Christmas Dinner ??

Another member "Naftalin" asked what people were having for Christmas dinner in his "Merry Christmas" thread, but this one is intended to be a bit different (not meaning to steal his thunder here). Do you have a ritual Christmas dinner, or what do you make special on Christmas, or New Year?

As a kid, my family always used to do turkey on Christmas. But one day in my teens my father casually suggested we do something different. I'd been hinting at this as well. We all agreed we'd do something with beef. It was a hit, and we served beef for Christmas every year after that. Over the years my wife and I worked some sort of a seafood into this beef dinner, whether it was as an appetizer or a dual main course meal. This was always well received, and this is what the wife and I do to this day. My parents have long since passed away (what I would give to spend Christmas with them once again), and the rest of the family is scattered across the country, but the tradition continues.

I know some people have very special rituals for both Christmas and New Years dinners. For example, I know a southern ritual is to eat black eyed peas for New Years, and I think there's another one around collard greens, but I don't recall what exactly that one is. Other people do special things for dessert instead of dinner. My family used to do a mincemeat pie and a pumpkin pie. I used to love mincemeat as a kid until my bitter old grandmother barked at me that it was monkey meat...and I believed that to be true until I was about 25! LOL! The wife and I don't have anything specific we do for dessert, but we generally get something. This year it will be one of those "Silk Pies" from Sams Club (these things are Awesome!), total gut bomb, but delicious.

The wife and I kind of do different things around beef and seafood for Christmas. Beef isn't an issue, but seafood is just so astronomically expensive here we really only get to do it once per year so we splurge a little bit. Regular fish like salmon and cod is pricey but somewhat affordable, but any shellfish beyond just plain shrimp starts at about $25/lb. and only goes up from there. Last time I checked, King Crab was about $50/lb. (gasp!) That's just crazy. Anyway, I digress.

What do you do for your Christmas dinner?

As for New Year, we don't really do anything much special. We try to have something nice, but no real ritual around any specific food.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

You add to the storm, not stealing my thunder

Traditional in our family, we maked a wholesome goose with potato dumpling and red cabbage, vegetables. The last years I had Christmas Eve Dinner out of house, with friends.

This year I break tradition because we are three person, two adult and one child. This is why I make a nice slab of roast beef. Two type of onion, caramelized and soft and for variety, crunchy. Semmelknödel and Kässpätzle for the side dishes.-German cheese noodles. Red cabbage, small carrot and peas on cream sauce.

Apfelstrudel and vanilla ice for desert. Red wine for the dry throat.

a reply to: Naftalin

I would love to have Goose for Christmas dinner sometime, but goose is so hard to find here in the US. We can find Asian goose in the Asian markets, but they're usually small. We used to raise geese, but I never got to eat any because the coyotes got to them first.

Your dinner this year though sounds fantastic!! Especially the Apfelstrudel and vanilla ice cream!! Kasspatzle is fantastic also, but I've never had Semmelknodel; it sounds excellent also. Does your Semmelknodel have any meat in it, or is it mainly bread and onion? I'm a sucker for dumplings!

Nothing in particular, this year for Thanksgiving we had a couple of extra folks, and we always do turkey breast, so I picked up an extra just in case. Didn't need it so we're doing a repeat of Thanksgiving, which is fine by me. Twice baked potato casserole and all the deviled eggs I can eat.

I think one year we did fondue, pot roast, Chinese takeout, etc. Nothing really standard for us, no kids and don't really spend time with family, so it's mostly just a normal day for us.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
The roast was good and so was the red wine and the schnapps.

It is same here for Turkey, hard to get for us. I lean in heavy this year with the dinner preparation for I can then be lazy the next two days. The decision for Kässpätzle was spontaneous, I had ground cheese that I need to use.

The Semmelknödel do not have meat traditional. I make them with 2/3 Kaiser buns -white bread without sugar- and 1/3 pretzels about a big bowl. The pretzel look good for optics and is bit Bavarian taste. Fine chop and caramelize a big spring onion in butter. Then 3-4 eggs but sometime I not use the eggwhite of the last. Salt, fresh nutmeg, a lot fresh fine chopped parsley and a big mug of warm milk. When I have broth, I substitute a bit milk for broth for the extra kick. Mix and let two minute soak. When too wet, give more bread crumbs. Give them into boiling, salted water, pull water from stove and wait 15 minutes.

