Christmas Menu Ideas

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A photograph I posted recently on Instagram of an early Christmas celebration (I tend to rather extend any celebration I can) led to several messages regarding Christmas / Holiday menu ideas.  As I said in the original post,  the only thing I love more than planning my own holiday meals is  helping other people plan theirs.    I  gathered all of the questions that came in and have come up with a menu and few winning pot luck ideas for you.  Most of these are things I have made, with great success!  So have fun, good luck and happy cooking!  May the force be with you.

The Big Family Gathering:

The important thing when hosting a big family gathering is to plan out a timeline of what needs to happen when and to make make sure you have enough oven space.  I can’t stress this enough – good restaurants don’t just accidentally turn out great food.  It takes a lot of planning, training, coordinating and organizing.  You don’t have to hire a brigade of line cooks, but it is worth taking pen to paper and sketching out your plan.

6am Turkey out of refrigerator

9am Make cranberry sauce.  Make spinach Madeline.

11am Prep turkey and turkey stuffing, preheat oven

12pm Turkey in oven 

1pm Mix bread stuffing, set aside. Baste Turkey

1:30 Baste turkey

2pm Prep stovetop veggies.  Baste Turkey

2:30 Baste turkey.

4pm Turkey out. Rest 30 min.

4pm Stuffing & Spinach Madeline in oven. Make stovetop veggies.

4:30 Pour wine.  Have people sit down. Carve Turkey.

4:45 Stuffing out of oven.

 

If you can’t handle that kind of stress – and it really is okay if you can not.  It is a LOT to manage.  You can also do a managed pot luck where you ask each person to bring a specific course.  But you open yourself up to disappointment here.  You have to accept the trade off.  No cooking = good.  No stuffing = bad.

In the event you are still up to the challenge, here is a fool proof menu for you:

Roasted turkey + stuffing

Zesty cranberry jam

Broccoli Salad

Spinach Madeline

Sauteed Winter Vegetables

Quick stuffing

You already know that the truth about turkey is that it is a pain to cook and the breast meat is dry but nothing really beats it for WOW factor.  Especially for Americans.  The secret is that there is no secret.  Just a few steps to make it less scary and less dry:  Take the turkey out of the refrigerator several hours before cooking.  Baste it while cooking. Use a thermometer to check the internal temperature.  Let it sit for 30 minutes before carving. And give up your oven to the bird beast for the hours it takes to cook.  If you have to go down this road, Jamie has a great recipe for a traditional turkey + stuffing combo.

And the zesty cranberry jam I mention up top is your traditional cranberry sauce and is a Martha staple.  Don’t turn your nose up at Martha.  She knows what she is doing.

Spinach Madeline is a southern staple.  You’ll love it.  Velveeta and all! 

Broccoli Salad – My stepmom’s brother used to make this for family gatherings and I genuinely couldn’t get enough of it.  I hadn’t had it for years until the amazing Dani Tucker brought a similar version to a Creating For Good dinner meeting recently. This is a great group dinner salad because it can be made in advance and sit for ages without wilting. Also doesn’t depend on out of season produce. Can also be eaten as a side, as I have it on the menu above.

You need a quick stuffing that you can rely on and this recipe from Bon Appetit / Epicurious is just that.  Remember the turkey should rest for at least 30 minutes after baking before carving so mix this stuffing up in advance and then put it into the oven after you remove the turkey.  It needs 45 minutes to cook but by the time you have finished carving the turkey, refilling the wine glasses and yelling at everyone to have a seat, the stuffing will be ready to serve piping hot straight out of the oven.

Winter vegetable saute makes a pretty counteroffer to the creamy spinach and brown stuffings.  And you can be flexible on what veggies you throw in.  Plus it doesn’t need the oven!  Bonus!

 

Just the turkey:

Is everyone else taking care of the sides and you just have the main course to handle? Go out on a limb and try  this amazing Mark Bittman recipe. I’ll be serving this at Christmas again if I can lock my mother-in-law out of the kitchen for long enough to hack up that bird.  

And here is another turkey recipe…breast only by Donna Hay.  Brilliant.  Who needs legs anyway?

No.  More.  Turkey.

If you can’t take one more holiday with Turkey I don’t blame you.  I also can’t recommend braised short ribs enough.  I swear by Alfred Portale’s recipe from his Gotham cookbook. If you don’t have the cookbook try this one from Epicurious – it looks nearly identical.  It takes some time to start it off but then you just bake it in the oven for hours and let the incredible aroma take over.  Serve with an amazing Bordeaux for a perfect wine pairing.  (A favorite of mine is Château Gruaud-Larose.  It’s sort of expensive but not crazy and it’s delicious.  Decant it for an hour before dinner)

Served braised short ribs with Paris Mash.  That’s what the French serve in place of our lowly mashed potatoes. Here is an essay to tell you more about it.

I am a huge fan of Beef Wellington.  I have been unsuccessful in convincing my mother-in-law to let me make this for Christmas dinner but a girl can dream.  In the meantime, go forth…spread your turkey wings and grab for the puff pastry!   (Serve this with Paris Mash too!)

And maybe a mini turkey?  A roasted chicken? 

For the Veggie Lovers:

Obviously you don’t have to be a vegetarian to prefer to skip the red meat at family meals but it sure helps.  When you’ve got a table of carrot crunchers here are two options to make them feel loved and appreciated.  And also things that are so good even the reddest of meat eaters will want to try them as well.

Beautiful and surprisingly simple mushroom purses from BBC Food. 

And my very favorite butternut squash risotto from my very favorite Australian-turned-Italian Emiko Davies.  (If you don’t have her books ask for them Christmas).

The One Hit Wonder:

Someone has invited you over and you are responsible for a single dish.  You gotta win this one.  No second chances here.  Here are a few of my very, very favorite single-dishes.  All things I’ve made, made again, and made again.  

Thomas Keller’s savoury bread pudding….oooooohmggggggg.

Thomas Keller’s savoury bread pudding is the bees knees. Fair warning: This has to bake for 90 minutes so don’t tackle this if you only have one oven and that is full.

 and the Ottolenghi recipe for sweet potato gratin.

 

Of course what started all of this was my discussion of Beef Bourginon Pie.  It’s not exactly a side dish but I can not begin to tell you how much you will love knowing how to make this.  And how often you will be called upon to do so. 

Saving the best for last:

Desserts have to be made well in advance and should be sitting on the side just waiting for their moment in the spotlight.  Here are three of my favorite options:

Leave it to the Queen of desserts, Joy the Baker, to come up with a lovely and delicious gourmet Reese’s cup for the kiddies.

And this for grown ups.And maybe for accessorizing, the most amazing molasses spice cookies.  Add this one to your annual plan and send me a better photo to post because this one is so bad.

Lagniappe:

Baking your own bread never ceases to amaze people. Like so many things in life it feels incredibly intimidating in theory but it is actually quite simple, it just takes practice. A good and easy one that works with all sorts of food is Irish Soda Bread. Try this recipe by the oh, so amazing Mimi Thorsson:

 

 

 

 

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