MAKING COOKING AT HOME
EASIER
MENUS THREE AND FOUR
(Written by Sheila Gail
Landgraf)
FROM THE HEALTHY VERSION OF THE SEASONS OF LANDGRAF CASTLE COOKBOOK; VOLUME 2
So here we are in the final lap of the Christmas Season!
No need to stress over meal prep and grocery
lists! I’ve done that for you this
time. Today's blog turned into a double feature!
Here is a simple Christmas Eve
lunch menu as well as a Christmas Eve dinner menu. I hope it makes your holidays a little
lighter and you have a lot more free time to relax and enjoy those that you love and are
inviting to your home for Christmas.
If you are like me, you will need to have your guest come on THEIR
schedule instead of yours, and that may make things a bit complicated unless you
keep it simple. The very first rule of
holiday entertaining for the sane is “keep it simple.”
Typically, this holiday
only last for two days; Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (unless you are doing
the twelve days of Christmas) so rule number two is to totally forget about your diet and
enjoy the day! Yes, I DO like to keep these recipes healthy whenever possible, but this is a holiday celebration; feel free to indulge yourself! Just don't overdo. You can’t diet 365 days a
year, and it is healthy and good to give yourself little rewards for all the
other days you have stayed true.
Celebrate! No dieting
allowed. And remember rule number
one. I’ll say it again…..Keep it simple!
Have you ever tried cooking two festive meals on Christmas Eve with a two
year old granddaughter in tow? It is a
great balancing act for sure; but do I want to give up my time with my
granddaughter to slave over a stove????
The answer is easy; it is a definite “NO!”
That is why I do all the heavy cooking and preparations the day before Christmas Eve, and have it all ready to go into the oven on THE day. This really eliminates the haste of meal prep
on that special day we all want to visit and have fun. Only certain dishes will work for this. I’ve picked an easy to prepare beef dish for
Christmas Eve Dinner. I’ve found a few perfect
recipes that are simple, tasty and elegant and can be prepared ahead of time. What more could you ask for on a holiday? I’ll run through the whole routine with you, if you are interested in some ideas, and if you like; all you have to do is follow instructions, ready?
Let’s do Christmas Eve lunch first!
CHRISTMAS EVE LUNCHEON:
The small for-lunch-crowd at our house on Christmas Eve consists of my
Mom, my granddaughter, my husband and me.
The larger crowd comes in the evening. Some years I do brunch for the early gang, and some years I do
lunch. This year it will be lunch. I’ve tried to join these two events on our Christmas Eves without
success for many years. I finally gave up and went with what worked. Now it feels like a normal routine. When the adult
children were growing up this gatering time in the daylight worked.
They could be around for lunch. Now
they are working and can only attend in the evenings, so we see them later.
My Mom can’t stay up too late or drive home after dark. She likes to sleep in her own bed at night; and
I can’t seem to get her to spend the night in my VERY comfortable guest room. She isn’t up to the schedule of the arrival
time for when my retail-working adult children begin to arrive on Christmas Eve
(anywhere from 8 p.m. – 9 p.m., and then we often party all night long); so we have
resorted these days to having Mom over for lunch, and we spend the day chatting and
catching up on each other’s lives and doing Christmassy things with her during
the day and then seeing our grown children and their families later.
We even have children from another state that can’t seem to make it to
our house until New Years weekend. Well, that's okay because everyone with children needs to be in their own home at Christmas. We will see that part of the family (that brings my two grandsons) for New Year's this year, and that
is another story for another day.
Sometimes between lunch and dinner most Christmas Eves, we may attend a candlelight service at a nearby
church, or ride to some special mid-day Christmas Eve event together (the four of us.) I love it when Mom wants to join in on these
things. Sometimes we just relax at our home. Always we have a nice brunch and/or lunch
together, no matter what other activities we decide to pursue.
I always want to volunteer to babysit with
our two-year old granddaughter for the whole day on Christmas Eve while her
parents work their last shifts before Christmas. That way she gets to spend some Christmas
time with her great-grandmother, and we get to enjoy some Christmas time with her too, away
from the crowd that surrounds our tree on Christmas Eve. We usually give her a few early gifts and that
way she even remembers who they came from!
I love seeing her and my Mom
together too. It is a very special day
for us!
I keep the lunch simple but tasty.
