Holiday meals

I'm hosting Christmas dinner. I won't have much time to cook since I'm working, so I'm trying to find a few things I can make in advance. These are my ideas so far. What are you guys doing? What did you make for Thanksgiving or Hanukkah that turned out great? I'm set on my proteins but still open for side dish ideas....

Appetizers
• Chicken terrine & crackers
• sweet &spicy nuts
• [my MIL or FIL is bringing something]

Dinner
• Drunken venison chili
• Roast chicken
• Crab puffs
• Roasted cauliflower
• Pear & celery salad
• Creamy swiss chard w/ breadcrumbs

Dessert
Salted caramel cookie bars
Snickerdoodle cheesecake (Mom bringing)

 

My friend's wife made these mashed sweet potatoes that was dynamite!

 

Have been browsing through my cookbooks and have some veggie ideas & starch ideas. I want to make them ALL so I'll have to narrow it down for this meal vs future meals: (and I'll only want one dish with cranberries, one dish with nuts - but you can clearly see a pattern to what appeals to me)

Veggies:
Red & green salad with cranberry vinaigrette
Cauliflower with hazelnut brown butter or roasted cauliflower with cranberries
Warm green bean salad with toasted walnuts
Crunchy pear and celery salad
Creamy swiss chard with crisp bread crumbs
Apple slaw

Starchy sides
Couscous salad with dried cranberries & pecans
Polenta squares with prosciutto
Bulgur stuffing with dried cranberries & hazelnuts
Farro with pistachios & herbs
Crab & chive puffs

 

Things remain in flux here, but we have a few parts figured out:

Friends' dinner this Friday will be simple: poblano-crema chicken, infused rice, whatever green stuff I find that afternoon at farmers market. Terri's sorting out dessert. Foley Pinot Noir.

Christmas eve: That's pot-food night, so probably gumbo. Stolpman blush and someone's Chardonnay, maybe Clos Pepe

Christmas morn: We're thinking chicken-andouille hash with poachers, probably get the fryer out and make some donuts or beignets, local berries, double-down on some bacon a caterer-friend recently cured. Bubbly and micheladas and bloodies.

Christmas dinner: Beef tenderloin with blackberry-balsamic glaze, roasted Brussels with chestnuts, blue cheese bread pudding. Silver Oak Cab, Jalama Mourvedre, DiBruno Merlot, some nasty oaky/buttery Chard for the moms. lol

As I said, still some holes to fill, sort out appies, etc.

Merry Christmas, all!!!!

 

Christmas morning it'll just be the 2 of us - I'm planning on making a bread pudding from nusskuchen I made (hazelnut bread/cake) that's been in the freezer.

Blue cheese bread pudding sounds delicious! But not for dinner - I can't serve anything with blue cheese unless it's on the side because of my mother (and possibly my MIL, I can't recall) Which is sad, since my husband, my FIL, and I all love it.....

 

Of course you can serve it. Folks don't have to eat everything offered. Win win!!!

Our neighbor made stollen. Wow, good.

 

We will be doing Christmas Eve dinner. We are Sicilian so we do some tradition but not the seven fishes. We will have baccala (cod fish), calamari in tomato sauce, homemade pizza, sausage, stuffed pork roll, salad, and potatoes.

 

Thinking of having an Asian-style X-Mas dinner consisting of Peking Duck and Chili Crab. Just have to talk to some nearby restaurants and ask if they will cater...

After all that ham and turkey during Thanksgiving week, I don't want to have that same stuff again, which is why my family does international during X-Mas.

 

Hey Now!!!!

We have been invited to our friend's home in Henderson for a Polish Christmas dinner. Not too sure what to expect! Looking forward to it though.

 

Sounds wonderful. But be careful. It's easy to overdo dinner at the cost of family time or plain relaxation.

Ken, what year and what county on the Silver Oak? '08 is my guess- supposedly excellent. I have an Alexander Valley from '05 that I was thinking about opening on New Year's. Not the best vintage is what I heard.

Christmas- no appetizers, just the meal. I do Senator Russell's yams with extra pecans and half the sugar, and Maggie loves jello salad made with ground cranberries and oranges (peel and all). Neither dish is imaginative or difficult. The salad can be made and the yams roasted the day before. Maggie always wants Sixth Grade Noodles, a calorie laden concoction that you can assemble the day before. The rest depends mostly on what looks good at the market. I won't bake this Christmas because people always bring so much crap and then leave it here. Yuck. Plus, Aunt Selecta made kifli, date pinwheels, and assorted other cookies and gave me a tin yesterday. Yum.

NYE dinner is up in the air. For NYE appetizers, which we need because the meal is so late, I made stuffed grape leaves a couple weeks ago and froze them, and I'll probably boil some big shrimp.

 

Think we'll probably do an '02 Alexander and an 'O2 Napa side by side; they're our oldest, probably at about their peak. Have a few scattered Alexanders and the Napa into '08.

'07 was a monster year.

 

I've made stollen a few years. I adore it. I am literally the only person that eats it. This year I made a stollen biscotti and shipped it to my dad (I make biscotti for him every year, all sorts of varieties) and he and his wife loved it. So apparently that's the route I should go.

I've made blue cheese items before just for those of us who'll eat it, but since I'm trying to simplify the menu this year, it doesn't make sense to do a dish that ~half the people won't eat. I can do it sometime for just the two of us!

Looking at Costco tonight for wines.....Not sure what I want so I'll see what looks good I'm easily swayed by a well written description.

 

Costco can make or break a mid/small producer. And it can move the larger industry like few if any others. Amazing.

We shop at Costcos from SLO to Palm Desert and I'm always impressed by what and how they source.

 

My husband is scared to let me shop at a Costco in another state where alcohol is sold (we can have beer & wine but no booze) He's afraid I'll roll out a barrel of rum or bourbon

I love that I can get cases of NC craft beer at our Costco. It really does a great job of buying some stuff locally!

 

Oh, to ('02) be in Ken's cab! I have nothing old except on me.

 

We don't buy much of any Silver Oak simply because we don't think the hype is up to the price on the sticker. Now, don't get me wrong, as you know it is a phenomenal cab and all. We're just lucky to have had supplier connections in the past as well as a very great friend who visits us annually and always has a bottle of the Napa sent to us as a thank you.

Anyway … you and Ms. M are cordially invited!!!!

 

Star Lane cab

One of our clubs' offerings. Good potential. Very tasty now. Still not an everyday-er at that price but also not an account crusher.

 

That's the way to get it. We have a neighbor with a distributor connection but were not invited to order after the first time. The neighbors have maybe 2000 bottles in a wine room downstairs, including two coolers that hold 250-300 bottles each. I have two homemade wood racks I copied from World Market that hold 4 cases each and are rarely full.

After further review, think I'll open a 2007 Clio. It should be ready. I'll see if we can get Star Lane here or elsewhere.