As I may have said before, we don’t have Christmas Dinner on Christmas Day itself: Christmas Day is devoted to a Full English Breakfast with the kids (this was ours yesterday; bangers, beans, back bacon, mushrooms. eggs and tomato all fried in boerewors drippings and hash browns, also — not pictured — French bread toast, and cinnamon rolls made by Daughter)
I should point out that this was my plate: the others had portions essentially double that of mine, because I can’t take that much because of gastric surgery. I made up for it by drinking more Mimosas than everyone else.
We save the roast beef dinner till the day after Christmas: Boxing Day (a Du Toit family tradition):
I cook the roast, New Wife does the potatoes, parsnips, asparagus and other veg., and Daughter makes the Yorkshire pud. Dessert is generally peach cobbler and / or fruit cake with icing, but this year there’s a Yule Log like this one, compliments of Daughter.
Mostly because nobody in our family can handle a Full English and Roast Beast on a single day, we’ve turned Christmas Day into a two-day family affair. In American terms, it’s like having two Thanksgiving meals in a row.
We like it that way.
Our Christmas Day,
How lucky can I be, my beautiful wife and I started out yesterday morning with older kids who live close to us who had us over for an incredible fresh baked coffee cake with hot sauce and pecans poured over, frittata with bacon, coffee and champagne then we received a few presents which included for me a fine limited edition bourbon and a single cask rye limited. A very good morning.
Later in the day we returned for an evening meal with smoked short ribs, that had spent the day slow cooking, three nice crispy ducks and my own contribution of a dozen and a half of large shrimp which I bought at the Texas gulf a couple of days ago, cooked with heads-on and served with a ripping good horse radish red sauce. All served with great veggies and nice wines and then a great pice of cake with a hot butter scotch sauce poured over to eat with fresh coffee.
And I must say, a good time was had by all.
Happy Boxing Day.
On Christmas Day we enjoyed Jones Dairy Farm scrapple, fried to crispy, with fried eggs and bacon, then for dinner sous vide filet mignon with sautéed onions and mushrooms, baked potatoes with sour cream and Kerrygold butter, and creme brûlée’s for dessert.
Today (we don’t really celebrate boxing day) we had a normal breakfast; two eggs sunny side up with breakfast sausages, and Delmonico steaks for dinner, sous vide with the remainder of the mushrooms and onions, buttery corn stripped from freshly cooked cobs, and petits fours for dessert. The cast iron got a workout on two days of steaks.
One more special meal day to come; snacks (chicken wings, deviled eggs) for New Years Eve, then a nice roast for New Years Day. Just the two of us again.
Then its back to the gray sameness of January with whatever we can throw together quickly during weeks of 50-60 hours work…
In a year or two we may be retired and able to travel and do a Thanksgiving or Christmas with family again; looking forward to that, a lot.
Man, I haven’t had scrapple since I was a kid more than half a century ago in mid-central PA. Don’t really even remember eating it. Looked it up and when fried in the pan looks much like sliced and fried spam which we eat regularly. Now I’m going to put in some effort to getting scrapple but I don’t recall ever seeing it in the grocery stores. But then, having forgotten about it, I was looing either. Is it a frozen food? How is it packaged?
My wife grew up in Philadelphia and got me hooked on scrapple. I spent the days of my callow youth in northern Jersey and scrapple really wasn’t a thing there. When we go back east we load up on 10-20 pounds and bring it back home in a cooler.
I know that there are companies who will ship scrapple and Taylor pork roll packed in dry ice. Don’t recall the names of any of the stores, but I’m sure a minute on Google will get that info. You can also find Tasty cakes on the internet but since the trans fat thing they just don’t taste the same.
Scrapple was never a problem in Las Vegas where I grew up but here in illannoy its hard to find. A couple of stores have carried our preferred brand through the years but only briefly.
You can get canned scrapple from a few places but it just isn’t the same.
We ordered a case of these:
https://www.jonesdairyfarm.com/products/specialty/scrapple
a couple of years ago; keeps just fine in the deep freeze, and its time to get more. Product locator says there’s a store carrying it nearby now so time to go shopping! Check the locator for your area, maybe get lucky.
All those meals sound wonderful, how nice to be able to do such things! We had our family Christmas the 26th due to logistical constraints and it was wonderful. We had a prime tenderloin that you could cut with a fork, sweet potato casserole, baked potatoes and vegetables. A wonderful meal with family.
You need to add Texas Tamales as a traditional Christmas Eve treat. We always have tamales on Christmas Eve, with chili sause, chili con queso, pinto beans, and lots of drinks. Make it a 3 day affair!
Kim,
What cut of Beef did you over-cook for your Boxing Day feast? Just asking for a friend.
Dan Kurt
I came here to post something similar. Bottom-round, perhaps? My wife makes one of those for Saturday night supper in the cold weather months–I make steaks on the grill outside when it’s warm–and she takes it out of the oven at 120°F, lets it rest for about 10 minutes and it’s a perfect mid-rare. She slathers the meat with Marmite which helps build a magnificent crust. Herbs may or may not be present, and if not, kosher salt and cracked black pepper and it’s a thing of beauty.
I prepared two: a ribeye roast and prime rib roast.
And yeah, I overcooked them. Story to follow.
Kim,
A *good* meat thermometer is your friend …
I’m doing a rib roast for New Years … it comes out of the oven at an internal temp of about 125 Fahrenheit … perfectly rare every time. Couldn’t do it without the thermo ..
Oh .. Christmas eve I ordered take-out Chinese … beef & broccoli for My Better Half, kung pao shrimp for me.
– Happy Cooking !!
The Mrs and I don’t have a set menu for Christmas – this year it was a home-cured ham, potatoes and squash au gratin.
However, New Years must always, always ALWAYS have Hoppin’ John. The real stuff, not the mush made with black-eyed peas. And greens, collard if you can get them, but really any greens will do if you don’t live down South. The clock strikes 12, you break out the Hoppin’ John, chow down, and then add a few belts of whatever you like to wash it down.
I did my best immitation of Monty Python’s Mister Creosote on Christmas Day. Double my usually large portion of bacon, scrambled eggs, and six pancakes, drowned in butter and dark amber maple syrup. Filled in the corners throughout the day with the freshly-baked shortbread cookies and gingerbread, a big bowl of popcorn (popped in coconut oil, and topped with butter and salt, naturally) while I watched something I dare not admit to watching here, then, because it’s just the two of us, we made a big dent in a turkey breast, roast carrots, and mashed potatoes. Wife added stuffing and cranberry sauce, complete with can marks. More gingerbread for afters and a wee dram of 25 Year Old Talisker, which had been a Christmas present from my wife about 15 years ago.
And finally, monsieur, a wafer-thin mint.
We too have our Christmas feast on Christmas Eve. This leaves space for a Christmas breakfast and a second Christmas feast on Christmas Day.
I was self-isolating until today so I was alone. I made myself steak with Bearnaise sauce. Nom.