Christmas Eve food ideas?

[Perfectpeony]

Yes, I know it’s November but I love Christmas and like to start planning early.

I’m having a family get together at my house on Christmas eve and want something delicious but not so heavy that it will ruin Christmas lunch.

All ideas welcome.

Are you thinking meal or buffet? If it were me, I'd do what we call "party tea" so lots of yummy buffet nibbles that can be grazed on.

Pigs in blankets, cold meats, cheeses, crackers, et al.

Are you doing a full on meal, buffet or nibbles??

We now usually have a party food tea after the christingle service, lots of little picky things that you can just pop in the oven.

My DM used to cook a gammon joint and we'd have that on Xmas Eve with roast potatoes, crudités, and dips.

I always think something simple but tasty is the way to go on Xmas Eve

Big ham with some sort of sticky glaze and cauliflower cheese. Then slice the leftovers for a cold meats and chutneys on boxing day.

I’m thinking more buffet style nibbles rather than a meal!

A ham would be a good idea, we had one last year glazed loads of times with honey/ mustard dressing. We had it all on Christmas Day and here was just too much meat along with turkey, pigs in blankets and stuffing.

I’m tempted to do something completely different though like Christmas Eve curry

A huge luxury fish pie.

Cheese board, you can never have to much cheese.

And big bowls of quality street, roses and celebrations.

Or, a buffet with all the party food they only seem to bring out at christmas and a huge ham, with bread and cheese.

Definitely a fish pie then. And maybe a cottage pie too.
Can be eaten in bowls and people can just help themselves. Neither really require vegetables in this instance.

Mmmm fish pie sounds amazing.

I also quite like the idea of doing a nice homemade bread like this:

www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/cheese-bread-sharing-wreath/

Curry sounds brilliant. I’d do that with a load of onion bhajis, samosas, naan, pickles etc.

We always get a chippy tea on Christmas Eve - saves on washing up and time!

We have a uuni pizza oven which does really great naan breads. I could work on a sweet almond/coconut filling and do peshwari. Want to do homemade but never attempted samosas

Samosas are much easier than they look. You make a big pot of filling that gets wrapped in filo. I bake mine in advance and reheat them. They get extra crispy then.