StarSurfer55 Posted December 24, 2020 Share Posted December 24, 2020 So I will start this thread. Since moving to Michigan over 30 year ago, we have had family to share a holiday dinner with once. My wife and I enjoy the holidays and go all out. She usually bakes a Buche de Noel for dessert after our Christmas dinner. She considers it a gift to the family and it is one that we appreciate very much. I like to pair a higher rye bourbon such as WT101 to help offset the sweetness of the chocolate. I thought this may be a good opportunity for others to share their favorite holiday goodies in a virtual, pandemic safe, way. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishnbowljoe Posted December 24, 2020 Share Posted December 24, 2020 Kentucky Legend Hickory Smoked Ham will be on the table today. This isn’t just for the holidays, as we enjoy it all the time. The odd thing is, it’s ludicrously easy to make. Here ya go. Trim ham to fit in your crockpot/slow cooker. Pack a cup or so of brown sugar on the top of the ham. Pour a can of clear soda, (we use Sierra Mist Free) into the crockpot. Do not pour it on the ham. Repeat: Do not pour it directly on the ham. Just pour it into the crockpot around the edge of the ham. Turn crockpot on to low for 4 or 5 hours and you’re done. It’s a good thing to make sure the internal temperature of the ham is 140° before serving. Quick, easy and delicious. The smoked flavor in this ham is just right. It’s not too light, and it’s not too heavy. Normally when we have this, my wife gets it ready to go before leaving for work in the morning. We get home from work, and it’s ready to go. For Xmas, we made our ham last night. One pic below is of our “extra” ham in front of a crockpot full of mashed potatoes. The other pics are of our dining room with about one hour to go before our Xmas feast. Cheers And Happy Holidays! Joe 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil T Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 I'm sorry I am slow to the party. I am just now seeing this thread!! Our family celebrates Christmas together on the 24th. We don't have any foods that are traditional. Whoever is hosting, provides whatever they want. The tradition appears on Christmas morning. Years ago, when the boys were young, I would make breakfast after the gifts from Santa were opened. My parents and sister would join us. The Christmas morning breakfast was always sausage gravy, biscuits, and pan fried potatoes. One year, I decided to change things up. I made eggs, toast, french toast, bacon, sausage, hash browns. I thought my sister's head was going to explode. I had deviated from tradition. Lesson learned!!! Don't mess with tradition!!! So, our Christmas meal tradition is Christmas morning breakfast. - sausage gravy - biscuits - pan fried potatoes Nothing more, nothing less. P.S....while the potatoes are cooking, and after the coffee has been consumed, Jules and I have a couple bloody marys, of course!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRich Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 5 hours ago, Phil T said: I'm sorry I am slow to the party. I am just now seeing this thread!! Our family celebrates Christmas together on the 24th. We don't have any foods that are traditional. Whoever is hosting, provides whatever they want. The tradition appears on Christmas morning. Years ago, when the boys were young, I would make breakfast after the gifts from Santa were opened. My parents and sister would join us. The Christmas morning breakfast was always sausage gravy, biscuits, and pan fried potatoes. One year, I decided to change things up. I made eggs, toast, french toast, bacon, sausage, hash browns. I thought my sister's head was going to explode. I had deviated from tradition. Lesson learned!!! Don't mess with tradition!!! So, our Christmas meal tradition is Christmas morning breakfast. - sausage gravy - biscuits - pan fried potatoes Nothing more, nothing less. P.S....while the potatoes are cooking, and after the coffee has been consumed, Jules and I have a couple bloody marys, of course!! That is my New Year's Day brunch menu Phil! The biscuits and gravy help soak up the residual alcohol from the night before. Christmas morning I make homemade cinnamon rolls for my girls. I started when the oldest was three. She's 11 now so I'm eight years in. I guess it's tradition now. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil T Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 (edited) 49 minutes ago, BigRich said: That is my New Year's Day brunch menu Phil! The biscuits and gravy help soak up the residual alcohol from the night before. Christmas morning I make homemade cinnamon rolls for my girls. I started when the oldest was three. She's 11 now so I'm eight years in. I guess it's tradition now. I'm telling you Rich, I didn't know i had established tradition until I deviated from the norm one year. There was hell to pay!! So, stay with the every year norm. You have established tradition and didn't know it when you started it.. I'm 40 years in. Everyone loves it and expects it. I will not disappoint!! I'm sure your family will look at it the same way!! Edited January 5, 2021 by Phil T 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paddy Posted January 6, 2021 Share Posted January 6, 2021 ^^^^ You had me at sausage gravy. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishnbowljoe Posted January 6, 2021 Share Posted January 6, 2021 Phil & Paddy, thanks. The sausage gravy brings back a lot of memories from my youth. My parents survived the depression. Both were from Tennessee, and both knew how to cook. Biscuits and gravy, cornbread, eggs fried in the grease from cooked bacon, and so on and so on. Ummmm boy! Biba! Joe 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StarSurfer55 Posted January 9, 2021 Author Share Posted January 9, 2021 On 1/5/2021 at 9:06 AM, BigRich said: That is my New Year's Day brunch menu Phil! The biscuits and gravy help soak up the residual alcohol from the night before. Christmas morning I make homemade cinnamon rolls for my girls. I started when the oldest was three. She's 11 now so I'm eight years in. I guess it's tradition now. This is so cool. Learning about the traditions from others is very interesting as food is the thread connecting us all. For Christmas eve, my wife makes what we call a Christmas Pie. It was a recipe from the Thomas Jefferson estate. It has a homemade crust and contains chicken (which I smoke), sausage, and bacon with a white gravy heavy in rosemary. It is very hearty. She also made a British christmas dinner for a couple of years: a roast goose, goose fat fried potatoes (really yummy), a plum pudding with hard sauce (what we would call icing in the South or Frosting in the North). That was very different and I had to learn how to carve a goose. We enjoyed it a great deal. Having moved to Michigan from Louisiana, our traditions have changed. In the South, it was always turkey at Thanksgiving, Ham or Turkey at Christmas, Ham at easter. We have now changed our Christmas dinner to a prime rib. I always splurge for a Prime Prime Rib (Prime Rib is cut not a grade of beef). It has given us a bit more variety that we enjoy. BTW, we love Biscuits and Gravy. I also like an over easy egg on top of my grits. Unfortunately, my wife and I have been on Keto for the past year and bread has been off limits. WE did relax that bit over the holidays. