Christmas Dinner?????

What are you doing for the big day?
This is our menu, cooking for 8!


Starter

Melon Cocktail

Main Course

Chipolatas
Yorkshire puddings
Gravy
Roast Parsnips
Roast potatoes
Vegetable Bake (Potatoes, Cauliflower cheese, cabbage, onion, carrot, green beans, cream, cheese.) British King Edward Creamy Mash
Button Sprouts
Stuffing Balls
Beef
Lamb
Gravy

Desert

Raspberry Trifle

Cheese & Biscuits

Where's the turkey?

We always eat the same thing from Christmas Eve tea time through to several days after Boxing Day, with small adjustments, but I mever have to think about it for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Eve tea time:
smoked salmon sandwiches, mince pies, M&S Yule log, satsumas

Christmas Day
Roast turkey, sausages, roast potatoes, sprouts and chestnuts, carrots, bread sauce, cranberry sauce
Christmas pud, mince pies, rum butter and cream

Miss JG is having "mock goose"

We always have SS sandwiches for "brunch" about 11 am usually.....and hit the sherry!

CG gets to eat some ceral or toast at about 8 am....!

After brunch, open presents in front of fire, with carols on to accompany....

Play games, read books etc for a bit and drink coffee and eat florantines which I make..

Festive meal...about 2 pm (ish)...ish means may be an hour or so later....

Meat ( might be Turkey, or Goose or multi ribs of Beef....haven't quite decided and in past we have had any of them...)

but always....roast spuds, parsnips.......sprouts, carrots, mashed swede and parsnip. Mashed spuds

yorkshires, chipolatas, stuffing, bacon rolls etc, depending on meat ...

some other veggies...leeks, cabbage, kale, tomato and courgette, roast pumpkin...only proviso is ALL veg comes from the garden!

Various sauces...bread, cranberry, horseradish etc..gravy from meat juices.

Pudding made by CM with cream, custard, white, brandy sauce.

Sherry first, Red wine with meal, sweet wine with pud.

Later on...( when Dr Who is on, or Wallace and Grommit!)

Cheese and biscuits...all local, from around 10 miles of here...
mince pies, xmas cake...home made by me and CG ..and CM makes the cake......but marzipanned and iced by CG and I on Xmas eve...

Lots more drink...(port etc...) and celery and nuts..

Boxing Day leftovers, fried up spuds and veggies with stuffing or suchlike...

and A VERY long walk!!!!

All this has become a tradition...which is lovely

I forgot the sherry - we always open Harveys Bristol cream at lunchtime on Christmas Eve. For some years we had spaghetti bolognaise, then we moved on to hot gammon as it needs cooking sometime... but last year went back to spag bol.

I love tradition

Me too!

Thats the nice thing..if you do something more than once, it can become a family tradition!

CG remembers things with frightening accuracy ( as children do..) so we are made to have traditions....which is actually lovely!

I'm feeling hungry...

Where's the turkey?

Oh yes.......phew!

Hoping to blag a free range turkey from one of our customers who have an organic farmshop!
This pork pie business has it's advantages!

sounds lovely.

We always get our turkey from my mum's butcher. Once you've had a real one there is no going back!

Yes hope so JG!
I am going to do the stuffing between the skin & meat Will make my own....
However here are some stuffing ideas!

http://uktv.co.uk/food/homepage/sid/6494

Some good ideas there....like to try something different!

I would rather carve my own rump and breast off than have packet stuffing. It is one of those things I never understand why people don't make themselves - it is so easy.

For turkeys I do the cavity end with apple and chestnut stuffing and the neck end with veal and bacon forcemeat. I can post the recipes if anyone wants.

In previous years I have ended up making the stuffings for half a dozen other people as well - industrial quantities of the stuff. I tend to make it ahead of time and freeze it though - one less thing to worry about on the day.

I've just fed my Christmas cakes with brandy

I've got my eye on Mrs. Nesbitt's raspberry trifle.

