Christmas Dinner

Any recommendations for cooking a Christmas dinner for family? Nothing I need to knock myself out for. (I have physical limitations.)

• Everything goes better with Cheez-Whiz.

• A roasted piece of beef is about the easiest thing imaginable. Salt and pepper it, stick it in the oven, and you're done. Of course the quality of beef matters -- I'd get the most expensive, highest grade beef you can afford. Costco beef is excellent. They even have grade prime beef now.

• We highly recommend Boston Market.

  The Romney Family

• Go to Denny's.

• Lasagna. You can make it in advance then pop it in the oven. Serve with salad $ great rustic bread.

• R2's idea of a roasted hunk of beef is great (a ham would be the same level of effort). Baked potatoes (not a bar) are easy as pie, as are steamed green beans (squeeze some lemon over them and add some butter). Get some of those baby carrots (which we all know are milled down from past-their-prime full carrots, but whatever, it saves you the effort of chopping) and bake them with some brown sugar. Get some nice dinner rolls and ask everyone to bring some of their Christmas baking to share for dessert. Not much effort or prep time, but a pretty classic dinner.

• I don't know about you, but I'm dying to hear the fussy suggestions of DL's own Galloping Gourmet troll on this topic.

• Roast goose is heavenly, and having a goose at midwinter is a tradition that predates Christianity. Not cheap, though, but no harder to cook than a turkey.

• It depends on your physical limitations. Can you lift ovr 5lbs? Are you in a wheelchair? Can you stand for longer than 10 min.?

  Gimpy

• I hate roast goose. It's greasy, and it's also extremely difficult to carve (the goose has a larger rib cage than most other comparable poultry)

• We do a filet of beef every year. Use a prime 4 lb. filet. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and thyme. Brown on all sides in olive oil. Roast at a high temp (425 to 430) for 28 minutes. Rest 10 minutes. Done. Serve with Blue Cheese Scalloped Potatoes, Sauteed green beans and horseradish sauce on the side.

• How many people does a 4lb fillet of beef feed?

• Do you have a Crock Pot, OP? I tossed this in mine in the morning, and by afternoon or evening, it's deelicious. Pork Loin Roast with Glamour 1 pork loin roast, 3 lbs or more 1 c brown sugar 1 T dry mustard 1/8 t ground cloves 1/8 t ginger 2 T vinegar (to make mixture spreadable) 1 t salt 1/8 t pepper Sprinkle roast with salt & pepper. Place fat side up in a shallow roasting pan. Place in 325 degree oven and allow 40 minutes per pound. When loin is about half done, remove from oven and spread half the brown sugar sauce over the roast. Return to oven and continue cooking until last 30 minutes of cooking period, then spread remaining sauce over the roast.

• Order out. Some delivery complete x-mas dinners.

• A 4 lb. filet should feed 6 hungry people or 8 not-so-hungry people.

• Slightly off topic but has anyone else done a prime rib in a rock salt crust? Heavenly. Juiciest piece of beef I've ever eaten. The rock salt, mixed with herbs, hardens in the oven and seals all the juices in. You need a chisel and mallet to break open the crust but it's drool worthy.

• [quote]Pork Loin Roast with Glamour MARY!

• The Costco beef roast is an excellent idea and the Reser's Main St. Bistro Baked Scalloped Potatoes Costco sells in the refrigerator section are superb. They sell for about $5.99 per package. I buy 2 packages and put them in a nice baking dish, sprinkle a little paprika on top and heat them up, no one is the wiser and they feed a lot.

• Pork shoulder. Marinate in massive amounts of garlic, lemon or lime, salt and oregano. Roast. It has enough fat so it can take a long slow roast and you can put carrots, potatoes and other veg to the side in the same pan. Easy and exquisite.

• My best advice would be to focus on things you can just prep quickly and pop in the oven to roast, rather than things you have to stand over the stove and labor over. I'm doing all roasted veggies this year because I don't feel like sauteing. My menu will probably be beef tenderloin, sweet potato gratin, roasted green beans with shallots and balsamic honey glazed butternut squash. A potato gratin might be more work than you'd want to put in, but some simple oven roasted potatoes would be easy and perfectly fine. I pair the tenderloin with a red wine sauce that is a decent amount of work to prepare, but it's also delicious by itself just brushed with a little olive oil, sprinkled with a little salt/pepper and roasted in the oven. As for the butternut squash, I'll probably buy the pre-peeled and cubed kind. Any veggies you can buy already sliced and peeled are your friend.

