Thankful

[charliechaplinfan]

Trifle is completely different. It's sponge soaked in sherry, with a fruit filled jelly covered with set custard and then topped with whipped creme with crumbled chocolate on top. Chris usually makes ours, not too much sherry, raspberries in a raspberry jelly with crumbled cadbury's flake on top. I could kill anyone who stands in my way. He makes it for tea every Christmas night and I deliberately undereat at lunch so I can have a good portion. I have been know to have it for breakfast on Boxing day.

My parents can be a double act. Dad does his fancy desserts and Mum tops them all off with squirty cream. She refuses to eat anything savoury he makes without drenching it in vinegar or pepper. In truth it's funy going for a Christmas meal at their house, it does take ages to digest afterwards though.

[JackFavell]

Do they ever have a different meal at Christmas?

We always have turkey at Thanksgiving. At Christmas I try for something different because we don't really want another turkey, or ham because Easter is coming. So we usually have a pork loin roast maybe stuffed with peaches, or something like that. I like trying out different things at Christmas time, but always in the spirit of the season.

One year I made a beef Wellington which was splendid and different, but oh, so expensive.

[Uncle Stevie]

I love this conversation as food and eating is my favorite subject. My Wife and I are married for over 48 years and for about the past 20 years I have taken over the kitchen. I do the shopping and the cooking and cleaning up for most of the three meals per day. Rita occasionaly helps with the chores but I do it mostly. For Thanksgiving it is always a Turkey with stuffing and the usual extras. For Christmas and Chanukah (we celebrate both with mixed marriages of kids) we never always do anything except not Turkey again. We have had Ham, Brisket, Beef Roast, and sometimes sandwiches with Potato Pancakes. One thing I cannot get away from is SOUP. I make the best Chicken soup with Matzoh Balls ever. And all my children and 6 Grandchildren will not come unless I make it for every occasion. I had to ship a jar up to College for one of my Granddaughters during a holliday and she has been brought up Catholic. I guess good food is a pleasure to everyone. Dessert is not my thing as I do not bake. We either buy it or the kids make it.

To me the pleasure of any holliday is the gathering of the family. We are 14 in all plus 4 dogs and love being together.

[JackFavell]

That's wonderful, Uncle Stevie. It's great that you celebrate multi-culturally, you get the best of both worlds! I should try your matzoh ball soup - I have never been able to eat it since I was young - I had it once when I was sick with the flu and never liked it again after.

I do remember once my dad made a Christmas goose, and afterwards he made schmaltz and grebenes, oh my gosh! they must serve that in heaven.

[moira finnie]

I love Matzo Ball Soup as long as they are on the smaller side and the chicken stock they are served in is real, not from a can or a cube of bouillon!

I like the Turkey at Thanksgiving, though this year we bought one late in the game (okay, it was the Wednesday before the holiday), and had to purchase a larger bird than initially planned since the big bruisers were the best priced. We are really trying to stretch it out. So far we've had turkey sandwiches, turkey tetrazzini, and turkey pot pie. I foisted some turkey on neighbors and relatives, and we still have about 3 pounds of turkey to use. I think soup is the next stop for our dear, departed Tom. Hmmm, maybe if I freeze it??

I am hoping that we can swing a leg of lamb at Christmas since that is sometimes priced right near Christmas and Easter around here. It is one of the family's favorites and there is never much left over for long.

[JackFavell]

mmm. leg of lamb. mmmm. Good idea.

[Lzcutter]

I am headed back up north after five wonderful days at home with MrCutter. For once I planned ahead and asked a friend to pick up a small 10-11 lb turkey for me as I knew by the time I got home last Tuesday there would none in the stores. We thought for sure we would have leftovers but with ten friends over for Thanksgiving we were lucky to have enough turkey left over for sandwiches on Friday. Usually we are like Moira and find inventive ways to deal with the leftovers.

We had southern stuffing, green bean casserole, mushrooms, roasted almonds and pumpkin pie for dessert.

On Saturday we got together with other friends for Mexican food. Watched lots of movies and I had time to drop in on the Oasis from time to time and get caught up in my reading!

Hard to believe I'll be home again in about three weeks. For Christmas Eve, we will have a small group of friends over for tomato soup and dim sum.