This year I’ve chosen one of our favorite soups to eat whenever the weather
outside begins to be a bit nippy. I call
it “Christmas Eve Soup.” I’ll make up
some special cornbread with broccoli inside to serve with it; and I will have a
cheese and fruit tray and a gelatin salad too.
I’ll have a dessert tray full of Christmas cookies, candies and some Key
Lime pie afterward. Practically all of
this can be done ahead the day before and just pulled out of the refrigerator and/or re-heated. That way we get to enjoy more visiting time
and have less cooking time to worry with.
I’ll put on a pot of coffee to go with desert later and make some sweet
tea to go with our lunch.
I’ll serve these foods up on the pretty Lennox Christmas China that Mom
gave me a few years back when she and my Dad downsized. She will still get to enjoy the pleasure of
using these dishes that graced her table at their farm for so many years in the
past. It will be festive, simple and
elegant. I’ll serve this lunch at my
bar-height table in my cozy little Christmas kitchen, and it keeps me from having to
re-clean and reset the dishes in the dining room in a big hurry before our
Christmas Eve guests arrive later for a more formal dinner at the end of the
same day.
Here are the recipes I will be using for lunch:
CREAMY LIME AND PEAR
SALAD
Ingredients:
1 can (15 ounces) pear halves
1 package (3 ounces) lime gelatin
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, cubed.
1 can (20 ounces) unsweetened crushed pineapple (drained but save juice
on the side)
1 cup chopped pecans (toasted and divided into halves)
1 carton (8 ounces) frozen whipped topping, thawed
Directions:
Drain pears and pineapple and reserve the juices. Set fruits aside in a bowl in the
refrigerator while you make the rest. Pour
juices into a small saucepan and bring juice to a boil on top of stove. Stir in gelatin until completely
dissolved. Remove from the heat and cool
slightly. Pour pears, crushed pineapple
and cream cheese into a large bowl and mix together with hand mixer or food
processor. When all is well blended stir
in the chopped pecans. Fold the jello
mixture into this mix and blend again.
Stir in the whipped topping (I use Cool Whip) and mix well. Pour final mix into an ungreased 11 inch x 7
inch dish, or any decorative mold that you wish to use. Refrigerate until well set. Sprinkle the top with the remaining half of
chopped pecans. (This recipe yields
eight servings.)
BROCCOLI CORNBREAD
(This dish is always a lot of fun to serve because
the broccoli is a surprise which adds flavor and interest to the every-day dish
of regular cornbread. On holidays I use
a premixed cornbread just for simplicity and to save time, but I rarely do this
the rest of the year. At Christmas, I’m
all about easy!.)
Ingredients:
2 packages white cornbread mix
4 eggs
1 cup chopped broccoli
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup cottage cheese
2/3 cup melted butter
Directions:
Prepare a casserole
dish. Mix all ingredients together and
bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out
clean. Cut in squares and serve hot with butter.
CHRISTMAS EVE SOUP
(I love this recipe because it taste
so good on a cold winter day, but it is SO EASY to make and easy to prepare
ahead.)
Ingredients:
1 can tomato paste
1 can tomato sauce
1 pack Hidden
Valley Ranch Powered Dressing Mix
1 can Rotel
1 can black beans
1 can white shoe-peg
corn
1 can pinto beans
2 lbs. cooked lean ground
beef, drained
1 cup water
1 onion, chopped
3 Tablespoons
minced garlic
Sea Salt (to taste)
Ground Black Pepper
(to taste)
Directions:
Sautee the onions
and minced garlic, then fry the beef in a skillet on the stove, being sure to drain
off any excess grease. Transfer that to
a soup pot and add all the other ingredients.
Stir well and heat until hot. Add
in the salt and pepper that you desire, then; simmer a few hours before
serving. (Grated cheddar cheese is a
nice topping and I like to serve thin crackers with this too.)
Such a simple
Christmas Eve lunch; but I promise all who eat it will enjoy a tasty meal. My Mom doesn’t like a big fuss; so this suits
her well. I’ll let you pick out your own favorite
cookies and candies and pie. I can’t do
it all for you!
