"Who does Christmas dinner this year?" I asked. It is a tasteless interrogate in my family. We take turns hosting the dinner and, while there are some tasteless foods, the menus are different. My sister and brother-in-law all the time serve turkey. I make roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, which is nothing else but a giant popover.
Our house dinner is all the time a celebration, a blend of fun, foods, and generations. house members help out by bringing appetizers, beverages, and desserts. But this year, one field of the house is getting ready to move, so they will not be here. Though Christmas is close, I do not know how many are coming.
What should I fix?
One selection is a dissimilarity of the customary meal. I looked on the Martha Stewart website for menu ideas. It has a menu for rib roast with roasted potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. Good as this may be, it is too much starch and fat for us.
The Food Network website has a menu for a customary English lunch: roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, and plum pudding for dessert. I used to serve plum pudding with rum sauce, but house members did not like it. The plum pudding was too rich for them.
Another selection is to put in order something new. After searching dozens of websites I found a method for roast pork stuffed with dried cherries. "This would be nice for Christmas dinner," I commented to my husband.
"I don't want to break with tradition," he replied. Oh dear. What could I serve?
An ethnic meal is an additional one option. I could serve fish like the Spanish do, or even a Mexican meal. I won't. My grandchildren won't eat fish and my granddaughter does not like Mexican seasoning. Still, our holiday dinner had to be special.
According to the Holiday Cook website, "Tradition is one of the great things about Christmas. Yet traditions must come from somewhere." My grandmother and grandfather came from Sheffield, England. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding comes from this side of the family.
The British have other customary dinners. The Holiday Cook website has posted a Scrooge dinner menu for those who love Charles Dickens' story, "A Christmas Carol." The menu includes stuffed goose with gravy, creamed onions, and baked asparagus. This menu would not work for my house either.
This brought me to my fourth option, a healthier version of our customary dinner. We could enjoy the same foods without all of the fat and salt. I came up with this menu: roast beef (trimmed of extra fat), horseradish cream (fat free sour cream flavored with horseradish), wild rice with dried cranberries and caramelized onions, butter lettuce salad with tangerine segments, avocado and homemade dressing, and fat-free, sugar-free vanilla ice cream with sugar-free chocolate sauce, garnished with crushed peppermint candy.
This menu honors our house tradition and, just as important, our goal of eating healthier. Your celebration dinner can do the same. Collect information, make out some menus, and select the one that works for you.
Copyright 2009 by Harriet Hodgson
Your Holiday dinner Can Blend Tradition and cusine
