Chef Michael Smith talks about the struggles of food banks and offers a recipe for beef stew.- A run-down of Vancouver's 2008 culinary highlights, from celebrity chefs to memorable meals.
- Will 2009's leading beverages include savory fare like rosemary sprigs and ... bacon?
- With tight purses, drinkers are flocking to cheaper booze, home-grown flavor, and affordable Argentinian wine.
- French chef Anne-Sophie Pic grabs an honorary doctorate from the University of Montreal.
- Rob Mifsud discusses the rising trend of high-price cookbooks from signature chefs.
- And if you're gearing up for another Christmas celebration on the 6th, try these dinner twists.
Posts with tag christmas dinner
Stew, Booze, and Dinner Twists - The Globe and Mail in 60 Seconds
Beloved Cookbooks Document Decades of Meals
Despite the fact that I love cookbooks and continue to acquire them at an alarming pace, I don't actually use them much (beyond the pleasure of leafing through them). More often than not, when I'm looking for a recipe, I turn to the internet. After I've found three or four serviceable recipes, I'll cobble together something that most closely approximates the thing I've got in my head.
It's a method that works, but sometimes, I find myself longing for the pre-internet days, when people kept a couple core cookbooks and continually tweaked the recipes, noting their changes in the margins. I fear that the days of much-loved cookbooks (like my mom's Joy of Cooking that is pictured above) are nearly gone and the cooks of my generation won't have a tangible reference at the end of their cooking days.
I especially regret this change because of the pleasure that can be gotten from consulting a trusted cookbook. When it came time to make the cornbread stuffing for Christmas dinner this year, I used the Quick Cornbread recipe from the book above. After the stuffing was completed and dinner was a pleasant memory, I returned to the cookbook to make a note that for the future, the cornbread could use some additional salt if it was going to be part of stuffing (I also added a little herbs? to remind myself that adding some chopped rosemary or sage to the batter would also be a nice thing). It's a comforting thing to know that I've left all who consult that Joy a little helpful cornbread stuffing info.
How do the rest of you document your cooking successes and recipe adaptations?
Tell us About Your Holiday Meal!
Christmas is over for another year. The presents have been opened, traditional breakfasts have been eaten (in our house, it's fried eggs, turkey bacon and sliced of toasted Panettone) and dinner feasts have been consumed. Once I again this year, I found myself confronted by one of the injustices of holiday eating, which is that a meal that takes all day to prepare gets demolished in less than half an hour. It never seems quite right to me.
Each year for Christmas, my family remakes the traditional Thanksgiving meal (we just like it so much) - turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gingery squash, brussels sprouts and cranberry sauce. We finished the meal with pumpkin custard (pie without the crust) and an apple crisp. It was lovely, although hours and hours later I still feel the need to waddle instead of walk.
I want to hear about the holiday feasts the rest of you partook in. Did you have turkey, ham or roast beef? A cookie platter or an assortment of pies? Tell us about your successes and failures and feel free to point us all in the direction of a truly excellent recipe.
What are you making for Christmas?
My family is rather traditional when it comes to holiday dinners. We usually have turkey, bread stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots, squash, turnip, and cranberry sauce for dinner, and then a giant table filled with cookies, pies, brownies, nuts, and cheeses for later. This year we're trying to do things a little bit differently. We're still doing turkey, but we're mixing in some pasta dishes, chicken dishes, and meatballs as well, along with some different vegetables. This doesn't include what my sister is serving tonight at her annual Christmas Eve party.
What are you making for Christmas this year? Do you have a menu you follow every year? Are you doing anything differently this year?
I think I've gained 35 pounds this week
I always have the best plans around the holidays when it comes to food. I always have some mathmatical formula where I'm going to consume the least amount of calories possible. If I don't have any cookies, I can drink more. If I don't have any of my sister's brownies, I can have a third helping of stuffing.
It never works out though. I go back for seconds at my sister's house (ham, lasagna, chicken breasts, green bean casserole, various desserts), then have a turkey sandwich and stuffing later that night at home. I go to my other sister's Xmas Eve party and find myself eating pasta salad and grazing on tortilla chips, cheese, and trifle all night (and six beers - "light," but still). Then, on Xmas Day, another meal, this one consisting of turkey, oatmeal and sausage stuffing, yams with marshmallow topping, a bottle of wine, Oreo Cookie cake and cheesecake.
