Four Days Until Christmas

 It's December 21 and things are hopping around here.  Cards are out, most of the presents are wrapped (but not all... I'm still working on that), I hope to start cookies today, all the food is purchased for Christmas Eve and Christmas day, and all recipes are ready and accounted for.  I'd say I feel organized, but that would be a lie. Does anyone ever feel organized this close to Christmas?  If you do, God Bless You.

I've been stock piling food for Christmas for a few weeks now.  I bought anything that is frozen (fish) a few weeks ago.  I ordered the large gluten free pasta shells from Amazon around Thanksgiving (for stuffed shells Christmas Eve), I picked up most of the fresh items this past week.  Except for fruit, I think I'm all set.

The hardest thing to find this year was the baccala.  Our grocery stores didn't have it.  By chance, I happened to see on Instagram that a local Italian grocery store had some in stock.  I called on Thursday to order some, and I planned to pick it up on Friday in between some doctor appointments that we had.  I picked it up at 11:30 on Friday, along with some cheese, chocolate, and a bottle of wine for Christmas.  The place was PACKED.  Apparently they do a phenomenal take out business at lunch.  It smelled heavenly in there.  I will be back after the holidays to try some take out.  I got home and started unloading my groceries and there was no fish.  WHERE WAS THE FISH??  Apparently my items went in two bags, not one and the place was so chaotic that I didn't notice.  I called and they still had my fish.  So back I drove 20 minutes to the store get the fish for a second time.  A little old Italian lady rang up my groceries and she remembered me when I came in.  She shook her head at me, so I said "And here I thought I was being organized".  Her response was "You need to slow down, honey".  She's probably right.  (Aren't old Italian ladies always right?)


Menu:

Christmas Eve

Fish on Christmas Eve is my husbands tradition, and I don't really eat fish so I buy it and he fries it.  There's only 4 people eating fish so we do a scaled down version of the "Feast of the Seven Fishes". We have smelts, calamari, and baccala in the fryer. We also have shrimp for shrimp cocktail.  Since I don't eat fish, I usually make a pasta dish too.  The last few years it's been lasagna, but this year I thought I'd make cheese stuffed shells.  Then we usually have several different cheeses to go with it. Christmas Eve is one of my favorite celebrations of the year.  I enjoy it even more the Christmas Day.  There's just something so magical about Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day

1.  Breakfast - The last several years I've done lox and bagels for Christmas morning breakfast.  The boys love their smoked salmon.  I stick with the bagels only.  This year I've decided to add in a this slow cooker copy cat Cracker Barrel hash brown recipe .  I'm doing au gratin potatoes with dinner, so this may be too many cheesy potatoes for one day so I'm still rolling it around in my mind.  I would love to do an egg casserole, but J is allergic to eggs (wheat, rye, barley, oat, eggs, peanuts, and tree nuts) so that is out.  

Speaking of allergies, I have a hard time finding bagels for him so I tried this bagel recipe from Skinny Taste yesterday and it came out great!  He really liked them.  My technique could use some work, but I'm just glad to be able to make bagels for him. Instead of the egg whites, I substituted Ener-G egg replacer and I used King Arthur Gluten Free Measure for Measure Flour. 

2. Dinner - Usually we have ham for Christmas, but due to Covid, my husbands company didn't have a Christmas party this year, so they are giving everyone a standing rib roast.  I have never made a standing rib roast before, so this should be interesting.  My plan is to have the rib roast, au gratin potatoes, green beans, left over fish/shells from the night before.  I'm not a big beef eater, but I'm willing to try it.  Fingers crossed that I can cook it without over cooking it.  
recipes to use:

Standing Rib Roast from Recipe Tin Eats

I've made au gratin potatoes for so many years that I don't really use a recipe, but this recipe from Tastes Better From Scratch is close to what I do.

Southern Style Green Beans from Spicy Southern Kitchen

So this is it.  These are the plans but I know that plans don't always come off without a hitch so I'm prepared to be flexible.  

I hope you are all coming along with your holiday plans and that they come off without a hitch!