• R11 That sounds delicious!

  Anonymous

• I do R11's roast but I don't brown it. I buy no more than 5 lbs. I roll it in kosher/sea salt and crushed black pepper, set the oven to 500 and, when it's hot, I lower it to 475 and put the roast in. Cook 5 mins for every pound (5 lbs = 35 mins). The trick is to turn the oven off after 35 mins and DON'T OPEN THE DOOR for two hours. Works perfectly every time, and leaves you lots of time to do other things.

• R11, I'll trade you the recipe at the link that makes scalloped potatoes with a combination of yukon gold & sweet potatoes ("yams") for your blue cheese scalloped potatoes recipe. I hate Christmas, but I do love the food.

  http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Scalloped-Yukon-Gold-and-Sweet-Potato-Gratin-with-Fresh-Herbs-350455%23ixzz1FpnrHjJ8

• SEVEN mins for every pound = 35. Yikes.

  R22

• I didn't name the stupid recipe, I was looking at 1950s recipes from magazines leftover from my dead mother-in-law. Sheesh.

  R13

• I'm serving pigs in a blanket hors d'oeuvers. I'm not kidding. My sister, her bf and her two sons come over ragingly hungry and demolish anything I put out in minutes. I used to have shrimp, but it got too expensive because I was buying more every year ("got anymore shrimp?") so I bought a few boxes of Hebrew national and they were fine with it.

• Chinese Food

  Susan Lowenstein

• I've seen 2 versions of cooking directions for standing rib roast: 1. Sear, then roast at 350 OR 2. Slow roast at 200 Which is better?

• Agree that R11 suggested a great menu and R23's scalloped potato recipe looks great. The blue cheese scalloped potato recipe I use is from Patricia Well's Bistro Cooking

  http://books.google.com/books?id=6oyPnN53PBMC&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&dq=patricia wells blue cheese potato gratin&source=bl&ots=5885ovdiTE&sig=6L6PUcza8NHhXvlwFZVulGcXwMk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HNfAUKGKKs-O0QGbuYHwBw&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=patricia wells blue%

• [quote]Pork Loin Roast with Glamour Official DL Christmas dish.

• Eat out.

• Yam and sweet potato are really not the same thing.

• As many of these as needed.

  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Tvdinner.jpg

• Haha, R33, that brings back some ancient memories. I used to love the cinnamon apples in those old fashioned tv dinners.

• R32, yam & sweet potato are not at all the same thing. In America, the orange fleshed red skinned sweet potato is often erroneously labelled "yam", & that's the variety called for in most American recipes.

• PANERA BREAD MAKES SOME WONDERFUL TURKEY SANDWICHES!

• R35, your point being?

• Roast Beast.

  The%20Grinch

• Anyone know any great Baked Bean recipes?

• Deal R23

  http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Scalloped-Potatoes-with-Blue-Cheese-and-Turnips-891

  R11

• All this talk of beef roasts reminds me of my favorite topping. My mother always served her roast beef with a horseradish/sour cream sauce with fresh dill, served at room temperature. It was perfect. My own personal favorite these days, is a Pork Loin roast rubbed with a mix of fennel, black pepper and kosher salt I serve it with a melange of roasted veggies including cubed chunks of butternut squash, roasted carrots (real ones cut in chunks) zuchini, yellow squash, roasted red bell peppers, portobello mushrooms, halved brussel sprouts and fresh asparagus, red onions. Put it all in a plastic freezer bag,add a tiny splash of balsamic vinegar and oilve oil, salt pepper to taste and roast for about 25 minutes @ 425. Make a nice apple sauce from scratch, and scalloped potatoes casserole, with white cheddar and parsley. For dessert I usually serve fruit pies and icecream and have a bowl of fruit and some cookies & nuts.

• R41, I love roasted veggies, but don't all the ones you listed roast for different times? The zucchini and mushrooms would be overdone in the amount of time it takes for the carrots to cook.

• Yes. I roast my carrots separately, longer than the others.

  R41

• Caramel-covered popcorn, BBQ chips, Fanta soda, Cheetos, and Dorito Nacho-flavored chips.

• Irish coffee, Cheerios, and a Vicodin.

• R13, why did you ask about a crock pot (and claimed to have "tossed this" in one) and then proceeded to post a recipe for pork loin baked in a roasting pan in the oven?? Did you "toss" the whole oven in your crock pot? Must be a big crock pot!