Menu planning

[flea]

Tonight I'm making lasagna. I make a damn fine lasagna, if I say so myself.

Christmas we're going to do a turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, since we didn't have Thanksgiving at home.  Need to discuss a dessert, but I think apple pie.  Breakfast will be Trader Joe's chocolate croissants and bacon, and clementines and pomegranates from the stockings.

It's Christmas Eve we haven't decided on.  Traditionally, I gather, one has fish, but we live inland and my kids are not big fish eaters.  I have a mess of kale, but pasta with white beans and kale is not really unusual enough for Christmas Eve (it's one of our staple dinners.)  Maybe I'll make kale chips from the kale and we can have an "appetizer dinner" - we have crackers and boursin cheese and some pate, and I can get Michael to pick up some hummus and maybe some other yummy appetizers if he goes to Trader Joe's tomorrow. (I am working tomorrow, and while we are in theory let go at 1pm or so, I don't like to count on such things.)

Other ideas? We did scallops and rice pilaf the last time we cooked on Christmas Eve, which was nice although the kids did not eat the scallops of course.

Comments

[veejane]

I would say chicken pot pie (from scratch, not the frozen ones) except you don't believe in chicken. Also, I suppose anything from the chowder family would be dead boring without the fish component. (Although I like potato chowder a lot, on a really cold day.)

Does ginger carrot soup or butternut squash soup count as dinner? Because that might be kind of special but not terribly difficult.

[flea]

Ooh, I could make a shepherd's pie! That would be fun, but easy.

[forodwaith]

Do you like tourtiere? Either that or cabbage rolls are our traditional thing.

[flea]

I'd never even heard of tourtiere! It's too complex for my day today, but maybe for New Year's Eve.

[flea]

I meant to say, do you have a traditional recipe? Is cubed or ground meat better? I am seeing both in online recipes.

[forodwaith]

Ack, I don't have my mom's recipe to hand! But she's always made it with ground, rather than cubed, meat. IIRC the essential thing is to use pork instead of beef.