Christmas DInner

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kwtoxman said:
Nice! Lunch? I love grazing meals. The holiday cooks are beginning....

Started prepping to make another stir fry today for lunch. Will snack lightly in the afternoon if at all and then visiting family later for a large ukranian christmas style home meal. There will be 30 or so people and a huge spread, including fish, cabbage rolls and perogie dishes.

Grazing food available at home for me and the family over the holidays will include oven cooked brie with toasted pumpkin seeds for cheese and crackers (plus a few other cheeses too), spicy tapenade, herring rollmops, medjool mediterranean dates, salad, breakfast sandwiches (egg, butcher back bacon and cheese), pomelo, Christmas oranges, and french onion soup, Christmas nuts (in shell), potatoe chips, ice cream and lots of sweets/treats.

My family ham holiday meal is scheduled closer to New Years this holiday. The Christmas meal tomorrow will be pork back ribs for something different (;) like the OP mentioned in the first post of this thread). Been a while and it's a family favourite. Doing a 4 hour low and slow cook on the Weber summit grill and it will be one rack of Char Siu style and another rack of smoky adobe chipotle :agave: :agave:, lovely. Sides will be harissa and honey braised eggplant with chickpeas, plus cast iron skillet potatoes (dill and/or curry, haven't decided which one yet) with sour cream and/or cottage cheese toppings. I'll post pics that I remember to get. I have a few more other related holiday cooks planned and will post in the what's for dinner as it goes.

Cheers
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I gained 2 pounds just reading your post. :)
 
Just made the first course. Took 30 minutes total. Sweet corn, potato and adobo chipotle chilli chowder. Prep is 1/2 chopped onion, 4 small diced potatoes, 2 cans corn kernels, 1 chopped chipotle with 2 teaspoons of the adobo sauce, 1 teaspoon adobo seasoning (quite a few ethnic groceries sell this, I got mine from the US), 2 large cloves garlic. 2.5 cups of vegetable stock, a few grinds of fresh black pepper. Fry the onions, and garlic and the chipotle chilli in a little vegetable oil. Then add the potato and fry with the adobo seasoning and pepper for a few mins. Add the drained corn kernels and fry another few minutes. Add the stock and heat at a boil for 8 mins to soften the potatoes through. Put everything in a blender and purée. Finish off with some chopped fresh cilantro, and some finely chopped green onion and red bell pepper. If you want the soup hotter (spicier) then add more adobo sauce and another chipotle chilli. This is a vegan/vegetarian dish as is but you can use chicken stock and add some bacon if you like. I don’t think it needs it though. Note you don’t need salt if you have the adobo seasoning as it’s salty enough.
 
Had the first of the 2 holiday dinners yesterday. Menu is below was made for 12people. Sorry no pics as I was cooking and got kinda drunk so completely forgot to take them except for the one posted. The extended family doesn't like the taste of turkey, and aren't very adventurous at trying other kinds of meat so made chicken instead. The amount leftover was just right, everyone got 2 containers to take home one full of savoury foods and another full of sweets stuff. Everything was made in under 4hrs, started at 5:30pm and I sat down just after 9 to eat the mains with the rest of the family. Was heating up entrees and sides while people were eating the apps.

Apps
- Baked brie with cranberries and assorted crackers
- Shrimp done 2 ways - rum+lemon and garlic butter
- onion and cheese tart with arugula
- Assorted homemade veggie chips (butternut squash, acorn squash, sweet potato and potato chips)
- assorted nuts and dried fruits

Mains
- Chicken, made 3 whole chickens 3 different flavours (Jerk, Zaatar and herb+lemon)
- steamed peas
- succotash
- tumeric roasted cauliflower crusted in chilli
- stuffing with raisins soaked in port and roasted almonds
- Potato and sweet potato stacks covered in melted jalapeno cheese
- roasted mushrooms
- gravy from the chicken drippings

Desert
- Dutch babies with stewed apples and whipped cream (I made this, family brought the rest)
- baklava
- chocolate cake
- Banana bread


Ac0CTFL.jpg


herb + lemon on left
Zaatar on the right
 
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Here is the xmas dinner between friends that I mentioned earlier. The dinner was themed Christmas nightmare, so all dishes need to be gruesome, disturbing or have a connection with a horror movie and all main ingredient had to be stuff you might find on a xmas table.

APPS

- coffin onion tarts (4 different kinds of onions on a puff pastry on couscous soil and mushroom stones)

26151974_751929331672381_1484020396016533504_n.jpg


- Blood shot devilled eggs

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- Blood, pus and guts (baked brie with cranberries)
- Wraith wings (super spicy turkey wings)

MAIN

- Alien Face hugger with mini alien eggs (spatchcock cajun turkey, chicken sausage, crab legs, roast whole potatoes)
25018668_165250407317878_5798357973046657024_n.jpg


- It came from below (octopus, radicchio, beets, pomegranate seeds)
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- Brains (chilli whole cauliflower)
25025289_774931212697731_6178711961723731968_n.jpg


- Regan's revenge (cream of pea and corn)

- Brimstone bread
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DESSERT

- bloody good cheesecake (cheesecake with black currant port glaze)
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I made everything other then the octopus and the cheesecake. it was alot of fun, need year there will be another theme and more craziness.
 
@bishop it all looks so good!Between yours and dragon's insta, I have been super inspired!
Checked out her link and found a recipe that I want to try in the near future.
Was the cauliflower chili just a roasted whole cauliflower covered in chili? Or was there more to it?


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kwtoxman said:
Really inventive and looks great Bishop! I bet that octopus was awesome :agave: .
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Joe Bass said:
@bishop it all looks so good!Between yours and dragon's insta, I have been super inspired!
Checked out her link and found a recipe that I want to try in the near future.
Was the cauliflower chili just a roasted whole cauliflower covered in chili? Or was there more to it?
Click to expand...

Thanks guys. It was all super delicious and alot of fun to make, eat and share with friends.

The octopus was out of this world literally. The whole dish was so complex it's really hard to explain the flavour - the octopus was soft and tender so full of flavour, sweet from the beets, tart from the pomegranates, bitter from radicchio.

@Joe Bass Usually if I make roasted cauliflower it's just that, slather on whatever flavouring with some oil and then roast the whole thing at 425F for 15-20min and then checking every 5mins until it is done the way I want it to be. For this dinner, I wanted it to look gruesome so I first boiled it for about 5 or so minutes with 2 cloves garlic, salt, cracked peppercorns, salt, a pinch of turmeric and a couple of slices of red beets to get a nice orangy red colour. Then took it out and covered it with a paste made of red chilli's, roasted garlic, smoked paprika and olive oil . Then into oven to cook all the way through and to get some charr. It was the only dish that there was no leftover of.
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