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishnbowljoe Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 I still need to lose some weight from last year. I was doing okay, but then the holidays hit. Well here we go again. Our son and grandkids are coming over later. My wife made a batch of her white chicken chili, and also a batch of her crockpot potato soup. Desert was on me. I made two batches of hot cocoa fudge. One batch with marshmallows, and one without. It’s gonna be a long day. If things keep going like this, it may be a long year. Biba! Joe 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil T Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 Fascinating stuff everyone!! So many foods are regional and everyone has their favorites. - Joe, white chicken chili and crock pot potato soup...mmmmmmm -Jeff, the Christmas pie sounds amazing. And goose fat fried potatoes!!! Shut the front door!! And thanks for the idea of an over easy egg on top of grits. Brilliant!! I always get grits for breakfast when we are down south. Never thought about putting one of my eggs on top! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flahute Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 I love reading about all of these traditions. As a kid, my tradition was similar to StarSurfer's southern tradition with turkey at Thanksgiving and ham at Christmas. Until we moved out here to Seattle we didn't have our own tradition because while living in Cincinnati we always went over to my wife's parents for the holidays. They are Greek and are also foodies. Thanksgiving would always be turkey but Christmas would often be lamb, spanakopita, etc. They made duck one year but they could also throw a curveball and do Chinese food. Now that we are in Seattle and have stopped traveling back home for the holidays (because it's expensive and a pain in the ass) we have our own traditions. For the past 12 years (except this year because of covid) we travel down to Oregon, rent a big house or a couple houses, and have an extended weekend with friends. It used to be Bend when we had people coming up from the Bay Area but as that crew dropped off leaving only Portland and Seattle folks we decided to switch to Hood River. The routine is always basically the same. Homemade pizza on Wednesday night to kick it off and then everyone contributes to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. Bourbon pecan pie is a must. One of my friends is from Alabama and he has a cathead biscuit recipe passed down from his grandmother that are made on cast iron skillets. We have these with both sausage gravy and jam for breakfast. Friday night dinner is fish tacos. Leftovers fill out the rest of the meals. Both Bend and Hood River are full of great breweries so we do a LOT of brewery hopping and beer drinking. For Christmas, we like to hunker down on our own on Christmas Day so we have friends over on Christmas Eve and have always done turkey. This year because of covid we decided to buy prepackaged meals from local restaurants that are shut down. We had a prime rib dinner for Christmas Eve that we loved. We are now talking about making this permanent when we resume having that dinner with our friends because not only is it really good, the cleanup after dinner is way easier. For Christmas Day we had the lasagna dinner from our 2nd favorite Italian place. We don't know if they will do this going forward but if so this will also be a new tradition. With both dinners we had a ton of leftovers. The one tradition we have on Christmas morning that goes back to my childhood is Danish Kringle. My Mom grew up in Racine, WI and our favorite Kringle comes from O&H Bakery. My Mom and her sisters would walk there every Saturday morning for the weekend treat. We order it online now from the same place. For New Year's Day we will use a ham hock and make a big batch of split pea soup which is great for all the football watching. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StarSurfer55 Posted January 10, 2021 Author Share Posted January 10, 2021 8 hours ago, Phil T said: Fascinating stuff everyone!! So many foods are regional and everyone has their favorites. - Joe, white chicken chili and crock pot potato soup...mmmmmmm -Jeff, the Christmas pie sounds amazing. And goose fat fried potatoes!!! Shut the front door!! And thanks for the idea of an over easy egg on top of grits. Brilliant!! I always get grits for breakfast when we are down south. Never thought about putting one of my eggs on top! If you want to make it a bit healthier, cook the grits with no butter, then cook your egg with a nonstick spray. The yolk becomes your “ butter”. Fir your grits. It is a low fat dish but if you want a hearty breakfast while watching your fat, it will work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil T Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 11 hours ago, StarSurfer55 said: If you want to make it a bit healthier, cook the grits with no butter, then cook your egg with a nonstick spray. The yolk becomes your “ butter”. Fir your grits. It is a low fat dish but if you want a hearty breakfast while watching your fat, it will work. Thank you for the tip! So , I love grits but have never made them. I have no idea why not. I'm smart enough to know that instant grits are a big no-no. In doing a quick search, it seems Palmetto Farms always comes across as the best stone ground grits. What is your opinion on this Jeff? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StarSurfer55 Posted January 11, 2021 Author Share Posted January 11, 2021 PhilT< If you can get stone ground those are the best and the Palmetto are very good. In our area, we can only get the the Quaker Quick grits. I prefer the Quick grits as they do not require 30- 45 m for cooking. My tip on making grits is to add the salt and butter to the water when it comes to a boil, let them cook for 5-10 min per the directions then set them aside for 10 m (covered). I have found that I can achieve the creamy consistency that I am looking for. Grits, if cooked correctly, are not gritty in consistency. IF you want cheese grits. Add one slice of your preferred cheese to the container for each portion when you set them aside to steam. You will then need to stir in the melted cheese before you serve them. Let me know how they turn out. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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