What's on your holiday menus?

[DaveD]

Getting to be about time to wonder what all folks are planning on cooking during whatever time we get over the holidays... I'm blessed to be able to take off the rest of this week (after one last half-hour Teams meeting here shortly) and all next, so I reckon I have some cookin' to do.

Yesterday I put together yet another pan of smoked pulled pork enchiladas (my "poor man's carne adovada"), given that my lovely bride has long since decreed that those enchis (and vac sealed frozen portions of smoked pulled pork generally) must always be available. This afternoon and evening I'm cooking a pot of Rancho Gordo Midnight Black beans which I'll let sit overnight to marry and meld, and those will go with tomorrow's dinner. Tonight it's leftover crock pot pot roast, which I posted up in SUWYC this morning.

Tomorrow I'm conducting an experiment with a pair of pigskets, the analog muscle on the pig to the brisket on a steer, about which several folks have posted here over the past few years. Currently available only at Porter Road as far as I know. These two are nearly identical in shape and weight (1.6lb/725g):




Game plan for these is to cook one of them on the SnS kettle with a standard low and slow approach, using B&B coals & apple wood. I'll do the other via SVQ, with ~10 hours at 165F/74C overnight tonight. Then I'll cool it down and add it onto the kettle at such a time that it'll heat up and get to a final IT of ~175F/80C at about the same time that the other one does that's been on there all day. Yep, bit of a tap dance there and I'll have to pay close attention to that timing... My goal is to prepare two pieces of meat that are as close to identical as I could hope for with two different methods to see the differences.

Either Friday or Saturday, I'll do some bone-in, skin-on thighs 2-zone style, probably our "Pollo Sabroso" recipe that features sazon and adobo. On Sunday my lovely bride is making a pan of lasagna, something at which she reallly excels, so I'm looking forward to that.

Then for Xmas dinner on Monday, I've got this here 3-bone Angus rib roast:


I'll separate this out into bones, spinalis, and the main eye and then do the latter via SVQ as our roast beast. It sure worked amazingly well when I've done it before, another long SV at 131F/55C followed by a sear either on the kettle or on ripping hot GrillGrates.

That's as far as the current plans go... what do y'all have lined up??

[Richard Chrz]

We host a holiday gathering for my wife’s side in early January, which I make several homemade pizzas, meatballs, charcuterie, and just all day grazing food. That is my favorite style gathering,

We will have my mother in law over for Christmas, just so she is not alone. I will do a slow cooked roast, and make pasta and a cream sauce.

personally I don’t think I would want to host large holiday dinners where we have to sit at the table. I’ve never enjoyed them. I love grazing all day.

[DaveD]

I find myself less and less interested in being in large groups of people as time goes on, in general...

[Jerod Broussard]

Someone else is doing all the cooking. Christmas day.....hmmmmm....may just stop on the side of the road at a Rest Stop and heat up a MRE.

[TripleB]

C-Rat (beef/shrapnel) over a heat tab. Yum.

[xrodbob]

SoS...

[captainlee]

Prime rib with friends on Friday. Roasted turkey Christmas day for the two of us.

[JustKyle]

Brisket and turkey on the smoker. Some dressing, bacon fried Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, Mac and cheese, corn salad, chocolate delight and Reese’s pie. Oh and grilled portobello mushrooms for my sil that’s a vegetarian.

[DaveD]

That sounds amazing!

[Pobeque]

I've taken over Christmas Eve the past few years and we do Feast of Seven Fishes.

Baked Clams (casino-esque)
Fried Calamari
Cold Seafood salad
Shrimp Cocktail
Mussels in a saffron cream sauce
Salt baked branzino/snapper with a arugula/fennel/citrus salad

[RlsRls]

Looks delicious! but I count only six! ... We' re doing same thing with crab dip, shrimp cocktail, fried scallops, salmon patties, stuffed squid, lobster ravioli, grilled sword kebobs salads and meatball sliders for the little kids who dont care for seafood!

[Pobeque]

ha the seafood salad has like 4 different 'seafoods' in it - squid, shrimp, scungili, scallops and maybe mussels

[hoovarmin]

I like how you do Christmas Pobeque

[Mosca]

Prime rib, horseradish sauce & au jus, blue cheese butter, stuffed mushrooms, salad, mashed potatoes. Maybe broccoli, I dunno. I was going to get a cheesecake sampler, but it lost out to pumpkin pie I think. And this year I’m putting out a charcuterie tray, that seems to be a thing now.

Whenever I make the fancier stuff nobody eats it. But I can never have enough beef, mashed potatoes, and salad. All those get finished. That’s fine with me, those are easiest.

[Santamarina]

Tell me more about this blue cheese butter. Is it a compound butter with blue cheese crumbles mixed in softened butter?

[Mosca]

@Santamaria yep. It’s just 50/50 blue cheese and butter.

[Santamarina]

I’m the only one in my family that likes blue cheese, but I’m absolutely gonna try this. Thanks for the info!

