Thought it would be a fun spot to post any food ideas for cookie baking, appetizer planning, meal ideals, holiday brunch items, cocktails (!) or requests for ideas of food to serve - for a more formal occasion - or a casual get together!
And this pic prompted this thread. Not a ground breaking idea, but I thought it was a visually attractive arrangement, practical and easy to put together for a breakfast/brunch or even lunch if you added some deli meat/cheese:
We traditionally have monkey bread and quiche for breakfast on Christmas morning, but this looks great and might work better for us now that one of our kids is vegan. Quiche ≠ vegan.
Our Christmas Day meal with family is basically a free for all, make what you want to make, heavy appetizer, dips, snacking food, etc. Casual. Usually we are at my brothers house but guess what!? - they asked if I could host this year! So expecting 16 people.
To avoid the usual trying to put together food items for this get together while still getting last minute baking/wrapping done and ENJOYING my kids who might be home, I’d like to try and make some things ahead that I can put in the freezer to be baked or warmed or made up a couple days ahead of time and then just shoved in the oven on the event day.
I was thinking about keeping my items to a Mexican theme. Suggestions???
Thoughts: make ahead a couple pans of enchiladas (cheese and maybe chicken and cheese) and freeze them unbaked??? (good idea or bad idea?) We can probably make a big bowl of guac the day of. Is there a margarita slushy type thing that can be made ahead? (I don’t drink much so am non-educated here…)
Was there some kind of warm spicy corn dip going around here on the CC recipe threads this summer?
Any dips/spreads that can be made ahead or mixed ahead to just be baked the day of? Anything I can freeze and thaw would be even better.
Typically, our Christmas meal is fairly similar to the Thanksgiving meal, with two very notable exceptions:
No dressing/stuffing
Ham takes the place of turkey
I may also sub cheesy potato casserole for mashed potatoes, or offer them in addition to mashed potatoes… and maybe corn casserole instead of squash… but all in all, the meals are relatively similar.
I have about seven go-to side dishes for either holiday feast, and any of them can end up in either meal.
@Sweetgum we make vegan quiche using Just Egg, a light shmeer of cashew cheese on the crust (a little cashew cheese goes a long way, flavor wise - we like Treeline garlic herb & Marie Callender’s makes a vegan crust) and sauteed mushroom, onion and any other veggie we have available. It’s very good.
Thanks! Might do that, but just one of us is vegan so I would probably do it as a side or maybe do individual ones. Might just find something different. I don’t think anybody has to have quiche but there might be a fuss if I didn’t make monkey bread. I think I can veganize that pretty easily. I just need something savory or fresh to counteract the sugar overload.
We typically do a fancy xmas eve seafood dinner and then something easier for xmas day that was made ahead. This year we’re getting breakfast pastries from our favorite bakery for and doing cassoulet on xmas day. Eve menu is still to be determined.
I’ve made make-ahead Maple Cream Cheese French Toast Casserole several times for Christmas morning but, be warned, this dish contains the entire holiday’s worth of goodness (fat, sugar, artery death).
I’d love some ideas for a Hanukkah dinner. Latkes plus ?? We’ll be having 15-20 people of 3 generations. Most were here for thanksgiving, I’m hoping for easier and more casual.
I usually will take this stance but our M.O. is REALLY good tasty creative food on this day! A get together with this group is a little like a low-key MasterChef competition!!! LOL.