I also like to
serve a fruit and cheese tray before this meal as an appetizer. I’ve found that adding oranges (sliced) and
pomegranates (sliced open with the colorful seeds spilling out the sides) to
the Christmas fruit and cheese trays always makes it a bit more festive. I just pull together some assorted cheese
cuts with a platter of grapes and apple slices and add those little touches to it. I halve
the oranges and slice them very thin and stack them in pretty random designs
leaving a few whole oranges placed here and there for an artistic touch with
scattered crackers and chips and dips in little crystal bowls. Maybe a few taper candles here and there or
even inside the whole oranges???? These
little things make soup and cornbread look like a feast fit for a king. My husband says I don't really care about eating the food and I just want to be artistic with the table; perhaps he has a point - that is one of my favorite parts of preparing a meal.
So we usually laugh
the day away and spend time sharing our gifts with my Mom and my little
granddaughter; then when it is dark, the rest of our Alabama immediate family
members begin to come in from a long day of retail sales management and other
such jobs. They will be exhausted, and I
love greeting them with a nice glass of wine and some appetizers when they walk
in the door. They often head for the coffee pot first!
Soon their shoes
are tossed over in a corner and they have changed into some more festive party clothes
and they are unwinding and feeling ready to party. They all also come in the door
HUNGRY!!!! This suits me fine, because I
have a very festive Christmas Eve Dinner already prepared by the time they
arrive. Most of it is simply re-heated
and ready-to-serve. I have set the
dining room table the day before, and it is all festive and waiting on its
occupants. All I have to do is light the
candles and set out the food. EVERYTHING
is prepared ahead and either just re-heated or refrigerated until needed. Easy-peazy – simply due to a bit of prep time spent the day
before. The aroma of the meat will be
drifting through the house and mixing with the smell of the cookies and sweet
snacks. It will not be long before
everyone makes their way to the table and we offer up a prayer of Thanksgiving
to God for another year of blessings.
By this time I will
have set out a more elaborate fruit and cheese tray than we served earlier on
the cozy kitchen table (I’ve cleared and put away everything from the earlier
luncheon.) This time I’ll add a few
olives and cold veggies and some cream cheese with red and green pepper jellies
to the fruit and cheese mixes. Nothing
hard at all; just festive and colorful.
We will drink water, tea and wine with coffee later when we enjoy our dessert.
We will serve ourselves from the kitchen and eat our meal in the dinning room, which I will have set in a festive pattern using my favorite dishes all covered with Cardinals in the snow. As we begin the meal, I will light the candles on each end of the table, and as we have dessert later we will light the Hannukah Mennorah, as Hannukah starts on Christmas Eve this year. We celebrate a Christian Hannukah at our home each year. (We are NOT Jewish, only in our hearts and through adoption into The Kingdom of God.) This means lots of festivities will be uninterrupted for the next eight days, including Christmas Day, which we have come to realize is actually positive evidence of the fulfillment of the meaning of the message from that first Hannukah that spoke to say God is still with us! He is sending a Messiah! It will be a great miracle and He will be The Light of The World. This is the way we, as Christians, will celebrate the Miracle of Messiah that the Hannukah story so symbolicly points us to! God was in the miracle business back then, and He is still doling out Christmas miracles every year; if you just open your eyes and look around. As we light the Christ Candle of the Advent wreath on Christmas Morning we wiill remember more of the same; of Emmanuel; Christ with us! We will celebrate the miracle that made it possible for God to come to dwell on earth! How significant all these beautiful candles are! How significant it is that they all point to the miracle of Christ!
The Christmas Eve menu this year
is Old Fashioned Cheery Coke Salad, Rolls, Red-Wine Infused Beef Tenderloin
With Mushrooms and Gravy and Creamy Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Modern Day Green Bean
Casserole. There will be White Chocolate
Cheesecake with Blueberry Topping for dessert as well as the assorted dessert trays
I have prepared ahead full of assorted Christmas candies and cookies. (My
granddaughter especially wanted some chocolate covered cherries.) You know my assorted tray of cookies and candies will include some glazed donuts; which are traditional for serving at Hannukah! There; you now have yet another excuse for throwing your diet out the window for a few days!
Here are the
recipes I’ll use:
OLD FASHIONED CHERRY COKE SALAD
Ingredients:
20 ounce can of
crushed pineapple, drained and reserving juice.
14.5 ounce can of dark
sweet cherries in heavy syrup, drained (but reserve the juice.)
1 large package of
cherry Jello (8 ounce size)
1 12 ounce can of Coca-Cola
½ cup chopped
pecans (walnuts work too)
Directions:
Drain the cherry
syrup and pineapple juices into a saucepan setting the fruit aside in the
refrigerator until needed. Bring the
fruit juices to a boil, remove from heat and whisk in the Jello. When Jello is fully dissolved add in four
cups of Coca Cola. Transfer all to a large bowl and add in fruits and
nuts. Pour into whatever mold you will
be using or an oblong casserole dish. Chill in refrigerator for 3 – 5 hours before
serving.
