"Unusual" Christmas Foods

What do eat at Christmas that is "unusual" ?  Christmas Eve dinner at my aunt's includes  kibbi,  stuffed grape leaves,  baklava.

Merry Christmas from Texas!

Well, this Christmas I had spaghetti. That unusual, right? :]

xxx Ali

Original Post by fighead:

I don't know if our dinners qualify as "unusual," but I do love them! : )

For Christmas eve we have a traditional Italian 7-fish dinner: We have smoked salmon as fish #1 for an appetizer, and for dinner we have fish stew over homemade fettuccine. It's delicious! It's a tomato-based stew, and this year included tuna, cod, tilapia, shrimp, clams, and crab legs. Top it with some parmesan, and oh, it was so good. : ) For dessert, I made meringue snowman.

For breakfast, we make panettone....unusual for the US, I guess! And Imade a not so unusual feta, sun dried tomato, and spinach (crustless) quiche that came out well. Normally we have coddled eggs, which are wonderful, but I thought I'd mix it up. 

For Christmas dinner we have beef tenderloin, a simple green salad and homemade ravioli! It's just a simple ricotta-parmesan-herb filling, topped with a simple mushroom, olive pasta sauce. The fettuccine we had last night was just made from left over ravioli dough. We live in the south and are really fortunate to still have fresh rosemary and thyme from our garden, which makes a big difference in everything. Dessert's different every year. This year we kept it simple: pumpkin pudding, Fannie May chocolate, and Christmas cookies : ) 

 what is pannetone?  The fish stew sounds interesting.

Original Post by thhq:

I didn't know about the Italian pre-Christmas fish dinner tradition, which sounds great! [any bacala fans out there?] Ours is more a general winter dinner tradition.

It's hard to find real baccala.  I didnt' see it in the fish store this year at all.  The real thing comes in a slatted wooden box in the form of thick slabs. Since it keeps without refrigeration it used to be a pantry item for most Italian, Portuguese and Spanish (and probably lots of other nationalities.)

For those who don't know, it's salted dried codfish.  You prepare it by soaking in fresh water, changing the water frequently for a couple of days.  Then it's white, flaky and tender, and not very salty at all. It's easy to pull out the big bones as you break it into large flakes.  My family always did it with tomatoes and peppers, very plain and simple.  Sometimes we had it with polenta. 

For Christmas breakfast, we would have stolen which is a bread with candied fruits and raisens (German, I believe). 

The meal would be served in courses and included was first cream of mushroom soup, then two hand made manicotti (my mom would make both the filling and the 'pasta' crepes), then the main meal followed by stuffed artichokes. The stuffing was amazing - soft bread soaked in oil, oregano and garlic stuffed into the artichoke leaves and placed under the broiler. The texture was curious - toasted where it was exposed but moist from the oil where it was in between the leaves.

It was practically tradition for us to continue eating the meal until we were full at which point mom would remember and say she forgot to serve the artichokes which were keeping warm in the oven. 

Desserts were served later. If we were lucky, it included canollis.

mmmmm.....I've only had baccala once and it was made with fresh cod.  The tomato and pepper gravy was as you described it, clairelaine.  I haven't bought any salt cod for a while. Our local Italian supermarket chain Caputo's stocks slabs of it year round. Regular grocery stores carry the little one pound boxes at Christmastime.

Which reminds me....I should be looking for some after-Christmas closeouts on their overstock.

when I was growing up, we always had homemade crepes willed with canned strawberries, sliced banananas, canned mandarin segments and homemade whipped cream for breakfast.

The main meal was usually my mom's special brisket recipe, corn pudding, salad, applesauce and thousand island dressing, followed by my mom's trifle. I never liked her trifle cause it had alcohol so she made me my own little one.

This year we celebrated a day later when my older brother came for dinner, so Christmas, my mom and little brother had butternut squash + gorgonzola risotto, and I had an Amy's burrito  

baccala is heaven!...it's funny you mention it, because my grandmother lives in Delaware and always gets salted cod from the Italian market in Philly to make baccala before we get there.

glamgram, pannetone is a sweet bread that contains citron and lemon zest. It's really beautiful, and has large, cylindrical base and puffs up really high. hah, hard to explain, but I'm sure google has some good pictures.

we always have mushroom caps stuffed with snails in garlic butter. Still don't have the cojones to try them yet but everyone says they're awsome. Ugghhh still can't do it though maybe someday.

I just realized that my family's usual meal is a little more summery than the weather may call for.

This year, it was honey baked ham, macaroni salad, potato salad, green beans, deviled eggs, rolls, and peach pie. Dessert is never the same, though, just whatever my parents feel like making or buying. We used to do a veggie tray every year, and I think we did cranberry sauce, too, but our holidays have gotten smaller since my mother's health declined and my sister and I moved away from home.

Original Post by mamabig:

we always have mushroom caps stuffed with snails in garlic butter. Still don't have the cojones to try them yet but everyone says they're awsome. Ugghhh still can't do it though maybe someday.

 

 YUM,  one of my favs!! You must try them.

This year after getting back from a week in Vegas, we had Christmas frozen pizza and some Christmas Kraft dinner .... not quite traditional but helped to quieten the rumblings in our bellies ....

I work at a hotel and being the newest GSR I had to work Christmas eve so my dinner was an easy italian marinara bowl thing from kraft, fat free blueberry yogurt and a sugar free double chocolate pudding cup lol. Christmas dinner my boyfriends mom made a roast chicken( which I didn't eat seeing I'm vegetarian lol), bake sweet potatoes, wheat rolls, mashed potatoes, white corn, stuffing, cranberry sauce, a salad and since I didn't eat the chicken she made me a boca chickn' patty instead :-)