Where has this year gone?

[moira finnie]

I am headed back up north after five wonderful days at home with MrCutter. For once I planned ahead and asked a friend to pick up a small 10-11 lb turkey for me as I knew by the time I got home last Tuesday there would none in the stores. We thought for sure we would have leftovers but with ten friends over for Thanksgiving we were lucky to have enough turkey left over for sandwiches on Friday. Usually we are like Moira and find inventive ways to deal with the leftovers.

Gee I'm glad you had some time off for good behavior, Lynn, but with ten people for Thanksgiving, that turkey must have been picked clean like the clothes on Jack Benny and Percy Kilbride's backs after that plague of locusts made an appearance at the end of George Washington Slept Here (1942)!

We had southern stuffing, green bean casserole, mushrooms, roasted almonds and pumpkin pie for dessert.

What is Southern Stuffing? It seems to have myriad ingredients and I'm never sure what is the real deal. Did you make the Green Bean Casserole with those crazy fried onions and the cream of mushroom soup?? (To our non-American friends: it may sound nasty, but tastes much better than you might expect--though a little goes a long way. It's good once a year, I think.)

Hard to believe I'll be home again in about three weeks. For Christmas Eve, we will have a small group of friends over for tomato soup and dim sum.

Do you make your own dim sum?? How? What? Where, please???

Where has this year gone?

It's whizzing past, like all the years have zipped by at hyper-speed since rounding the 30 mark.

[klondike]

I am hoping that we can swing a leg of lamb at Christmas since that is sometimes priced right near Christmas and Easter around here. It is one of the family's favorites and there is never much left over for long.

Solid, tender lamb is indeed delectable (and a fitting end for most of 'em, as they displaced so many of my forebears!), but 'tis true, the price can be daunting . .
So may I suggest a couple alternatives that we Caledonians have for so long fallen back upon:

SCOTCH PIE: A Gaelic cousin to the tortierre of French Canada, it is lean lamb (or mutton) ground to near-pottage texture, with small quantites of lard, suet & varying combinations of warm-not-hot-or-sweet spices, then sealed into a charming little cylinder of thin, hand-rolled pie crust, with a recessed, vented top, in any size not exceeding the maker's fist, then baked pastry-style until top-crust is hard to the touch; traditionally popular throughout Glasgow & Aberdeen for workmen's dinner-pails & kids' lunch sacks.

BRIDEY: Similar in shape to a Cornish pastie (which should only ever rhyme with nasty), bridies are stuffed with a mix of shredded & rough-ground beef & lamb, surrounded by a small amount of rich, think onion gravy, then are baked inside a pinched-shut halfmoon of chewy, savory biscuit-style dough and baked 'til firm & pillowy, when it will go roughly twice the weight of a Scotch Pie; some folks like to jape about them being 'the Scottish calzone', but they're just asking for a swift kick under the table.

HAGGIS: What more need be said? I say, c'mon folks, time to grow up and stop your rolling eyes, and making those retching sounds & ogre faces - if you've ever had linguica or kielbasa, or bratwurst, or a stromboli, you've had far more primitive, and less digestible, fare than haggis!
There's ample reason behind Robert Burns' rhapsodizing it as the "Great chieftain o' the puddin' race!"

[moira finnie]

Somehow, Klonny, I don't think the family will accept these suggestions, though ground lamb appears in the meat case at the grocery store sometimes. I'll keep it in mind as an economical choice, so thanks!

[mrsl]

.
Sir Klondike:

I've had English glug at a New Year's Eve party, and I could have used some of your "think" onion gravy to cover the lambs head I had to serve at a private Greek wedding feast at the place I used to work, but when it comes to Haggis . . . I couldn't get past the stomach, including if they used the intestine for packing instead of the stomach. Love the kilts, and the plaids, and expecially love the dance, and the knee socks, but when it comes to some of the traditional foods . . . although you would probably laugh at my stuffed artichokes, and made some comment like "suck on leaves? are you nuts".

I'm sure we all have things that sound weird to others.
.

[charliechaplinfan]

Do they ever have a different meal at Christmas?

