I made a huge chicken salad and ate nearly all of it, even after most of it froze in the fridge over night

everything I can shove in my pie hole.

johnart said:

everything I can shove in my pie hole.

I've heard that's quite a lot.

today I had a fried egg and rice

We have Hungarian food and Finnish food.

My husband's Hungarian, and my mother-in-law comes over and stays w/ us in L.A. for about a month (sometimes more!) and makes stuffed cabbage, fish soup - this is Hungarian Christmas fare. But THANK THE ALMIGHTY she did not come over this year. However, my kids and husband feel we must have stuffed cabbage, so it's my first year cooking it myself and it turned out very well.

Then on the 25th, my brothers' families and everybody goes over to one of my brother's house. His wife is from Finland, so we all do a traditional Finnish Christmas - except there's no reindeer meat over here in California, so it's beef and ham. She makes a nice grated carrot dish w/ nutmeg, potatoes, salmon and other things that I don't know exactly what it is. But it's good. The little girls read the gospel (birth of Jesus) from the Bible. There's also these rolls, I think it's a dessert, w/ rock salt on top - hard as bricks. And some tarts or something w/ nuts. We never eat those. She's a pretty good cook, but I guess she's not a pastry chef! But I love to bake. So I'm bringing my "famous" secret recipe pumpkin pie and an apple pie w/ a cream custard that I pour over it while it's baking. A viennese friend of mine said my apple pie reminded him of the apple strudel things they have at cafes in vienna. I take that as a compliment. Also, he once ate an entire pie while watching a Laker game at my house, so I think my apple pie's pretty good. My nieces and nephews are looking forward to it, as well as the pumpkin pie.

My 9 yr old daughter wrote an essay for school about her Christmas traditions, and I found it interesting that for her, the stuffed cabbage and the Finnish day at her cousins' house were Christmas "must-haves."

Cerebus said:

johnart said:

everything I can shove in my pie hole.

I've heard that's quite a lot.

I don't like to brag.

Traditional soul food Christmas over here...nobody's really interested in breakfast so I don't do anything special except put eggnogg in my coffee...yum!

My sons would literally run me out of town if I deviate one iota from what they're used to eating on holidays so I'm making turkey, stuffing, potato salad, string beans, candied sweet potatoes, corn bread, devil's food cake, apple pie and ice cream.

The cranberry sauce must be the canned kind, (jellied, not whole berry) placed on the dish intact so they can see the shape of the can...these are 26 and 32 yr old grown-ass men, mind you

The beverage of choice is iced tea...I am not allowed to put anything other than tea, sugar and lemon...nothing fancy like pinapple juice or they will whine piteously.

After dinner, perhaps a little wine and some sci-fi movies...then I'll go relax in my room and while they chill with their friends. This year my godsister moved to Missouri so we won't be going to their place.

johnart said:

everything I can shove in my pie hole.

My oldest is working till 6 so my youngest is now stuffing his face while we wait for his brother...he calls it his pre-meal.

some chicken breasts with stuffing and corn

Ottensen said:

lenis said:

We're having duck, roast pork, regular potatoes and caramelized potatoes, red cabbage and lots and lots of gravy. Mmm..

In Denmark we have a special dessert called Ris a la mande. Its pretty much rice pudding with whipped cream, "crushed" almonds and one whole almond and on top hot or cold cherry sauce. The one that gets the whole almond wins a gift. Its the best dessert ever!

For snacks we have nuts, loads of cookies - that are special for the christmas holidays - and confections we have spent the whole month making.

[Edited 12/23/11 1:17am]

From reading your first sentence, I was just about to ask you if you lived in Northern Europe, because that's pretty much what I'm cooking on Sunday here in Hamburg, right after church

But instead of potatoes, I'm making knödels (for my US peeps, that's a gigantic potato/bread dumpling that resembles a matzo ball)

Mmm.. that looks pretty much like what we were having. And now we have to wait a whole year once again. Maybe thats the reason why it tastes so damn good.

But you don't have that rice pudding for dessert do you?

For Christmas dinner, I made my family turkey canelloni (just a spin because I didn't feel like making a huge bird, lol) , fresh salad, and bread pudding with almonds and walnuts.

Too much. But it was simple. Apple and onion brisket, ham, cauliflour au gratin, green beans, potato salad, greens, moloska type pesto pasta, herb wreath roll and cranberry sauce.

lenis said:

Ottensen said:

From reading your first sentence, I was just about to ask you if you lived in Northern Europe, because that's pretty much what I'm cooking on Sunday here in Hamburg, right after church

But instead of potatoes, I'm making knödels (for my US peeps, that's a gigantic potato/bread dumpling that resembles a matzo ball)

Mmm.. that looks pretty much like what we were having. And now we have to wait a whole year once again. Maybe thats the reason why it tastes so damn good.

