Winter Cold and Holiday feasts

December 21, 2010 at 10:58 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Tags: dinner, dinners, holiday, how to, supper, throwing a holiday dinner, winter

December 21st is the start of winter. With winter brings the cold weather and also the common cold.

While Jack Frost is nipping, my family and I are sneezing and coughing. We are all sick but we must prevail and not having a holiday feast is not an option.

So, this post will try to detail how to throw a holiday bash while managing a sick family.

When you make a big dinner try and think of dishes that you can make (or partially make) a day or two ahead. Also, try to to find recipes that utilize kitchen appliances other than the oven. When the turkey is monopolizing the oven it is hard to get everything to the table on time.

Here is my holiday dinner plan:

Appetizers (all of these recipes can be whipped up one day ahead of the dinner)
Parmesan Black-Pepper Biscotti
Hummus
Caramelized Onion Dip
Veggie Platter

First Course
Spinach Soup (this can cook all day long in a slow cooker adding ingredients throughout the day)

Side Dishes
Broccoli (simply steamed broccoli with butter, easy and simple. Have broccoli trimmed and cut two days before to make steaming easy)
Yorkshire Pudding (as the turkey is resting, throw these into the oven and once the turkey is carved they will be ready to go)
Parisian Bread-Bacon Dressing (can be semi-prepared the day before)

Main Course
Turkey (brined 24 hours before cooking and make the day of the dinner)

Dessert
Sweet Potato Pie (pie crust made two days before, rolled out the day before wrapped well in plastic wrap. Mashed sweet potatoes made the day before stored in a airtight container)

I will try to post all the recipes I used but my life seems to get so hectic that I can ensure anything.

What I can ensure, however, is that I will definitely post the recipe for sweet potato pie!