Alternative Christmas dinner

[Shookethtothecore]

I’m not doing it this year, I love cooking and enjoy watching everyone eat my food but with a new baby and 2 toddlers who hate meat and veg, I’m not putting myself through it, they will however, eat Italian food like it’s their last meal, so I’m thinking of doing some spectacular pasta, antipasti, lovely pizza kind of stuff, does anyone have any good recipes that they have tried? I’m a keen cook and love a challenge but I do have small children so maybe nothing too ambitious. Or any other ideas?

Sounds lovely. How many are you cooking for op? I love homemade pizza, antipasti etc. Gino D'A campo's sundried tomato pesto is amazing, we have it with cold meats and homemade foccacia. With pizza you could do loads the night before but I always find when I'm mass catering pizza for family I end up stood rolling out dough, topping etc for ages!

8 adults and 4 children: all are happy with the non traditional approach and I want it to be spectacular to thank them for being so understanding. We live on the coast so I was thinking of a seafood pasta? But I’ve never done one before? Do you cook the bases the night before? I was imagining that the raw dough topped would go soggy?

That's a lovely idea to have something different, especially with toddlers to consider.
Melon and Parma is light and tasty, the children could just have the melon. Or burrata and fresh figs.
Then perhaps filled fresh ravioli, (you could buy good quality version). I'd serve two flavours, for added interest. You could make a light sauce to go with them, stock, white wine and cream or a soft Italian cheese.
That might be enough for the children, if so the adults could also have veal escalope with sage butter, which cooks very quickly.

Tiramisu would be a good pudding, or Italian ice cream with a fruit sauce,, or perhaps pear Belle Helene?

Oh, just seen you mention fish, have a look at Rick Stein recipes, he does some interesting fish and pasta combinations. A rich mixed fish soup might be an idea for the main course?

Can't beat a good pasta bake!

My son has asked for "pig blanket bangers and mash" for lunch and pasta bake for dinner haha.

No point spending a fortune on food to waste so I'd go for something you all enjoy :) you can always do festive sides or nibbles. I know Tesco have tree shaped potato shapes x

For different pizzas i highly recommend the aldi flatbreads in the frozen section they are all lovely but the chicken and mango one is gorgeous obv a taste test would be required pre xmas:)

How about a baked camembert with homemade dough balls in shape of a xmas tree with the camembert in middle Google sure will find a pic and recipe it's a 5min job if making dough anyway and looks impressive

Thank you, making a note of these. We will have our usual cheeseboard and “party” food for tea and Boxing Day when people pop in and any leftovers can be added to this.
Loads of great ideas and your making me feel like it’s not a crazy thing to do. Thank you

I don't pre cook pizza bases, just roll the dough very thinly, put onto a pre heated pizza tray and put the pizza into a very hot oven. I tend to do them when we have people over but we're all sitting chatting in the kitchen as the pizza can only really be made two at a time and for 12 people I would do 8 pizzas! If you wanting to all sit together to eat maybe something like a cannelloni? I have a lovely book called The Food of Italy: a journey for food lovers (Murdochs books)that has a great cannelloni recipe.
Starter- homemade foccacia, sun dried tomato pesto, griddled courgette and aubergine, antipasti meats, olives.
Main- cannelloni or maybe some huge prawns in garlic butter? Stuffed peppers and char grilled radicchio
Pud- tiramisu

Sounds absolutely divine. Thank you lots for me to research later if my children ever decide to sleep 🙄

The ask Italian cookbook has some bloody cracking recipes including their gorgeous rosemary sea salt bread! The base recipe is the same as their pizza too so you can make a huge batch for bread and pizzas.