12/20-12/26 Weekly Menu
20. Dec, 2009 
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I’m not sure how it can possibly be time to menu plan again. Didn’t we just do this? I ended up cooking an extra day last week, because I had planned for leftovers but we didn’t have any. I hate it when that happens. I wouldn’t have minded so much if we had eaten the leftovers but we had to throw out an entire pot of pasta because the shrimp we got was mushy and it just ruined the entire meal, which would have otherwise been fantastic. Bleh.
So this week is Christmas week, which for some people means more cooking but for me means less. Yay! I don’t usually cook on either Christmas Eve or Christmas, because, well, I don’t want to. I am tossing around the idea of cooking on Christmas, but it wouldn’t be anything fancy, just ham. So here we go:
Sunday: Seafood lasagna (this is one of the few meals I’ve been repeating in my my menus about once a month. I find I haven’t been repeating a lot. Variety is one of the benefits of meal planning!)
Monday: Fire roasted tomato soup and BLTs (the BLT part is Josh’s request, even though he just had them last week).
Tuesday: Oven-baked pork chops, fried potatoes and green beans.
Wednesday: Chicken Alfredo (I was supposed to make this last week, but ended up substituting something else for some reason).
Thursday (Christmas Eve):Dinner out at Famous Dave’s, then off to see the lights and live nativity
Friday (Christmas): Brunch out (maybe ham in, maybe appetizers? we’ll see)
Saturday (Brianna leaves for a week!): No cooking because we’re taking B to my in-laws for a week. Child-free alert!
So let me live vicariously, what are you making this week and/or for Christmas? I also thought of doing appetizers on Christmas, so we had something to graze on all day, but I don’t know what I’d make. Suggestions?
Author Info
This year will be a bit of a challenge. My sister’s 50th is on 12/27, but is to be celebrated on Xmas night as she leaves for a trip the morning after. Now there isn’t enough room for the baby Jesus and my sister. (I’m sure Jesus would naturally share, but not Eve.) So, Xmas morning – chocolate chip pancakes – will be when we see if we’ve been naughty or nice. Then quick as lightening, every Xmas ornament, wreath, anything green and red, lights, EVERYTHING needs to come down and be put away. That night, Eve’s standard birthday dinner – mashed potatoes (russet, I prefer yukon gold), spare ribs w/aso sauce, le sur peas, shoe peg corn and pepperidge farm croissant, eclairs for dessert. God forbid someone wraps a birthday gift in Xmas paper. It will not be pretty.
Appetizers are my total favorite!
I love sweet and sour meatballs, salmon mousse, I have a festive cheese ball shaped in the form of a pine cone recipe I use, and homemade pimento cheese on bread rounds.
I go to Mama’s for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Our Christmas Eve tradition is homemade soup and homemade bread. The soup varies from year to year. On Christmas Day I am always asked to bring my Cabbage Casserole and I usually bring Green Bean Bundles.
It’s just us 3 on Xmas day, but we still do a fairly big meal. Not entirely sure what we’ll be having, but something like
Roast Lamb with mint sauce (might be a pork roast this year)
Baby peas
Roasted potatoes (or maybe baby potatoes boiled with mint)
Fresh bread
Gravy of course!
Desserts are where we really spoil ourselves (and yes it’s overkill, but it’s our taste of home day):
Pavlova (I’ve gotten pretty good at making big fluffy ones)
Trifle (which reminds me I better go buy some Sherry)
Chocolate log
And Boxing Day morning breakfast is always left over Xmas day desserts. Mmmmm
Not sure when I’ll fit all the cooking in but this is the plan (to this point):
Ham, roasted chickens (two, because the Hubster seems to think one will not be enough!), Rice-and-peas (very traditionally Jamaican, and I’m likely to be run out of town on a rail if I don’t make it), broccoli (with cheese sauce if I don’t bake a macaroni and cheese), mashed potatoes made with both white and sweet, and corn. Lots of gravy. L.O.T.S.
Dessert is Jamaican “Plum pudding” (why is is called that, when there are no plums in it, per se?) and, because the Hubster’s birthday is the 27th, I’ll bake him a pineapple upside-down cake.
I always think there’ll be lots of leftovers and, because of the two sons, am always sorely disappointed.
Ann – In NZ we have ‘Plum Duff’ which I think will be a similar thing as your plum pudding – lots of fruit, waterbath/steam cooked?
We just finished finalizing our Christmas Day menu:
Appetizers: pepperoni, cheese & crackers
Entree: Cheeseburgers
Side: Chips
Dessert: M&Ms and Kisses from our stockings
My family does only apps and dessert for our Christmas get-together. I’m making the all time favorite pigs in a blanket, but we do a twist on them, and melt butter and brown sugar and pour that on the bottom of the pyrex, and then add chopped nuts (usually walnuts) and then put the pigs on top. Bake as usual. I’ve literally never, ever had to throw even one of these away, they go like nobody’s business!
AnneD
Only just had a chance to look up the Plum Duff recipe on-line, and there are some marked similarities. A lot of our traditional foods have their roots in British dishes, but adapted to the tropics. Back in the 18th and 19th centuries it took too long for things like fruit to be brought to the Islands, and they would have spoiled on the way. So it makes sense that the plums etc. would be replaced with dried fruit. I think you hit the nail on the head!