup usually said to be "alla Romana" ("the way it's done at Rome"), but also popular in Marche and Emilia Romagna. It is prepared by beating eggs and adding grated parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sometimes semolina, and then adding this mixture to boiling broth. The broth is set whirling first with a whisk, and the beaten egg mixture added in a slow stream to produce the stracciatelle ("little shreds") of cooked egg in the broth, which is clarified by the process.
I've never seen it used in wedding soup, from what part of Italy did her family come?

Christmas is my husband's birthday (he used to think the whole country was celebrating his birthday!) I used to have to cook two big complicated gourmet meals, one on the Eve and one the next day. I haven't really enjoyed a Christmas in 36 years...Anyway, we broke the bank with a standing rib roast to be accompanied by mashed potatoes from the Silver Palette book (heart attack on a plate), yorkshire pudding (still tempting fate 'cause it's made with fat from the roast) and various less lethal veggies. I don't know why my husband canceled his life insurance policy...

Joyeux Noël to all!

 

[goldenguru]

Spiral glazed ham, cheezie potatoes, 'sugar beans' (my great aunt's almost famous recipe), assorted yummy side dishes and pumpkin cake for dessert.

To be honest, I would love to try something not traditional, but think my family would protest. If I had my way I would make something Thai.

 

[KTMom91]

We're going to mother in law's tonight, and I'm hoping for her homemade quesadillas and chile verde. I have a pumpkin pie in the oven right now to take over there.

Tomorrow we'll have lunch at my mom's..."desert" turkey as my brother calls it (he always complains it's too dry, but he's the only one who thinks that) with all the usual stuff. I have another pumpkin pie to take, and I'm planning on making a coconut cake. One of my mom's aunties used to make a wonderful coconut cake, so even though I never tasted hers, I decided to give it a try.

 

[meowbunny]

Tradition is we graze on Christmas Eve, watch It's a Wonderful Life and then midnight mass (which is at 10:30 here -- figures). So, ham rollups, spinach dip, veggies, fruit, cheese and meat platter and, of course, deviled eggs. Tomorrow will be ham, garlic mashed potatoes which I'll pretend to eat but never swallow, sweet potato something (maybe souffle, not sure yet), fresh green beans and corn, peaches with cinnamon, brown sugar and butter.

To me, the best will be brunch tomorrow. Cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs and bacon, maybe pancakes or waffles if wanted, some fruit and mimosas with-fresh-squeezed OJ since she's now 21.

And I get fix all of this in a galley kitchen with no dishwasher. Oh, I am so not looking forward to the cooking and clean up part.

And I'd love the recipes for trifle and Yorkshire pudding (I LOVE yorkie puddin).

 

[Fran]

3shadows, that's the best definition I have seen. It's hard to explain what it is and how wonderful it tastes in soup. (no nutmeg though)

Stracciatella (from Italian stracciato, "torn apart") is an Italian egg-drop soup usually said to be "alla Romana" ("the way it's done at Rome"), but also popular in Marche and Emilia Romagna. It is prepared by beating eggs and adding grated parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sometimes semolina, and then adding this mixture to boiling broth. The broth is set whirling first with a whisk, and the beaten egg mixture added in a slow stream to produce the stracciatelle ("little shreds") of cooked egg in the broth, which is clarified by the process.
I've never seen it used in wedding soup, from what part of Italy did her family come?

Mom is from the mountains east of Rome. After the war they lived in the suburbs of Rome.
We love it in wedding soup.

All your wonderful foods are making my mouth water. Everyone of you have something on the menu that I want to try. : )
Muttmeister how wonderful that you have all these traditional foods that are loved.
Thanks for sharing.

 

[1905]

We decided to do something VERY non-tradtional tonight, Christmas Eve. One kid wants to order Chinese food, Conner just got home today from the Residential Treatment Center (RTC), I'm so happy he's home, all he wants is pizza!!! So, tomorrow we're having ham, greek salad, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, corn, etc..cheesecake, ...tonight ..sausage and peppperoni pizza it is! This past week has been the worst week, tonight.. I'm so happy, feeling the complete joy of Christmas...we're all together, so pizza it is..(and wine...and maybe a Bloody Mary). Peace, Alyssa

 

[ThreeShadows]

Fran, I believe in reincarnation and the next time around I swear I will be Italian!

 

[Nomad]

We eat something Italian on Christmas day.
Usually lasgna...but this year we had Baked Ziti.
I make a homemade Rum Cake for dessert.

Fran, I too would like that Italian Wedding Soup Recipe...if that is okay.
Thank you.