What special foods do you serve for Christmas or Christmas Eve?
Are there some family traditions that you have evolved or that have come down through the years?
What special foodstuffs say Christmas to you?
For example, we always had link sausages, scrambled eggs, and biscuits with jam for Christmas morning breakfast.
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We usually serve a big-ass ham. ;)
I always make some vegetarian dishes for my niece. A few of the other family members always try em, the other ones think I’m nuts.
I serve some of the dishes my husband ate on Christmas Eve growing up. When it is just us two, I modify to only one or two dishes. A consume that is a little spicy made from shrimp and tomato, picadillo (ground beef and pork with tomato, onions, almonds, and olives), french rolls or baguette, maybe some rice, and a salad. When we go to his parents for xmas (which we are not this year) she in addition to what I wrote above, also makes a dish with bacalao (dried and salted cod), pierna (pork roast), and stuffed jalapenos. We don’t really have a specific dessert that is customary, but his mom frequently makes a simple cake that she can alter the flavor to her whim. Sometimes basic yellow, sometimes apple, sometimes lemon, no icing. There have been times they buy pies or baklava.
My mother-in-law use to make a blackberry jam cake that would knock your socks off, literally. the recipe has been handed down through five generations.
The cake was made two months ahead of the holidays. it was soaked with blackberry wine and Jack Daniels whiskey. it was a cake to die for. only one piece was allowed to the children. you can understand why.
This was the only cake that can create a hangover. it was worth it.
She is deceased now and i miss her and her blackberry jam cake. it was something else !!
Well, we never had any Christmas traditions before, but I just made puffy sugar cookies with cinnamon cream cheese icing so I think our first tradition has been created.
Christmas breakfast is Egg Gravy over biscuits. Unbelievably good, and if you ate this more than a couple times a year, you would have cardiac problems.
Filmfann, brillant deduction on egg gravy. how do you make it?
Roast goose. It’s fantastic. I’ve no idea why so many people waste their time with turkey.
My Mom always makes (and I have followed in this tradition when I cook) Waldorf Salad and sweet potato casserole for the holidays. We have the ham, turkey, stuffing, etc. and typical things, but those two are the special ones for me. The sweet potato casserole recipe is highly prized and my co-workers demand I bring it for our Christmas luncheon every year. My SO added the tradition of having white pearl onions every year. He loves them, so I made them for him and everyone liked them so much they are a must have now too.
@Lightlyseared I love goose! It is a bit of work though. The recipe I have calls for cooking it twice.
@diavolobella Would you share your sweet potato casserole recipe?
I also serve a big ass spiral ham and Matzo Ball soup! And a big ass pan of Glug on the stove! ;)
@marinelife I normally brown it first then roast it. Makes for a lovely crispy skin and doesn’t add too much to the cooking time.
@marinelife Surely! I don’t use measurements for most of it though, so these are estimates and the amounts are really all to taste.
2 large cans of yams, drained
½ stick salted butter, melted
¼ cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
Dash of salt
a lot of apple pie spice (I really shake on quite a bit – maybe 3 tablespoons)
a good splash or two of Brinley Gold Vanilla Rum (probably comes out to ¼ of a cup
1 bag of large marshmallows
Heat the yams in a large pot, add butter and other ingredients over medium heat. As you add the ingredients, whip with hand held electric mixer or whisk (if you use a whisk, your work will be cut out for you). Don’t whip too much. You want them whipped with maybe some small chunks left in, not pureed like baby food. Spread yams in casserole dish, cover top evenly with layer of marshmallows (I like to stand mine up prettily, not just throw them on top) and heat in oven at approximately 350 degrees, just until marshmallows are toasted.
*If you object to the use of alcohol you can substitute Turkey Hill Raspberry Lemonade or orange juice for the rum. It also tastes delicious. If you don’t like marshmallows, you can sprinkle candied pecans over the tops.
melt half a stick of butter in a large skillet
add about one forth cup flour
stir until thick sauce like gravy and slowly (over 2 minutes) pour in about 2 cups milk keep stiring until thickens and simmer.