When the table is full, I make them like big loaf of bread and cut into slice. Next day, roast the cold slice in butter.

a reply to: Naftalin

Oh man, I'll bet those are delicious!! Especially by leaving out the egg white; very rich. I wonder how the Semmelknodel might taste if made with sourdough bread? We've been very into sourdough breads lately. No sugar.

My sis does wonderful pot roast with mashed potatoes and green beans which are jazzed up and dinner by themselves. We usually have Honey Baked ham but it's mostly for breakfast on Christmas morning.

Fried Honey Baked ham biscuits scrambled eggs with cheese is an all-time tradition in the putnam6 household

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
But only leave out one egg white, you need some or they fall apart in the water. Best trick is, roll the balls and throw from one hand into the other. Like a baseball. And then roll again and put and into water.

The taste is parsley rich. Knödel are ripped apart with the knife and fork. It opens up more space for the sauce to stick. I have maked them with cream spinach too but not this evening. Instead of boiling, you can steam. But then you need more salt. I like boiling better.

The Apfelstrudel was a bit burned on the bottom side but it was great. Next time I dial 10°C less.

a reply to: putnam6

Fried Honey Baked ham biscuits scrambled eggs with cheese

This reads good

a reply to: Naftalin

Ooh!...the spinach sounds great! I love spinach (in about anything)!

What kind of sauce do you use for the Semmelknodel? I saw earlier you mentioned nutmeg as one of the ingredients, and I see this in some other recipes. I'm not a big fan of nutmeg (funny story behind why, maybe for another post). I would think something like a gravy with stock and maybe some onion would be good.

Yes, strudel is pretty easy to catch on the bottom with all the sugar in it and from the apples. I"m sure yours was still delicious though. I love strudel; probably one of my favorite desserts. Plus, vanilla ice makes it even better (my favorite ice cream too).

Sounds like you had quite the feast!

We had some excellent German food just last Saturday evening. I had Sauerbraten, with some butter spatzle, and mushrooms in sauce. The wife had some Wiener Schnitzel was excellent with the spatzle and some red cabbage Rotkohl with apple. The wife and I went to a very old German restaurant here. Not a lot of German / Barvarian places around here to eat, but this place was excellent.

a reply to: putnam6

MMmmmm, love me some pot roast! We've got a great recipe for tavern style pot roast that I picked up from a buddy of mine from Ireland. It's a delicious beer-mushroom-onion gravy mixture which comes out fabulous.

Honey baked ham is nothing to shake a stick at either! I have a hard time leaving one of those things alone for long enough for it to be served. LOL!

originally posted by: Naftalin
a reply to: putnam6

Fried Honey Baked ham biscuits scrambled eggs with cheese

This reads good

It's the bomb fry it till it's crispy and well done we joke almost burnt the honey carmelizes and the flavor intensifies, great on most biscuit recipes but we use a family recipe there too

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
Yes it was a feast but three hour later I stand in front of fridge search for a snack

The nutmeg, it is not a lot, you can leave it out too. Like, you can not taste it but it gives a bit of note. I like defty dark sauces. And then use bread to dunk it into the sauce. Heaven. Creamy sauces fit too. A good recipe is chicken stripes and cream sauce, it fit to Semmelknödel too. Or mushroom sauces.

For the sauces with meat I do: salt the meat. Massage mustard into meat. Roast the meat in a bit ghee or oil, remove. A carrot, more amout of celeriac then carrot, roast. Put onion and leek in stripes in. When onion glazed, a big musterd spoon. Roast the mustard. Kill roast with red wine and broth. When I do not have broth take from glass from the supermarket.

Put meat back in. 2 hour in the oven with lid closed. Meat out, blend vegetables in separate container. Put meat into pot, run blend sauce through sieve into pot. Flour and water in a cup mixed. Plate on maximum, pour through sieve and whisk until sauce is thick. Bit water or cream if too thick or too intensive. Salt.

What your wife had is classic. The Swabians eat Schnitzel with Spätzle and Sauce for their life. Swabians are part of Bavaria too. Sauerbraten is one of my favorite. But the best are rolled beef slabs from shoulder region, filled with mustard, tomato, onion, diced bacon and cucumber. Rolled into a roll, roasted and smored in the oven, served with whole potato. Potato cooked with skin in the pressure cooker for the full taste.

For American recipes, I want to make burger buns myself and I want to try smashed burger. A friend maked smashed burger on this American flat type grill, with one big plate. Mixed with cheese, they were so good!

Do you know a good burger bun recipe for me?