RED WINE INFUSED BEEF TENDERLOIN
(This is a favorite for Christmas Eve
at our house because it may be prepared in advance. If you chose to do so, just bake and slice
meat as directed, then return meat to the pan and cover with the
drippings on top of the meat. Refrigerate safely for up to
two days. To reheat simply bake covered
in 350 degree oven for one hour or until heated through. If you desire the non-alcoholic version;
simply substitute water for the wine. This recipe serves four and I double it
for my gathering of 8)
Ingredients:
2 large onions,
sliced thin
1 beef tenderloin
(have your butcher trim the fats)
1 can (10 – 12 ounce)
condensed French onion soup
1-1/4 cups of dry
red wine
½ cup ketchup
8 tablespoons
minced garlic
½ cup brown sugar
1 package Lipton
onion soup mix
Sea Salt (to taste)
Fresh Ground Black
Pepper (to taste)
1 pint fresh
mushrooms and one chopped onion sautéed together in1 tablespoon of extra virgin
olive oil
DIRECTIONS:
Heat your oven to
350 degrees F. Place sliced onions in a
large shallow pan. Cut small one-inch deep
slivers into your meat in eight separate places. Fill those slivers with the minced
garlic. Rub the meat with some salt and
pepper. Top the onion slices in the pan with
the meat. Sautee some mushrooms and
onions in extra virgin olive oil. Pour the
sautéed mushrooms and onions over the top of the meat. Mix the remaining
ingredients well and pour them over all.
Cover the whole dish with foil. Bake
the covered dish for three and one-half hours or until the meat is tender. Let stand covered for ten minutes before
slicing. Serve topped with
drippings. (If you are cooking this ahead
of time and refrigerating and heating again, let it cool, then slice and
recover with the foil, then keep it refrigerated. On the next day, simply place in the oven at
350 degrees F for one hour to reheat before you serve Remove the foil and continue heating for 10
more minutes.. You may want to reserve
some of the drippings to make a separate gravy dish on the side but be sure to
leave some of the drippings around and over the meat.)
CREAMY GARLIC MASHED POTATOES
Ingredients:
5 pounds Russet potatoes
2 tablespoons sea salt
16 ounces half-and-half
8 tablespoons minced garlic
8 ounces grated parmesan
Directions:
Peel and dice the potatoes into small
cubes. Place in a large saucepan adding
the salt and cover the potatoes with water.
Bring the potatoes to a boil over medium heat then reduce the heat to a rolling
boil. Cook until the potatoes are tender
and fall apart when picked with a fork. Set
aside. In another saucepan add the
minced garlic and the half-and-half and heat over medium heat until it
simmers. Remove from heat and set aside. Drain the water from the potatoes. Using a hand- held mixer and a large bowl,
mash the potatoes and slowly add the garlic and half and half mixture, then the
parmesan. Give this a few minutes to
thicken.
(I’m going to cook these potatoes
ahead of time then put them into a crock pot to heat on the next day. I’ll give them about two hours to heat up and
add more half and half if they get dry before time to serve. SO GOOD!!!
We never eat potatoes at our house except for special occasions; so that
adds to the fun for me!) That extra side
of gravy you make from the meat drippings can also be available for the
potatoes. I also like to have little crystal containers full of grated cheese and green onions and bacon bits for toppings if anyone desires. This turns out a lot like a potatoe bar.)
MODERN DAY GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE
Ingredients:
1 pound fresh green
beans
8 ounces roughly
chopped mushrooms
5 strips bacon
1 cup thinly sliced
onions
3 tablespoons
minced garlic
½ cup almond meal
1-1/2 cup unsweetened
almond milk
3 teaspoons sea salt
2 teaspoons cracked
black pepper
2 tablespoons extra
virgin olive oil
Directions:
Pre-heat your oven
to 350 degrees F. Prepare a baking sheet
with cooking spray. Drizzle Olive Oil on
the thinly sliced yellow onions. Sprinkle
them with one teaspoon of sea salt. Mix
until onions are coated well with oil and salt.