But you don't have that rice pudding for dessert do you?

No, the rice pudding isn't standard, but they have all sorts of other creamy/pudings here they like to serve for festive dinners called "Herrencreme" (Gentleman's Creme). Outside of baking a large cake and ginger cookies that lasted nearly the whole of last week, I was tired and decided to purchase Christmas dessert this year. I bought a tiramisu to snack on at leisure, and a rotwein (red wine)mousse. I thought the mousse would be a nice accent to the duck.

Last night though, we went to a girlfriend who's leasing a farm...she had a lot of cool, rustic, farm-foods . With the leftover goose from the 25th she made a gigantic pot of stew. That stuff was damn good Earlier in the day she made cinnamon rolls out of sourdough, the whole place smelled like cinnamon and spice, and then she had a rice type pudding around. For dessert I went for the apple pie though. She does really "country magazine" looking pies, in a deep dish and really yummy

Lisa, what are bacon butties and what is gammon?

ThruTheEyesOfWonder said:

For Christmas dinner, I made my family turkey canelloni (just a spin because I didn't feel like making a huge bird, lol) , fresh salad, and bread pudding with almonds and walnuts.

Love canelloni! Did you make it with red sauce or white sauce?

babynoz said:

Traditional soul food Christmas over here...nobody's really interested in breakfast so I don't do anything special except put eggnogg in my coffee...yum!

My sons would literally run me out of town if I deviate one iota from what they're used to eating on holidays so I'm making turkey, stuffing, potato salad, string beans, candied sweet potatoes, corn bread, devil's food cake, apple pie and ice cream.

The cranberry sauce must be the canned kind, (jellied, not whole berry) placed on the dish intact so they can see the shape of the can...these are 26 and 32 yr old grown-ass men, mind you

The beverage of choice is iced tea...I am not allowed to put anything other than tea, sugar and lemon...nothing fancy like pinapple juice or they will whine piteously.

After dinner, perhaps a little wine and some sci-fi movies...then I'll go relax in my room and while they chill with their friends. This year my godsister moved to Missouri so we won't be going to their place.

HI-LARIOUS! I used to like to see the shape of the can on my cranberry sauce when I was at my momma's house too. My parents now visit my sister every Christmas to cook for the little ones, and sure enough, that canned cranberry sauce is plopped on the table, perfectly intact for dinner just like when we was growin' up

Ottensen said:

babynoz said:

Traditional soul food Christmas over here...nobody's really interested in breakfast so I don't do anything special except put eggnogg in my coffee...yum!

My sons would literally run me out of town if I deviate one iota from what they're used to eating on holidays so I'm making turkey, stuffing, potato salad, string beans, candied sweet potatoes, corn bread, devil's food cake, apple pie and ice cream.

The cranberry sauce must be the canned kind, (jellied, not whole berry) placed on the dish intact so they can see the shape of the can...these are 26 and 32 yr old grown-ass men, mind you

The beverage of choice is iced tea...I am not allowed to put anything other than tea, sugar and lemon...nothing fancy like pinapple juice or they will whine piteously.

After dinner, perhaps a little wine and some sci-fi movies...then I'll go relax in my room and while they chill with their friends. This year my godsister moved to Missouri so we won't be going to their place.

HI-LARIOUS! I used to like to see the shape of the can on my cranberry sauce when I was at my momma's house too. My parents now visit my sister every Christmas to cook for the little ones, and sure enough, that canned cranberry sauce is plopped on the table, perfectly intact for dinner just like when we was growin' up

I swear it cracks me up every year...at least I know they're not the only ones,

scriptgirl said:

Lisa, what are bacon butties and what is gammon?

Bugger. I only just saw this.

Bacon butties is English slang for Bacon sandwiches

Gammon is a type of ham. [img:$uid]http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ3UAe1DCHP0N-XQZ8UqnzHy6Krzub-sc9WY_fmKiNJLfLiy3sxBQ[/img:$uid]

Lisa10 said:

scriptgirl said:

Lisa, what are bacon butties and what is gammon?

Bugger. I only just saw this.

Bacon butties is English slang for Bacon sandwiches

Gammon is a type of ham. [img:$uid]http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ3UAe1DCHP0N-XQZ8UqnzHy6Krzub-sc9WY_fmKiNJLfLiy3sxBQ[/img:$uid]

There is a German version of this similar to what my friends served at their place on New Years!and Lord knows I've never met a bacon sandwich I didn't like