I am planning the annual dinner. Please post your favorite Xmas recipe, be it appetizer, entree, side or dessert. Thanks!

This year we'll be doing beef tenderloin. Fine Cooking has a great recipe for slow roasting. Trim it, coat with oil, salt and pepper. Roast @ 250 to desired temp. They recommend 130 at the thickest part. Rest 15 minutes and slice.

It is excellent. Very flavorful for that cut of meat. Perfectly done the entire way through. I'll be making a Pinot Noir sauce to go with it. It's a reduction of wine, balsamic and finished with butter. You take the about 3 cups of liquid down to about 1/2 cup. If anyone wants, I'll look it up and post it.
Bob

I'm making a beef tenderloin too.

We are going to low temp cook it on the grill. Mostly because we lack room indoors, so it is the only place left if we want to cook it right before we eat it.

I'm going to do a dry rub on it the day before. Not quite sure exactly what I am going to add in the dry rub yet.

Green pepper corns for sure, garlic, probably cumin, ancho chili powder, olive oil, salt it just before cooking.

Another thing we do at our house every holiday is bagna cauda, for those who don't know, it's a warm anchovy, garlic and evoo dip served with bread and veggies. Acquired taste but we have grown accustomed to it.

For Christmas we do two major meals. Brunch at my parents' house (about 100 yards down the upper tractor path) and dinner at our house. This year I'm pushing for a Bryan F. rack of pork for dinner. Jimmie has already had one conversation with Bryan about this. Appetizers, sides and desserts are yet to be decided. (I like to enjoy Thanksgiving before going too crazy on Christmas dinner planning.)

For the brunch I'm going to get a ham sampler from Smithfields ham, some Kringles from Wisconsin, grits (also from VA), fresh fruit, fresh eggs from our neighbors, homemade biscuits and gravy, bubbly.

But first, I'm looking forward to a great T-Day event!

becca

... of cranberry sauce. A couple of bags of cranberries, a couple of cups of sugar, cinnamon and some other spices; tightly cover and bake for 30 minutes; stir and back for another 30 minutes. Remove from oven, uncover and carefully pour some bourbon on it and stir again. Let sit until cooled and transfer to refrigerator. Good on most anything and absolutely amazing with Pinot Noir.

This is it. Very simple to make.

Rack of Lamb “Wellington” with
Mushroom Duxelle and Madeira Wine Sauce

Mushroom Duxelle
1 oz. dried Morels
2 cups fresh brown Crimini mushrooms
4 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. chopped shallots
1 tbsp. chopped fresh thyme
Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
1/3 cup Madeira wine

Rehydrate Morels
Drain the Morels from the water, squeezing out as much water as possible.
Place the reconstituted Morels and the Crimini mushrooms in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse the mushrooms until they are finely chopped. Do not pulse the mushrooms too far or they will turn into a paste.
Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the shallots and sauté just until they are translucent, about 5 minutes.
Add the chopped mushrooms, thyme and salt and pepper, and continue to sauté the mushroom mixture until most of the liquid is evaporated and the mushrooms are dry, about 10 minutes.
Add the Madeira wine and continue to sauté until the wine is evaporated into the mushrooms, about 3 minutes.
Remove the mushroom duxelle from the sauté pan and reserve it to use on the rack of lamb.
Note: the mushroom duxelle will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to three weeks. It can be used to flavor soups, stocks or sauces.

Madeira Wine Sauce
lamb bones from rack
2 tbsp. butter
¼ cup flour
1 cup beef stock
1 cup Madeira wine
¼ cup mushroom duxelle
½ cup veal demi-glace
Heat the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Slowly whisk in the flour with a wire whisk.
Let the flour cook with the butter just until it starts to darken and turn golden, about 5 minutes.
Slowly add the beef stock to the flour mixture while constantly stirring with the wire whisk. The sauce will bubble and thicken. Add bones.
Whisk in the Madeira and mushroom duxelle and continue to cook and whisk the sauce until it thickens and reduces, about 5 more minutes.
Strain the stock through a fine mesh sieve into another saucepan over medium heat.
Whisk in the veal demi-glace and reduce the heat to medium-low. The sauce will continue to cook down and thicken. It should be a syrupy consistency.
Keep the sauce warm over low heat until ready to serve.

