Christmas 2010

I'm in the process of making my Christmas dinner menu, and I'm having trouble figuring out the meat. I don't want turkey or chicken, as we just finished the last of the Thanksgiving bird. What are you guys making? Also, I remember going to a meat packer a few years ago, I think around Ogden & Jackson, that was on the second floor of a non-descript building and bought some reindeer. Does anyone know what the name of this place was?

My husband always wants either standing rib roast or lag of lamb for that dinner...
both are classics, and since we are dedicated meatatarians, it's not an issue at our house.

Could it be Chicago Game and Gourmet (350 N Ogden Ave, 312-455-1800)?

Not "meat," but for my Xmas dinner I have been enjoying serving Bouillabaisse - sometimes a little Vietnamese inspired, sometimes more classically French, always delicious, and simultaneously luxurious and light enough to leave room for all-important dessert.

we always do seafood and something lighter xmas eve...
one year I'm going to get ambitious and do seven fishes....

nr706 wrote:Could it be Chicago Game and Gourmet (350 N Ogden Ave, 312-455-1800)?

That's the place!

In our situation, many of our family members have additional households to go, or have come from. So, we have opted to be in the "pop-in" house and the menu consists of various appetizers that appear throughout the day, depending on the time of the day...we call it "brunner" which is breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Its light in fare, but we keep it going throughout the day so people who want to stay all day get a variety in the menu, those that are only there for an hr, can nosh on something light with a glass of wine.

BR: (brunch 9am-11am)
crossiants, bagels, fruit plate, coffee, tea, juice
UN: (lunch 12-3pm)
cheese & sausage plates, salmon and duck pates, olives, pickles, nuts, hot dips (like artichoke).
NER: (dinner 3-8pm)
onion and apple tart, variety of flatbread pizzas (looking into recipes for this), shredded beef mini sandwiches, spinach salad with goat cheese, stuffed mushrooms with sausage and I want to try scotch eggs this year.

Desserts usually come out around 7pm with coffee
Pumpkin white chocolate cheesecake, cranberry apple pie and christmas cookies.

Christmas for us is always a spiral cut ham. I couldn't imagine one without it. It also makes for better leftovers when you fry up some ham with eggs, on a sandwich and by itself.

I'll second the spiral cut ham

for me the best part of the spiral cut ham is the split pea and ham soup
that I make with the bone and little meaty bits left on it.
YUmmmm
perfect in the winter.

That was my plan with Mr. Pie's people's Thanksgiving ham. I angled for that bone and forgot it in the freezer. Oh well. That's my Christmas present!

We've done a stuffed crown roast of pork a couple of times, but it depends on how many people you're having.

It will likely be 5-6. I hear these are a pain to make. Details please!

We've done the Italian 'Feast of the Seven Fishes' Xmas Eve for the last umpteen years, but it has grown & morphed into something almost unrecognizable to your run-of-the-mill Chicago goombah.

My always-prompt Japanese best buddy begins the festivities early on with a massive platter of sushi & sashimi from Sea Ranch in Glenview, and they really do a tremendous job there. The place just always smells fresh. In fact, I usually score my mussels for marinara there as well. Problem is, trying to make this dish for 20-24 is a pain-in-the-a** indeed, and it's a mess besides. Not sure if it will be in the rotation this year.

We do have five gas burners on the cook top and two ovens, but it's never systematic & usually chaotic with people stepping on each other in various steps of cooking & drinking--all we need are guns to make it complete. My 85-year-old mom is insistent on making her broiled Maker's Mark salmon on a bed of spinach, but it has to be early in the evening so that "people are still hungry for it". One brother does prosciutto-wrapped sea scallops & the other has a killer stuffed squid recipe. I fill in the blanks with linguine with clam sauce, rapini, and some type of marinara as well. If need be I can do a shrimp scampi Gambino-style, a recipe culled from a long-ago cookbook by a New York mob boss--peeled & deveined shrimp, bread crumbs, shallots, garlic, lemon, curly parsley, butter & a touch of cognac or tequila--broiled on high for 10 minutes.

I would love to try some of the stuff I ate in Sicily in October like caponata or tuna with sweet & sour red onions, but I'll have to determine how much of it can be done beforehand, and not compromise on quality. It's all good though!

It will likely be 5-6. I hear these are a pain to make. Details please!

Not a pain at all. It's just a bone in pork loin long enough to tie in a circle (or two tied together)and the stuffing is placed in the middle. Roast until you get the internal temperature you want. For a smaller dinner, we would take a regular bone in pork loin (a butcher will cut it to as many chops as you want) and cut a pocket along the bone and put the stuffing in there. If you are really ambitious, rather than cutting a pocket, you can cut the loin so it unrolls flat, you spread the stuffing and roll it up like a jelly roll and tie it, then roast it. We did something like this for Thanksgiving instead of turkey with a cornbread, apple, sage and sausage stuffing.

usually chaotic with people stepping on each other in various steps of cooking & drinking--all we need are guns to make it complete

Gosh your family sounds like fun!!!!! Seriously!

A very dear friend always used to invite me to her Christmas dinners. She was then a practicing Buddhist, but her Christmas celebrations were a meld of her Episcopalian childhood and the stuff of storybooks, and the menu always centered on roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. (It really ruined me for Himself's chaotic family Christmases, where the featured heirloom holiday recipe is herring salad, made with bologna, beets and apples.)

