Holiday menu ideas

Gin AND regret.

Pumpkin pie AND pecan pie!

Utter lack of consideration. It's one day a year.

Christmas is anything but “one day a year.”

Greg, where are you?

I do a big dinner Christmas Eve, usually a roast and all the traditional sides. Brunch on Christmas Day. Leftovers in the evening if anyone is still hungry.

I'll bite. I think it's important to consider not just flavor, but color, and especially texture. Making sure you have a variety of textures in a menu is incredibly important.

What if everything you served were pureed and stewed? Not so much. Texture matters.

[quote]I do a big dinner Christmas Eve, usually a roast and all the traditional sides.

Thank you for not typing "and all the fixins."

Do Thanksgiving meals include a salad? I rarely hear of salads being served as part of TG dinner.

R5, please don't summon it. It is not the end all and be all for cooking.

We always do a rib roast for xmas.

My guests are due to arrive at noon.

Once they’re there, we will go to the beach and have cups of haddock chowder. It will be around 50 degrees outside.

Back at the house we will have cocktails and hors d’oeuvres—simple things like cheese and crackers, Medjool dates, warm spiced pecans, gougeres, and celery stuffed with cream cheese, cheddar cheese, bacon, chives, and parsley.

We will sit down to eat at 3:00 and will have a pretty traditional Thanksgiving dinner:

Roast Turkey and Gravy

Cornbread Dressing

Potato Purée

Sautéed Haricots Verts with Chopped Hazelnuts

Braised Carrots

Creamed Pearl Onions

Cranberry Sauce

Dinner Rolls

+++

Apple Pie

Bourbon Pecan Pie

Sweet Potato Pie

No such thing. Why would you even want to try?

That sounds amazing, Greg. Would you share your recipe for Sautéed Haricots Verts with Chopped Hazelnuts?

And your cranberry sauce recipe (o:

Greg I am 74 and you are the only other person that I have heard talk about celery with cream cheese which my mother used to make all the time. I wonder if it is a New England thing since that was where she was from. Because of that I just absolutely Love celery, even plain.

Every Boston Irish mother served cream cheese on celery…kinda blah. Irish dads used peanut butter instead.

My mother wasn't Irish. She would mix the cream cheese with a little milk and then put it in the celery and then top it with paprika.

Thanks, R14. Here you go:

[bold] GREG’S DELICIOUS HARICOTS VERTS WITH CHOPPED HAZELNUTS [/bold]

[bold] INGREDIENTS [/bold]

-8 ounces haricots verts

-1/4 cup dried, roasted hazelnuts, crushed

-3.5 ounces of Hazelnut oil

-7 ounces of olive oil

-3.5 ounces of sherry vinegar

[bold] PROCEDURE [/bold]1.

Trim just the top end of the beans and drop in salted boiling water.

2. Cook for just 1 to 1.5 minutes. You want them crisp-tender.

3. Mix oils and vinegar together.

4. Once beans have cooked, drain, season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, and dress the beans lightly with oil and nuts.

5. Important—start slowly! Don’t pour all of the oil and vinegar dressing on the beans. There is more than you need here.

The oil and vinegar emulsion will provide enough dressing for twice as many beans as is in this recipe.

Enjoy!

Hello, R16.

Nice memory!

My mother (half Irish) would simply stuff celery stalks with cream cheese and would top with paprika and she would top some with canned sliced black olives.

We always had this before dinner on Thanksgiving.

Tons of cocaine.

[quote] Tons of cocaine

On the stuffed celery?

In the UK, Saint Delia rules Christmas.

earrings

AND

Caftans

.

Butternut squash soup with creme fraiche

Roast turkey with stuffing with pecans and sausage. and graxy Mashed potatoes with garlic Mashed sweet potatoes with orange, cinnamon, maple syrup and butter Fried brussel sprouts Creamed spinach Cranberry sauce with orange

Pumpkin cheesecake

This is very rich but I fast the day before and eat small helpings of everything.

Well, after reading Greg's menu this is really plain but it is good. Turkey and stuffing with sage sausage, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, Creamed Pearl Onions sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole.

Sounds very good, R25.

Do you know that you can purée your sweet potatoes in a food processor, if you like them smooth?

R26, that sounds delicious!

Thanksgiving is a day to stick to the tried and true and to serve food that reminds people of previous Thanksgivings and traditions.

Yes, Greg. It's a great tip.

Hazelnuts are nasty. I’ve never had anything they were in where they didn’t make the whole thing taste musty and rancid.

Greg's shit is always overwrought and pasted from a magazine. Bitch isn't cooking whatever it says it is.

[quote] Greg's shit is always overwrought and pasted from a magazine. Bitch isn't cooking whatever it says it is.

Oh, okay.

And I cook everything I say I do.

[quote] Hazelnuts are nasty. I’ve never had anything they were in where they didn’t make the whole thing taste musty and rancid.

You’re not eating in the right places.

R28 ❤️

Thanksgiving is a day to mix tried and true with something different and to serve food that both reminds people of previous Thanksgivings and creates new traditions.

R35, I completely agree.

Diet Coke and a pack of Marlboro Lights.

Is R31 GapPlaylist guy?

🤔

The holiday menus in question are not "Balanced". A balanced meal has a moderate amount of some sort of protein, a moderate amount of some sort of carbohydrate, a variety of vegetables, and possibly some fruit based dessert.

For Thanksgiving, that would mean one slice of turkey breast, a moderate spoonful of potatoes, a spoonful of sweet potatoes, a generous helping of cooked vegetables (broccoli, asparagus, green beans), possibly some salad, and creme fraiche or lightly sweetened yogurt over a bowl of raspberries.

Not one American in 100,000 would recognize that as being an appropriate Thanksgiving dinner however.

Balance can refer to nutrition as in a balanced diet or flavors. I assume OP is speaking about the latter.

This chef just won a round of the Julia Child competition in Chopped so I looked up his restaurant, the Heritage Inn, in Madison, Wisconsin. This is their holiday spread for 300. for five people.

Heritage Thanksgiving Feast (Serves 5, reheating instructions included) AVAILABLE 11/22 ONLY

Creamy Apple & Market Vegetable Slaw; side of market greens

Roasted Brussels Sprouts; bacon lardon, chili-candied pumpkin crumble

Maple Candied Sweet Potatoes; cranberry gastrique

Willow Creek Farms Italian Sausage, Pecan & Door County Cherry Stuffing

Rosemary Roasted Fingerling Potatoes; garlic confit

Juniper and Herb Roasted Turkey Breast, Confit Turkey Thighs, Smoked Turkey Drumsticks, Riesling Wine Turkey Gravy

½ Dozen Brioche Buns & Whipped Honey-Thyme Butter

Pumpkin Pie with Mascarpone Whipped Cream

Pomegranate Cranberry Sauce

My Irish grandmother was born in Philadelphia and raised in New Jersey and no holiday was complete without celery stuffed with cream cheese and topped with black olives! Make sure to carry the tradition every year in her memory. It does seem dated, but I had no idea it was so regional.

That chef is a crazy person, r41, but one if the most talented chefs I've ever seen.

"Mascarpone Whipped Cream"

!!! never heard of this but that sounds great!

R23 -- "So that is what that Delia Wheelwright is up to these days! She was always such a social climber, always pushing herself and family on others. So people now think she can cook?! Had YOU ever tasted her custard tarts?! Ghastly!"