Mmmm stuffing..mmm homemade sausage and chestnut or sage and onion with lots of sage and lots of onion..mmmmm

I actually like the "accompianyments" to the dinner as much, if not more, than the meat...is that just me?

mmmm....bacon rolls and roast spuds mmmmmm

Roast beef this year has been requested. There will be roast spuddies,devils on horseback, Yorkshires, home made forcemeat stuffing balls, various veg incl. sprouts, broccoli, Chantenay carrots, and cauliflower. Dessert is traditional - fresh fruit salad (mainly for OH) and usually chocolate roulade but I may do a lemon meringue roulade with raspberries instead. Red wine with the meal, and probably afterwards unless your name begins with D in which case you will be having cider! I will do a big trifle too, as I have discovered this year that I love trifle!

TRIFLE!!!! Stop it all of you, this is torture... Now I wish I had eaten more trifles while I was in the UK, as we don't get them here in France, and I have never made a trifle in my life!

The traditional Christmas dessert in France is the Buche de Noel (many variations, including an iced one) but here is the traditional
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BBche_de_No%C3%ABl
I won't be having that, as I find it too rich.

But the glacé version, now there are some good ones:
http://www.femina.fr/cuisine/conseils-d-achats/buches-de-noel-selection-2008/buches-glacees

I've got my eye on Mrs. Nesbitt's raspberry trifle.

This is my recipe which won me an award at Slimming World a couple of years ago. Really light!

2 Punnets of raspberries
2 packets of raspberry sugarfree jelly crystals
1 sugar free andel delight
I tub of fat free creme freche

Place washed rasps into bowl
Make up 1 sugarfree jelly mixture and pour over raspberries.
Make up other jelly but with minimum amount of hot water, ie just to dissolve crystals.
Make up angel delight using fat free milk and whisk into jelly mixture.
Cool it down then por onto set jelly/rasps in bowl.
Chill in fridge.
Add Creme fresh and spread liberally on top. (Fat free sot cheese is also good)
Decorate with a few raspberries.

Deliciously light after the main course!

Really, you won an award? Congratulations, and thanks for the recipe.
Where do you get your sugar-free jelly crystals Mrs. N? I ought to get friends to bring me some from the UK...
Possibly same for angel delight. Never used it, suspect it might be like a chemistry set, but hey, Christmas only comes once a year, right?
I am not averse to a little bit of real (well, half-fat, 15%....) creme fraiche... or even mascarpone :pirat: but that is really living dangerously....

Graefin Von R is in charge of trifles in Schloss Rhomboid. Her version would probably induce apoplexy at weight-watchers I suspect. It uses half a litre of double cream, home made custard with 2 extra eggs, a home-made sponge cake that has been left out to go slightly stale overnight and broken into bits, jelly and raspberries.
In the summer we have it about once a week to deal with the raspberry glut.

I have to say I don't like alcohol in trifles. It makes them too rich rather than being refreshing. Prefer my alcohol in a glass alongside the trifle.

Ah well, takes all kinds: trifles are the ONLY place where I like alcohol!

Your trifle should be OK with weightwatchers too W... they just need to have a very tiny portion!

Gluts of raspberries...now you're talking. All these Pavlovas, summer fruit puddings, raspberry jam and jelly, miam miam!

Our Christmas dinner will be something we like.
At Christmas (Christmas Eve for you Brits and others) we used to have potato salad and cooked frankfurters with mustard, as it would have been a day of busyness and getting sorted and such.
The we would have "the bird" either on the first day or the second, depending.
It would be a nice goose with red cabbage and half-half dumplings (half potato, half bread) and dark sauce.
Followed probably by a light dessert, such as Apfelmus (apple sauce without the bits but with cinnamon).

Now, we are normally doing Grünkohl und Pinke, which is a Northern German recipe slightly altered.
It takes kale, a rich fatty salami style thick sausage and to counterbalance it a poached pear on the side. You can have cooked potatoes with it if you want, but both my Mum and I don't like it very much,

First day, your Christmas Day, we would probably have some cured pork (Kassler) with Sauerkraut und potatoes, or half-half dumplings.

We don't really have a set menue of things, and normally only have two courses, or even just one and some nice tea afterwards, as you tend to munch your way through the day anyhow, with cake, and a long breakfast, and chocolate, and self-made shorbread and stollen, and such...

Just having a mouthwatering moment reading some of these posts - after lunching on salad! Mrs Nesbitt, would you be kind enough to share the recipe for your Christmas lunch veggie bake please - do you just layer all the various veggies?

Thanks

Jane