A standing rib roast isn't cheap, but it is the simplest roast possible for the most impact. All you need to do is put on a little salt and pepper and shove it in the oven.

Last year a group of of friends got together the week before Christmas and did the Feast of Seven Fishes. Mostly couples and a few singles but we had such a great time eating and drinking. We talked about doing it again this year and have put it off until January when everyone's plans come to a crashing halt. A few of the dishes we did last year:
Oyster's on the Half Shell with Mignonette Sauce
Rao's Seafood Salad ( this is amazing, we added some slivered celery on a mandoline, no lobster)
Sauteed Squid with bacon, (Much better than it sounds)
Whole Salt crusted Red Snapper
Swordfish Skewer's wrapped with prosciutto ( Spedini)
Lobster with Angel Hair in spicy Arabiata Sauce
Stuffed Calamari
Lot's of wine good fun, Limoncello and Grappa. Can't wait til january!!

I lean towards a beef roast for Christmas, though I wouldn't mind doing a goose too sometime in the Christmas/New Year's time frame. We don't have any particular traditions for Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve, though maybe I should give some thought to starting traditions for those. Seafood sounds like a good idea ... but so does deep-dish pizza!

Seafood sounds like a good idea ... but so does deep-dish pizza!

How about a roasted shrimp and artichoke DD pizza? MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

I just heard we are having lasagna, salad and bread from Mr. Pie's family. I'm bringing my annual tray of cookies. I'm still trying to figure out what to make for my family...better nail that down!

I could use some veggie casserole ideas. Something a little bit fancy/out of the ordinary to avoid making two separate veggie sides. Any idears? (No green bean casserole! )

Not a casserole, but an all-in-one dish that's easy enough to do - roasted winter vegetables. Just hack up some root veggies (it helps if you get ones of all the same density, but if not just cut the softer ones into bigger pieces) coat with olive oil and sea salt, herbs if you want them, and roast at 400 degrees. Epicurious has what looks like a good recipe - just omit the potatoes if you already have a starchy side. Here's a slightly lighter one that includes brussels sprouts.

On my menu

Baked Ham
Au gratin potatoes
green been casserole
Bacardi Rum Cake - my mom is making.
Christmas cookies
Possibly a green salad

Maybe some appetizers like artichoke dip, and or green olive/garlic spread.

Xmas Eve: the original Mia Francesca with friends

Xmas: Sauerbraten, red cabbage w/apples & caraway, buttered Amish noodles from the Dane Co. Farmers Market, my chocolate/cherry stout cake

My fam does a traditional Norwegian Christmas. Yulecake with gjetost spread on it, risengrynsgrot with an almond hidden in it, and lots of smoked fishes. Simple, but nice. We will also make lots of highly potent nog and buttered rum.

X-mas eve: Dinner in Chinatown(stole this idea to use for my family after attending LTH x-mas eve dinner @ LSC 2 years ago - did Double Li last year, this year is Lao You Ju)

X-mas dinner: Prime rib, yorkshire pudding, etc.

All right, I've settled on the meat: a pork rib roast and an elk roast from Chicago Game & Gourmet. But I was thinking about a topper for the elk, which I'm told tastes like venison. Cranberry chutney, perhaps? I'd like something that I can serve on the side, not something that I'd braise the meat in, in case people don't dig it. What do you serve with venison?

Thanks!

Eve
crapload of cookies and a box of Fannie May fruit fudge/Trinidads/dark cherries/eggnog creams. My in-laws are in charge of dinner and it's lasagna, salad, and bread.

Day
Elk Roast with some kind of fruity chutney/sauce
Pork Rib Roast
Creamy Baked Fennel
Harvest Wild Rice (with mushrooms and white beans in it)
Corn Pudding
steamed haricots verts
baked purple and white yams
Roasted Beets and Carrots, if'n I have time

Dark Chocolate Cranberry Pie
Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust

and my parents will get a box of cookies and some Fannie May too. When everyone leaves, lots of nog and rum or brandy for me.

Pie Lady wrote:What do you serve with venison?

Thanks!

Haven't tried to make either, myself, but of the two venison dishes that stick out in my mind one was sauced with a blackberry-based gravy, the other with a molasses-based one.

In the 1960's, our family tradition called for a Christmas Eve meal of oyster stew and prime rib roast with horseradish sauce and Yorkshire pudding, followed by plum pudding. In the 70's, my Mom stuck with Canadian Bacon, Shotgun (Red Currant) Sauce, Spinach Salad, Wild Rice with Celery, Onion, and Waterchestnuts, and Chocolate Mousse or Buche de Noel. I never settled on a regular menu in my own household, preferring to use the occasion to try some new recipes each season.

This year, on Christmas Eve, I plan to serve a rib roast from my brother's grass-fed Angus herd without Yorkshire pudding or popovers (because my gluten-free daughter would be sad if everyone else were to eat the delicious, hot, buttery wheaten treats and she would be left out). Instead, we will serve the beef with Minnesota wild rice, mushroom sauce made from foraged hen-of-the-woods, red chard and beets. An appetizer of prosciutto with chestnuts and fried sage leaves from the Zuni cafe cookbook caught my daughter's eye, and I have to say, it does sound good. We will also have a salad of endive, orange, hearts of palm and pomegrante seeds. It's all beginning to sound like too much, but there is dessert, too: 1) a gluten-free chocolate cake filled with chestnut cream and frosted with bitter chocolate ganache, and 2) sticky toffee pudding with poached pears.