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Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Two for Tuesday - Christmas Dinner Recipes

I love big Holiday meals...Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas...

In my mind, it should be Ham, Turkey and Prime Rib, respectively, for these meals, but honestly, I'll take any large hunk of roasted meat and delectible sides...I'm not that picky.

What I LOVE is that we see the fancy and/or traditional side dishes that come out...home-made cranberry relish, marshmallow-sweet potato casserole, butter and parsley new potatoes, green bean casserole...you name it.

I'm kind of a snob about side dishes...I like everything in them to be as home-made as possible. A few years ago, I started making Made-from Scratch green bean casserole and I've never gone back to the canned soup version. The made-from-scratch is totally worth the time and effort. It tastes SO good. I kind of figured it should apply to as many side dishes as I could muster...plus that way, I know precisely what is IN those side dishes.

Since we had our first child, we've shared holiday's with grandparents and have been blessed to share the cooking too. We divide and conquer the meal so that none of us has to do all of it.

We're still ironing out the details for THIS Christmas, so I have been trolling my recipes and think no matter what else ends up on the table, I'm going to use these:

First up is Hash Brown Casserole.


The recipe I use is pretty much the same one that you can find on Little Rock Mama's.

My sister makes this in a way that cannot be matched...and even when I follow her recipe to the letter, her's is always better. She does that "you just have to eye it" thing and they always turn out perfect. I don't have her eye. Still, they end up so so good...I'll probably sub the canned cream of chicken soup with a very easy cream soup recipe I have, just to add that extra layer of yum.

And I'm also thinking we will be having Balsamic Roasted Carrots a la Epicurious. I've actually made this dish for a regular old dinner and my kids loved it. Always a plus for a veg dish. To make it special, I'm toying with trying to find some fancy multi-colored carrots like these:


I just kind of want to see my kid's faces when I show them a purple carrot!

What are YOU doing for your holiday meal?

Peace, ya'll!

3 comments:

Samantha said...

One of the best things about moving back to Central Cali is that I can find awesome things like purple carrots and cauliflower at Farmer's Markets all winter for pennies. My kids were impressed, but my Dad - who had farmed for 30 years - was blown away!

**** April **** said...

I'm a side dish snob, too! :) I love to cook, ya know. I'm going to add your recipe to my "must try" list. I'm going easy this year for Christmas... Mexican! :) I just dont see how you can go wrong with enchiladas! :)

Mary C. said...

Don't laugh, but since the RGH and I are home alone this Christmas, we are having Christmas dinner at Buca de Beppos!
I know, huh?
Bring on the cheese ravioli!