[Santamarina]

It’s not Xmas without tacos! So I’ll be firing up the charcoal grill with lump and grilling carne asada on Xmas eve. Tamales will also be served.

Xmas day my wife is making French toast and other tasty treats (she handles sweet cooking, I do the savory). We do Xmas dinner at her parents house, and her dad typically makes roast beast of some kind.

NYE we’ve unintentionally started a tradition of ribs, so a few racks of baby backs will hit the stickburner with oak splits.

Other than that it’s eggnog all day every day from now through the new year!

[DaveD]

I salute your vision and your well thought-out plan of execution! Very high likelihood of success right there.

PS, you had me at "tacos"

[Panhead John]

Nice plan! Tacos and tamales are actually pretty popular around here for Christmas.

[Old Glory]

We host Christmas Eve and do the Feast of the Seven Fishes

Caesar Salad - anchovies
Sicilian Seafood Salad - Scallops, shrimp, squid
Stuffed Clams
Oysters
Crab Cakes
Cioppino - Shrimp, lobster, cod, clams, squid
Stuffed Squid
Linguini with Clams

Mangia Bene!

[Purc]

A proper Caesar Salad has to have anchovies!

[RlsRls]

Another one who can't count!! I see eight!!... Looks delicious, Merry Christmas.!

[hoovarmin]

It's not Caesar without the anchovies

[barelfly]

Love reading through these posts every year to see what everyone cooks up! Here’s what I have on tap for our family!

Christmas Eve is a gathering of all New Mexican food for my family! I’ve posted a few times about this, along with recipes for my favorites!

• Carne Adovoda
• Posole
• Taquitas and flautas - my parent’s make these for us
• Tamales - store bought - I’m a slacker!
• Red Salsa
• Queso - my sister makes a great queso
• Bisco Chitos

Christmas this year, we are going back to our German roots, which we have not done in years, so I’m really excited for this!

• Rouladens - sliced top round rolled with S/P, bacon onions, pickle spear, mustard. Browned and then roasted to tenderize the meat and make a gravy that just is top notch!
• Spatzen - German noodles that we use a drook or a noodle press. These are long noodles, probably 8-12” in length if you are able to squeeze the press and get the noodles through!
• German Chocolate Cheesecake - it’s my absolute favorite cheesecake to make….and eat. It is so decadent…I’ve heard people say it’s better than sex hahaha!

I’ve gotta start preparing my stomach for this and get on my bike….need to burn extra calories because Christmas Eve all we do is watch movies and eat

[barelfly]

DaveD - tamales - I forgot tamales! Although these will be store bought. Just don’t have the crew or bandwidth for tamales. My sister’s ex, his family would make them every year and man were they great! But…no longer!

And I thought the Christmas Eve menu would bring you back to NM a bit

[barelfly]

As for the cheesecake - I’ll post up Sunday night or Monday once I have it made, but It’s chocolate cheesecake with all the German Chocolate fixings mixed in, then….the German Chocolate frosting spread on the outside!!

And this year - no thumb mishaps while making cheesecake either!

Feliz Navidad!

[hoovarmin]

Man! I want to book a flight to NM.

[Draznnl]

It’s just the 2 of us and since it’s my wife’s holiday, we are going back to her New England roots. Clam chowder, lobster mac & cheese, and lobster tails all shipped in from Legal Seafoods. All we’ll have to do is heat things up.

[barelfly]

Lawbstah mac! I’d be curious to hear more about this recipe. I have one that is probably my son’s favorite dishes that I make. So would love to hear/see if I can take a few things away!

[Draznnl]

barelfly I’ll try to reverse engineer it, but doubt I’ll do very well. It is part of our Legal Seafoods package.

[DTro]

Christmas Eve- Cream of crab soup, steamed shrimp and Kentucky fried chicken. Yes KFC, a traditional Japanese Christmas dinner we learned about last year when we visited.
Christmas Day- Short ribs braised in red wine, mashed potatoes, salad and some yet to be determined veggies.

[RonB]

No cooking here as we go to my brother's house on Christmas day.

[JoeSousa]

My 11 (soon to be 12) year old's birthday is Friday and he requested Detroit Style pizza and a pecan pie so I will be cooking that. Then my wife's birthday is Christmas Eve and she wanted Chicago tavern style pizza so we will have family and friends over that day and I will be cooking about a dozen of those and that will be our big Christmas celebration. Also baking her a ginger cake. Then on Christmas day we will just spend the day around the house with the kids and I will probably make cinnamon rolls for breakfast and then cook up some chicken wings for dinner.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

Honestly don't know, my parents moved here, but they're so used to doing their own thing and not really fair if we bring them over when the grandkids are an hour-ish down the road and they aren't going there... our other friends family just grew so that dynamic is likely gonna change... might just stay home and do nuthhin' might go to the local Thai place and fra ra ra ra rah....