Lamb
1-8 rib rack of lamb, deboned.
Salt and fresh ground black pepper
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 cup baby spinach leaves
1 cup mushroom duxelle
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
1 whole egg
1 tbsp. water
Heat the oven to 450º.
Pull the “fat cap” off the top of the lamb and discard. Then trim of all excess fat and any silver skin covering the meat.
Season with salt and fresh ground black pepper.
Heat the olive oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Place lamb in the heated skillet and sear the meat just until it starts to turn brown, about 3 minutes. Turn over and sear the second side for another 3 minutes.
Remove from the skillet and place it on a carving board to cool.
When the lamb is cool enough to handle, place a single layer of baby spinach leaves on top overlapping the leaves so that the entire surface is covered in spinach.
Gently pat the mushroom duxelle on top of the spinach leaves, so that the surface of the lamb is covered with a ¼” thick layer of the mushroom duxelle. Be careful not to let the spinach leaves fall off.
Gently place the thawed sheet of puff pastry on top of the mushroom duxelle and then carefully pat the pastry down so that it covers the entire lamb and wraps around each end. Pinch all seams tight.
Place the lamb on a wire rack placed over a cookie sheet.
Beat the egg and tablespoon of water in a small bowl. Brush the egg mixture over the top of the puff pastry.
Roast the lamb for about 15 minutes, just until the pastry is puffed up and golden. The lamb will be rare at this point.
Remove from the oven and let it cool on the wire rack for 5 minutes.
Using a serrated bread knife, carefully slice through cutting it into double chops.
Serve with some of the Madeira wine sauce

hold the cranberries......

That sounds pretty good to me, I'll have to give that one a try.

sometimes when we make this, it is a toss up as to where most of the bourbon goes .... the cranberries or the cook.

Where the bourbon goes, the cook soon follows!?

That's why dinner rarely gets finished!

Made this last year, from the Nov 07 Saveur magazine. It came out great. It is a fairly light cake, which was good after a big holiday meal. Same idea as buche de noel, which I may do this year for Christmas.

Pumpkin Roll cake

4 Tbsp plus 1 tsp butter, softened
¾ cup plus 1 tbsp flour
2 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
pinch salt
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup canned pumpkin
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 cup roughly chopped pecans
1 ¼ cup powdered sugar
6 oz. Cream cheese, softened
1 tsp vanilla
 
Heat oven to 375F

Grease a 10” x 15” jelly roll pan with 1 tsp butter and dust with 1 tbsp flour; tap pan to remove excess flour; set aside. Sift remaining flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt into a bowl and set aside. Beat eggs in a bowl with an electric mixer until fluffy and tripled in size, 4 to 5 minutes. Add sugar in 3 parts, beating after each addition; beat until thickened and creamy, about 2 to 3 minutes more. Stir in pumpkin and lemon juice; gently fold in flour mixture. Pour batter into prepared pan, spread out to the edges, and sprinkle pecans over the top.

Bake until cooked through, about 15 minutes. Sprinkle a kitchen towel with ¼ cup powdered sugar. Working quickly, loosen the edges of the still-warm cake and turn out onto the towel; roll up snugly like a jelly roll. Set aside, seam side down, to cool, about an hour.

Meanwhile, beat together remaining butter and powdered sugar, cream cheese, and vanilla in a bowl with the mixer to make a smooth filling. Carefully unroll the cake and spread with filling. Gently reroll and transfer to a platter, seam side down.

Hey Bryan,

I made something very similar for Thanksgiving. It wasn't the Saveur recipe, but darn close. Quite tasty and, as you say, fairly light; just the kind of dessert called for after a big meal.

I don't have specific measurements, sorry. But I make a salad of romaine, feta, and pomegranate kernels (looks very Christmas-ish). The dressing is made with pomegranate juice, olive oil, Dijon, and herbs. I add white wine vinegar and salt to taste.

The Pinot Noir sauce sounds great! Would you please post the recipe?

Drew