FOODIES: What are you having for Christmas?

[Mercy]

Following on from last year's thread basically, which I thought was really interesting - and droolsworthy!

?

Got the IL's coming, which is great cause she's a terrible cook!

Starting off with dh doing a cooked breakfast, then we will eat "the dinner" at 5pm with the LO's. I'm doing Gary Rhodes roast loin of pork with apricot and sage stuffing and extra crackling (and all the trimmings).

Hate turkey, always have and I refuse to cook it, which my IL's hate !

Usually do a double pavlova for pudding, with passion fruit on top. Going to make gingerbread tree decorations with ds1 over the weekend ala Nigella.

hi y'all. we always have panettone for breakfast and some fizzy stuff as soon as I can think of an excuse. ~Lunch is light and often pack-up as we have a good walk on xmas day - everyone you see says merry xmas to each other. then xmas dinner is a veggie feast later.

Bucks fizz.Marks and Spencer turkey crown. Roasties. Sprouts. Brocolli. Carrot and turnip.Mushy peas. Stuffing.Yorkie puds. Gravy.Quorn roast for me. M+S Profiterole dessert and Panna cotta.Cheese and crackers.Lots of wine. I do a buffet for boxing day, as once it is set out, I flop for the day in my pyjamas, eat, drink and watch TV!

Hi this Xmas i'm doing a rich venison casserole.
The meat is marinaded overnight in port, peppercorns and a slice of lemon.
The casserole includes more port, fresh cranberries and chestnuts.
This will be served with 2 veg and loads of creamy mashed potato.
For afters we will have apple crumble with cinnamon and double clotted cream.
Although there is a lot of preparation for this dish it takes about 2 and half hours to cook and also means that the oven stays nice and clean!
AB

Ah the dreaded turkey crown.
A mastectomy in other words.

It has no place on a foodie thread do ya hear???!!

We are also having a M & S feast

We normally have guests and then we do cook from scratch but this year we decided to just have Xmas on our own (DH, the kids and I) and Xmas is an awful lot of effort for just us. DS doesn't eat it and DD is only 2 so doesn't eat a huge amount.

I am really looking forward to it!

breakfast, bacon sandwiches or boiled egg and dippies or toast. I often have smoked salmon in the fridge but couldn't face it for breakfast.

lunch, hmm, not sure. Not turkey, definitely not, we haven't had it for years as I'm not that keen tbh.

We had a duck on Sat night and it was delicious but I think we'd need 2 of them for 4 of us so maybe 2 ducks or if not, an organic chicken. And a rare beef joint on boxing day, mainly so we can have rare roast beef sandwiches with thick butter and horseradish the following day.

with it, roast potatoes parsnips and carrots and separately cooked broccoli, peas and stuffing.

pudding will be ice cream or maybe a Gu lemon cheesecake thing, not that bothered about it.

Not sure about breakfast.

Maybe homemade gingerbread muffins or smoked salmon. Something white & sparkly to drink

Lunch:

Roast Duck
Roast spuds (done in duck fat)
maybe some mash
roast parsnips
carrots (can I roast them?)
Viennese Red Cabbage
something green (preferably something I can stick in the oven)
bread sauce (family tradition)
gravy
maybe stuffing but not sure what goes with duck

Followed by organic xmas pud & brandy butter.

Plenty of red wine & Port

Dinner: same as lunch but cold!

oh I would love to do roast beef, but mil doesn't eat red meat thats why I'm doing Pork .

smoked eel from local smokery on blinis with sour cream

turkey (practically issued with foodie passport as totally free range from farm over the road - the dds have seen the flock and place bets on which one will be ours)
veg from our/MIL's garden or bought locally

poached pears and/or homemade chocolate chestnut xmas log

ham from local smokery

god that all sounds so wank

suffice to say we live in a farming area so it is easy to get all this stuff without going to supermarkets

Ripeberry said: Hi this Xmas i'm doing a rich venison casserole.
The meat is marinaded overnight in port, peppercorns and a slice of lemon.
The casserole includes more port, fresh cranberries and chestnuts.
This will be served with 2 veg and loads of creamy mashed potato.

Mmmm! That sounds delicious. I was going to do Beef Bourguignon, but the venison casserole is making me rethink ..... Where does the recipe come from?

havent read the whole thread.

My dp came home from butchers last week and announced "i ordered a duck (thats fine) its going to be 12-14lb" (in weight!!)

Is this going to be a H U G E bird?!

im not really sure!

Hi Issymum, the recipie comes from a little booklet i got in a cotswold farmers shop.
To serve 4-6 people,
Set oven to 275F or Mark 1 gas.
2lb venison (cubed)
2 tbsp of oil/dripping
4 oz smoked bacon (diced)
1 large onion, roughly diced
1oz plain flour
1 and half pints beef stock
5 fld oz port wine
8oz cranberries
8oz of chestnuts (tinned or frozen)fresh ones take AGES to peel!
4oz button mushrooms
1 bayleaf
salt + pepper
3 fldoz double cream.
Heat the oil/dripping in a flameproof casserole dish and brown the venison cubes. Add the bacon and onion and cook for 3 to 4 minutes.
Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute, then pour in the stock and port wine and add the cranberries, chestnuts, mushrooms and bayleaf.
Season to taste
Bring slowly to simmering point, cover and cook in the oven for 2 to 2and half hours or until the meat is tender.
Remove from the oven and stir in the cream.
Bon appetit!
AB

ooh that sounds lovely!

I've never eaten venison but that recipe does sounds amazing - as does Enid's

Enid's sounds fantastic!

Mmmm...smoked ham.... [fdrool]

Thank you so much Ripeberry for the Venison Casserole recipe. I'm very tempted. Where does the marinading overnight bit come in?

Well we will be in Ireland for Christmas.
We have a few slightly different traditions there.

Breakfast, whatever...
Lunch will be choice, smoked salmon, or spiced beef. Spiced beef is a traditional dish served in ireland around christmas and most families will eat it at some stage. We have it for lunch with fresh bread and something sparkly to drink.

Dinner
Roast turkey with stuffing and bacon
Baked ham with honey (the Irish usually eat turkey with ham on the same plate and they do go really well)
Sausages, roast and boiled potatoes
peas,
celery in white sauce
Bread sauce
Cranberry sauce.
Champagne or something similar!

Followed by traditional home made christmas pudding. Old recipe steamed for hours. Brandy buutter
And an alternative, not decided yet, but often fruit salad with exotic fruits, or choc mousse again home made.
Cream

Coffee and mints!

Yumm!
If you want any of the traditional recipes I ahve a lot online...Look at this page and you will find some,
fionasplace.net/Christmas/Have_an_Irish_Christmas.html
others on my general Irish cookery page.
fionasplace.net/Irishcookery.html

Have fun! (fgrin)

Fionap19

Hi Issymum, Sorry forgot to say that the cubed venison is marinaded the night before then you just carry on with the recipie below.
AB