What did you have to eat the past few days?
Last minute Christmas ideas: The Boston Globe in 60 seconds
For many families, Christmas Eve means the Feast of the Seven Fishes. - Some people don't drink alcohol with their meals.
- A quick guide to the many cookbooks released in 2006.
- How to pick the best knives for your kitchen needs.
- The history of Vanilla Caramels.
- Make some mac 'n cheese, but with a twist.
- The Globe taste tests several light microwave popcorn brands.
- This week's recipes: Onion Jam on Toast; Potato Gratin; Hazelnut Macaroon Domes; Chocolate-Dipped Coconut Sticks; and the Lavender Splash.
Gourmets and Gastroporn: The Boston Globe in 60 seconds
- Nostalgic foods you can make for the holidays, including Potato Latkes and Spicy Popcorn.
- Yes, you can find some healthy fast food.
- A recipe for the intriguing Black Cake.
- Forget those little candy canes. How about some 14 inchers?
- Massachusetts Governor-elect Deval Patrick is also a gourmet cook. (Also check out some of his favorite recipes.)
- A new book coming out says that the next big trend is "gastroporn." Um, hasn't that been going on for a few years now?
- Um...wow.
- This week's recipes: Mincemeat, Frangipani mince tartlet, and Chocolate Caramel Turtles.
Cider-Braised Ham with Apple-Onion Compote
My family cooks turkey every holiday. Whether it's Christmas, Thanksgiving, Arbor Day, or the day we celebrate the birth of veteran stage and screen actor Mickey Rooney, turkey seems to be what we cook. Everyone loves it, so why not? But there are times I think of doing something different, like cook a ham. This recipe after the jump seems like a great place to start. Just the mention of the maple syrup and mustard and the apples all cooking together in the roasting pan makes my mouth water. And it seems really easy too.
The meal that will make your children cry
Picture the scene: it's Christmas Day, and you're making holiday dinner for your family. You have your turkey and your stuffing and your apple pie and your egg nog, and the gifts have all been opened and everything is just hunky-dory. Then Aunt Sally comes in with the side dish she made, puts it on the table, announces what it is, and freaks out all the kids.
That's what they serve at Northern Delicacies, a takeout restaurant and grocery store in Brooklyn. They also sell fish balls and salty licorice.
My advice? Don't serve them on Christmas Day. Or, if you are going to serve them, do it before Christmas Eve, so the kids won't think you did something to Santa's reindeer after they dropped off the gifts that night.
What's on your Holiday table?
My husband's origins are Swedish (wayyyy back) so a few years ago we decided
to start having Swedish-flavored Christmas celebrations. As it
turns out, the Swedes like their pork, and
what could be better than a holiday ham? Specifically, "Monte's Ham," a recipe I found years ago in
Saveur, is the pride and joy of my Christmas dinner.
With so many different meaty delights to choose from - turkeys, rib roasts, racks of lamb, and roast duck, oh my! - what do you choose to feature on your holiday table, and how? Or do you forego the large roast meats for a nice wild mushroom risotto?
sarah's
swedish ham a la monte
Start at least four hours ahead of your dinner. Go to the market and find a
smoked ham on the bone - the kind that still needs more cooking. Check to make sure the label doesn't
say "fully cooked" or "just heat and serve." Get a big one, 10 to 20 pounds.
You'll only need two other ingredients: a large jar of good dijon mustard and a large jar of
marmalade. I like organic peach/orange or apricot versions as they're free of high fructose corn syrup and
other nasty stuff, but just pick whatever sounds good to you.
The dinner table's demise
According to a few recent studies in the U.K., fewer
and fewer households own or use dining tables for family meals. Roughly one third of the 1,000 people surveyed by
vegetarian food and book purveyor Cranks said that their dining tables were used
only for holiday meals such as Christmas dinner. The Cranks survey also found that nearly a quarter of households don't
even have a dining table. Sales of dining room furniture have dropped eight percent in the last five years, according
to study by market research group Mintel. In the same time period, sales of
bedroom and home office furniture have both increased by roughly 40 percent.
Many attribute this shift from eating at the table to factors such as higher divorce rates, smaller apartments and fast-paced, job-oriented schedules that require meals to be eaten on the move.
The Daily Times has more, as does News24.
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