Holiday Cooking

I'm not 'going nuts', since my BF and I are basically living like hermits and don't really have people to give food to (nor the habit of doing that). But I will be having my parents over for Christmas (only the 4 of us) which is a first, since it's usually my mom hosting, or at a restaurant.

So I've decided to make a classic family recipe (bûche de Noël - yule log) which I haven't eaten since my grandmother died, who traditionally hosted the Christmas dinner and made the same yule log every year (there were attempts to try other desserts, but abandoned under loud protest ). I have very fond memories of this dessert and considering the tough year we've had, I wanted something nostalgic for dessert. So this week I did a trial run of the family recipe, to make sure everything would be okay for Christmas.

Holy moly, logging that recipe was eye opening, a real calorie bomb. I had to spread that dessert (only half of the original recipe) over 3 days, skip one breakfast and give a larger share to my BF to stay within my allotted calories - but so delicious.

Soup and main will come from a caterer, so aside from dessert not much (experimental) cooking to be done , perhaps some appetizers. That being said, it's not like I'm not cooking, but just regular homemade meals, nothing fancy

This year we're actually keeping it real simple, and making homemade pizza, which is a weekly thing for us, so no baking for me. I kind of wish I had because I think I was craving it, and would have been satisfied with less baked goods than the store bought junk I was eating.

Not particularly different from any other year. I made posole last week which we had for dinner one night and froze the rest for Christmas Eve as it is a Christmas Eve tradition in NM to eat posole for the evening meal. Made a dozen tamales and froze those for breakfast Christmas morning.

My wife usually does the baking, but I decided to do some this year. I made biscochitos last weekend and I'll be making some oatmeal and craisins cookies this weekend. Christmas dinner will be the usual...rib roast with roasted turnips and leeks and Yorkshire pudding and my mom will most likely bring her Christmas pecan salad.

NovusDies wrote: »

I have never made fruit cake with candied fruit. I have only ever made it with brandied fruit.

Mmm - will have to try using brandied fruit some time. We replaced the candied fruit with regular dried apricots and prunes and skip the decorating the top with candied fruit step.

NovusDies wrote: »

Anyone else going nutso crazy this year in the kitchen? I think I have logged about 30 hours of cooking and baking time already.

I am trying to be smart about it though and distribute food without imposing/overwhelming/over-tempting people. I am distributing more of a tasting box with a large variety instead of a large quantity. I am also sticking to a higher percentage of savory items because everyone out there is making cookies, fudge, brownies, cinnamon rolls, sticky buns, etc. My boxes have been about 65 percent savory, 30 percent sweet, and 5 percent VERY rich & sweet.

Y'know, those of us who are into vicarious food appreciation might enjoy a little more detail here . . . like what special deliciousness, exactly, are you putting in those boxes? Are there photos? Please?

I'm planning solo vegetarian Christmas, not really any local friends it makes sense to deliver food to (though if I bake, I might). My head is still spinning with options. For me, solo Christmas at home is a "given lemons, make lemonade" situation (metaphorically only!), so I've committed to be unconstrained by tradition, unless those are the foods I truly want. That makes the options pretty open-ended. I need to settle soon, for shopping purposes, though.

The only thing that's dialed in is not cooking/baking: My favorite local brewery has a special-release, limited-edition range of holiday imperial stouts they're calling "pastry stouts". I'm picking up my order tomorrow, 5 (!) variants**. I'm not usually a huge stout girl, but they've made some tasty ones in the past, so it will at least be interesting.

The food part is still up in the air.

** Peruvian Coffee/Tahitian and Ugandan Vanilla; Cocoa, Vanilla, Chilies and Cinnamon; Toasted Coconut; 'Baklava' with bourbon barrel aged honey; Double Barrel Amburana - aged in Amburana barrels that previously held rum. Consuming these will be spaced out over days, and some of them may be a bit much in terms of tricksiness, but I'm hoping for some yum in there to be enjoyed over the holiday period and beyond.

I have not been baking or cooking a lot yet, but that will change next week. Hopefully. Depends on how my energy levels are. Been fighting illness and fatigue all week (I have chronic fatigue so illness, even mild, knocks me on my behind hard).

I want to bake some cookies. Most likely only some snickerdoodles, but that is more then I normally do!

Then on the 22nd I have one friend coming over to celebrate Yule (she has been in my circle since the start of all of this). I am making a Ribeye roast, twice baked potatoes, corn casserole, and rolls. She is in charge of dessert and so far is making chocolate chip cookies. I love her cookies. Best I have ever had.

On Christmas Eve I will be making a lasagna with garlic bread. I have never made a traditional lasagna so this will be interesting. I am still trying to decide on dessert, but thinking a cheesecake in the Instant Pot since I have the pan for it. My cousin got me the small pan last year for Christmas and keeps asking me if I have made a cheesecake yet, so maybe I will. I will be alone on Christmas itself so will just have leftovers.

I'm always cooking something. No different now during the pandemic

Just finishing off a rack of pork spareribs w/an Asian bbq sauce and a large pot of split pea/ham hock soup.

And right now have 4# of short ribs, a whole chicken and a 2# tri tip defrosting in the sink that I plan to braise, roast and smoke, respectively, shortly.

I do the cooking at home and it used to absurd how much my wife wanted "us" to make. She helps bake quite a bit but I'm usually the one doing the doughs, etc.

We are going out to dinner for Christmas Eve (out on a patio in AZ, outside) and then making dinner on Christmas at home (just us and our two kids).

I've gotten down from 3 types of fudge to 1 fudge this year and down from around 10 dozen cookies to perhaps 4. We'll give some of that away. We both eat dairy and gluten free (she's allergic to cow dairy and I'm celiac, so we just eat the same). I also make a White Chocolate Cheesecake that is DF/GF that is amazing, so we'll have that again this year for Xmas day. I guess I'll be doing extra long workouts. Sounds like a lot but it's actually like half of what we used to do. We'll give a ton of it to my son when he drives back to San Diego.

I have gifted one goose to a family who were planning to come for Christmas dinner on the day itself. Now that London is in Tier 4 lockdown there is no social mixing of households indoors. They are a family of four and hadn't ordered anything festive in advance now that they have to cook at home themselves.