We always have turkey at Thanksgiving. At Christmas I try for something different because we don't really want another turkey, or ham because Easter is coming. So we usually have a pork loin roast maybe stuffed with peaches, or something like that. I like trying out different things at Christmas time, but always in the spirit of the season.

One year I made a beef Wellington which was splendid and different, but oh, so expensive.

Turkey is the traditional dish but once we decided to make beef instead, well, we might has well have slaughtered the cow on our own dinner table so put out were my parents and in laws. We do turkey every year. It keeps everyone happy and is cheaper.

Uncle Stevie can you post your recipe for chicken soup, I've never been able to make a good soup.

I'm a good baker, I make lots of cakes to sell at school fundraisers. I've got 400 chocolate rum truffles ready to go, I'm wrapping them in to my own gift bags. They are very nice but do my waist line no good, being chef means you have to have a taste, or two

[JackFavell]

Poor Alison. Your in laws and parents sound like mine.

You are making my mouth water, talking of rum balls. I've only made them once.

I am a pretty good cook in general, can bake delicious cookies and cakes, which are easy, but pie crust completely eludes me. My mother could make pie crust that was a dream, and baked bread, and cheesecake that was heavenly. My pie crust is either so crumbly that it doesn't even hold up to baking, or it is rubbery and impossible to chew. I do everything they say to get flaky crust, but it never works. Thank goodness for pre-made pie crust. One day, I will figure it out!I'm not giving up.

In spite of thinking myself a pretty good cook, there are some days when I should just stay out of the kitchen. About once every six months, if I'm making dinner, or baking, I can't get out of my own way. If I have three kitchen mishaps in a row, like dropping the spatula on the floor, turning on the wrong burner, or forgetting to turn down the mixer before I add the flour, I usually take this as a signal that I should NOT be in the kitchen - because I am very likely to burn my arm on the stove next, or gouge myself with a knife accidentally. Does anyone else have these days where you have to order take out for dinner, because you KNOW you are going to do something terrible?

[klondike]

Sir Klondike:

At ease, fellow Citizen - I work for a living; all the sirs dropped off o' me when I got discharged, and Americans can't be knighted!

I've had English glug at a New Year's Eve party,

Anne, are you comparing Scots cuisine with anything English? Are you trying to re-ignite a war or something?!!

and I could have used some of your "think" onion gravy

MrsL, spellcheck bloodhound! Is it my fault that the "N" is closer to the "I" & the "K" than the "C"? Have mercy, woman!

but when it comes to Haggis . . . I couldn't get past the stomach, including if they used the intestine for packing instead of the stomach.

To begin with, you only to capitalize haggis when speaking directly to it in the first person.
Moving right along, there is no stomach in haggis; as for intestinal casing, that is exactly what you're biting into on kielbasa, linguica, bratwurst, most high-quality breakfast-link sausages and all "natural casing" hotdogs.

Love the kilts, and the plaids, and expecially love the dance, and the knee socks

OK, language lesson time: a kilt is a kilt is a kilt - but what Americans call "plaid" is what Scots, Brits & most Canadians call tartan (an ancient Gaelic word roughly translatable as "bright pattern of colored lines"); to a Scot, a plaid (pronounced like play'd) means any large hemmed square of woven wool, which can be used as a cape, a wrap, a sash, a hooded shawl, a ground-cover, a satchel, or even a blanket; and the garments worn by kilted men between knees & ankles are called either hose or stockings -but never "socks"!

but when it comes to some of the traditional foods . . .

Like what, exactly? I'm only asking 'cause it seems like every time somebody tells me about some Scottish dish they can't imagine eating, what they name usually isn't Scottish at all!

although you would probably laugh at my stuffed artichokes, and made some comment like "suck on leaves? are you nuts".

Not at all; just so happens that artichokes were among my late Caiti's favorite foods, and one she brought home as a teenager to introduce to us!

[ChiO]

I guess we're the only ones who had a truly traditional Thanksgiving meal: feta, Kalamata olives, shrimp, Italian sausage (amongst other ingredients) in the finest of casings -- a 25 pound turkey, with spanakopita, pastichio, karithopita, and baklava cheesecake. In other words, a regular family meal with a turkey substituted for the leg of lamb.

The Pilgrims were, after all, wandering descendants of Odysseus.