Stir in 6 sliced up boiled eggs
Add salt and pepper to taste.
That will feed a family of 4.
Serving it: Use store bought buttermilk biscuits. Put 3 biscuits on a plate, and tear them up. Pour gravy over it.
WARNING! This is a diet killer!
Our Christmas Eve tradition is pizza from the local takeaway because we’re usually too busy with the advanced preparations for the folowing day to be cooking another meal as well.
Christmas day starts with a traditional (for us) breakfast of scrambled eggs with smoked salmon. My partner and daughter will have bucks’ fizz with it as well but I don’t like that stuff. I’ll just have tea. After breakfast we open presents, then we cook.
The main meal is usually served around 2pm. Sometimes turkey, sometimes duck (I prefer duck). Served with roast and mashed potatoes, an assortment of veggies including Brussels sprouts, which I love but only get at Christmas because no-one else in the family likes them. Stuffing of some kind, depending on which meat we have. Yorkshire pudding. Cranberry sauce if we’re having turkey but with the duck we have a wonderful red-onion chutney. For dessert (which is often delayed an hour or two because we already ate too much), Christmas pudding with custard, or mince pies.
For supper, we’ll have leftover meat, cold, with pickles, salad and French bread. This year, we picked up an assortment of salamis from the local German market, which will probably be part of Christmas day tea.
I forgot to mention that Christmas day it is likely we will get Chinese takeout like half the other Jews in America. Lol.
I’m from the UK and we have traditional Christmas dinner – turkey, potatoes, veg, brussell sprouts, gravy, then on Boxing Day we have turkey sandwiches with the left overs!!
We make “Holiday meatballs”. The recipe is bizzare, including meatballs, ketchup, cranberry sauce, vineger, brown sugar, etc. We just put it in a crockpot at 10 AM and it’s ready to eat by dinner.
Like every good Mexican family we have Tamales.
@psychocandy I’d love to come to your house and have some. I love tamales. Homemade?
Our family’s tradition is a breakfast of Eggs a La King and Dinner of Baked ham. Everything else for sides is pretty open.
Christmas morning starts out with a bowl of cereal, like any other day. But then we get the good stuff. I’m stepping in this year as the tamale maker. But there’s the turkey, garlic mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, homemade cornbread, collard greens, and some black eyed peas. Yum!
My father cooked once a year. That was on Christmas eve. He made chili because that was the only thing he knew how to make. The idea was to free more time for my mom to finish wrapping gifts. (Wrapping was a big deal.) My family continued the tradition of chili on Christmas eve, but we added cheese burritos.
Christmas morning my childhood family had toasted Julekage. It’s Scandinavian round bread flavored with cardamon and stuffed with raisins and citron. My brother was the only one who continued that custom. My family didn’t like it enough to make it worth the while to make it. I learned that it also is made with candied cherries, almonds and frosting on top. The Norwegian side of our family was poor and probably could afford that, but I think we would have liked it more with those additions.
Christmas dinner was anything my mom, and then I, wanted to make and ranged from ham to turkey, to roast beef fillet to crown roast of pork or lamb etc..
Whatever your customs, have a Happy Holiday, a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a satisfying, peaceful whatever you choose to celebrate.
For Christmas Eve, we have Tortiere (a French Canadian meatpie). Then for dessert (following the traditional Christmas fixings which include my Mom’s cornbread/sausage stuffing) we have Cabinet Pudding.
This year we are going with a different solution for the main dish – everybody had requested Hubby’s special meat loaf. He make such a good meat loaf that it will now be the prime part of our Christmas meal, accompanied with mashed potatoes, stove top dressing, au gratin potatoes, steamed green beans with pearl onions, corn/kidney bean succotash, and fruit salad.
@YARNLADY Au gratin potatoes. I have not made those in so long. Maybe for New Years? Glad you wrote that.
Christmas dinner is lasagna. We always make seven-layer cookies, peanut butter balls, pecan pies, ambrosia, and fudge.
@Kayak8 Can you share the recipe for the meat pie?
Er, not to ask permission but to get the recipe . . . .
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