Spread onions evenly on the baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes until
the onions are brown and crispy. Put
one teaspoon of sea salt into a pot of water and bring it to a boil. While the water is waiting to boil sautee the
garlic and mushrooms and pieces of bacon together, stirring over medium high
heat on the oven in a skillet. Remove
ends of the green beans and break into halves and drop into the pot of boiling
salty water. Boil the beans for five
minutes then remove and place into a bowl.
When the mushrooms, bacon and garlic are golden remove them also and
place in another bowl. With skillet empty
and now heated to medium low, add one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and
then one cup of almond milk. Add half of
almond meal and whisk all together until it disolves, then repeat adding other
half of almond milk and almond meal, whisking all the time over a medium
simmer. Add 2 teaspoons of sea salt and
two teaspoons of cracked black pepper and keep whisking until the mix becomes
the texture of heavy cream. Reduce the
heat and stir in bacon and mushroom mix.
Add green beans and stir all together.
Pour all into a medium sized casserole dish. Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes at
350 degrees F. Remove foil and sprinkle
onions on top. Place back in oven and
bake for five more minutes uncovered.
Enjoy this healthy, natural side dish with no guilt!
I’ll save the best
for last with this yummy dessert I’ll serve with coffee.
WHITE CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE WITH
BLUEBERRY TOPPING
Ingredients:
FOR THE CRUST:
2 cups crushed
graham crackers
1 cup slivered
almonds
½ cup white sugar
¼ cup butter,
melted
2 tablespoons
caramel topping
FOR THE FILLING:
1 pound white
chocolate, chopped
4 (8 ounce)
packages cream cheese, softened
¾ cup white sugar
4 eggs beaten
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon all
purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
extract
FOR THE TOPPING:
½ cup white sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
¼ cup water
1 pint fresh
blueberries
2 teaspoons lemon
juice
Directions:
Make the Crust: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Make the crust in a food processor or with a
hand-held mixer. Blend together the
graham cracker crumbs, almonds and sugar until the almonds are ground
fine. Pour in the melted butter and
caramel while processing until mix is combined.
Press the mixture into the bottom and half-way up the sides of a 10 inch
spring-form pan.
Make the filling: In a metal bowl over a pan of barely
simmering water, melt the white chocolate, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat and set aside. In a large bowl beat the cream cheese and ¾ cups
sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs and
the egg yolks, one at a time. Beat in
the flour and the vanilla and blend in the melted white chocolate slowly,
beating until the filling is well combined.
Pour filling into crust. Bake in
the middle of preheated oven for one hour then turn off the heat and crack the
oven door open just one inch, letting the cheesecake cool in the oven to room
temperature. The secret to keeping the
cheesecake from cracking on top is to do this, and let it sit for several hours
before moving it. Cover loosely and
refrigerate overnight before removing from pan.
Make the topping in a
saucepan. Combine ½ cup sugar and
cornstarch. Stir in water and
blueberries. Bring to a boil then simmer
for ten minutes, stirring occasionally.
Press through a fine sieve. Stir
in lemon juice. Allow to cool and store
in a glass jar until you use over cheesecake.
Well, we usually
enjoy a meal similar to this one and then move to the living room to open our
gifts under the Christmas tree. After we
have had our festive fun we all go back to the kitchen for coffee and more
desserts. It has become my custom to give away an AnnaLee Elf, so we will draw for that.
Before long it will be time
for one two-year-old little girl to get to bed in time for Santa to come at her house; and
the house will begin to empty out. It is
always so strangely quiet when everyone leaves!
We will have a
brief pause and then it will be Christmas Day!
Time to light that tall candle in the center of the Advent Wreath that
stands for Christ. Time to remember that God sent us a precious Savior!
Most likely we will attend a church service on Christmas Day. Some years we like to be lazy on
Christmas Day and stay home. Anyone who
wants to come by is always welcomed. Sometimes
we get a call from a little one saying she wants us to come see what was under
her tree on Christmas morning, and we scurry around and head right over to share her excitement. Some Christmas Days are spent at my Mom's house visiting. You never know - and we like it to be mostly unplanned!
At the end of the
day – it is worth every minute of the preparation. If any of this helped you with your own Christmas planning; I’m glad.
Each celebration is
a bit different and each family has their own favorite things and traditions, but it is fun to share our ideas and recipes and notes. I would love to hear about some of your
traditions and holiday routines.
Merry Christmas
Everyone!
May God's greatest blessings be yours in this joyful season!
