We’re greatfully having a wild turkey, potato’s from the garden, and the other fixings like carrots and butternut squash. Our family is all looking forward to the turkey for sure this year!
Tea will be tender spruce needles :-)
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and Merry Christmas to you and yours.
I’m Australian and we have our Christmas in summer, but I live in the U.K. where tradition is everything. I’m learning a lot! One thing I’ve always wondered about is fruit mince - fruit mince pies are very popular, and now
I think about it the summer fruit was preserved in brandy and baked up in pastry. I’m England it was probably imported from France or
I think you're right, and they'd have been made from dried fruit or alcohol preserved fruit. Or, citrus fruit from Spain and North Africa, if you're wealthy enough.
It is a different world when your Christmas happens in summer, or in my case growing up, a place that doesn't really get winter. I grew up in the Mojave in California, and we'd BBQ in tank tops and flip flops for new years. It was almost always 80 degrees on Christmas day, with plenty of tropical fruit.
Over the last 10 years, we have changed our traditions extensively. This year, we are making a Mexican dinner with Carnitas,
Spanish Rice, homemade guacamole, tortillas, pot of beans, cornbread…We are all trying something new from scratch. We are pretty excited. There’s only 5 of us but I heard this older lady say she would be alone. So even though I do not even know her, I can find her number and invite her to our non traditional Christmas dinner. Merry Christmas everyone! From sunny & COLD (65 f) Phoenix AZ!!
Nice! Over the years we've had all manner of different feasts, and I've gotta say, my favorite was our Indian curry feast with fresh Naan, Korma and even handmade samosa! A Mexican dinner sounds amazing!
(Half my family is from Argentina, so we'd always have Empanandas and Rompope at Christmas dinner growing up, along with turkey and mashed potatoes, so that sounds just right to me!)
My mother always made a tourtiere. (French Canadian meat pie) to have on Christmas eve. Now i make one. Rib roast for Christmas dinner and mince meat pie for dessert. With the cost of beef this year I will probably cook a venison or bear roast
My husband's mother is French Canadian, and he always talks about her tourtiere...but somehow I've yet to make it. We have something like 100 lbs of ground beef in the freezer right now...so I think it's finally time I make it. Thanks for the reminder, it's always sounds so darn good. Enjoy your venison or bear roast, last I looked a plain jane roast was selling for about $25 per pound here...and steak for $46...so wild meat is the way to go! (Or, in our case...absurd quantities of ground beef.)
It's typically made with ground pork but beef should work
this recipe says it's for 2 pies but i make one pie with this filling. I hate thin pies
A traditional French-Canadian holiday meat pie, delicately spiced and seasoned. Serve with a sauce on the side.
• 2 to 3 medium potatoes, boiled and mashed
• 1-1/2 pounds ground pork
• 1/2 pound ground beef
• 2 medium onions, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon sage
• 1/8 teaspoon allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3/4 cup water
Combine ingredients, and brown in large skillet. Do not overcook. Drain fat. Make upper and lower crusts for 2 pies. Fill bottom crust with meat filling, cover with top crust, and bake at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes; then reduce heat to 350 degrees F and bake 40 minutes more. Makes enough filling for 2 pies.
OK that sounds seriously delicious and I've saved the recipe to try it! Thanks, Rob!
------On edit months later, probably no one will see this, but I made a tourtiere a few weeks ago, following your recipe with only these two minor changes, I had no allspice so just substituted a little extra nutmeg, and I added a few cloves of thinly sliced garlic to the chopped onions. I used one pound of ground pork and another pound of ground elk, and I cooked it as a deep dish pie in a large round casserole dish. It fed me for the better part of a week and it was in some dimension far beyond delicious! This was the first tourtiere I've ever made, but it most definitely won't be my last! Thanks ago for sharing your mother's amazing recipe!
Your cranberry orange bread is amazing, I just wish I could get the kids to eat anything cranberry. I'd make it...but then I'd eat the whole thing myself. Not that bad an idea...but still.
I'm enjoying the distinctive (!) fragrance of a huge pot of freshly picked collards on the stove, just like my mom and grandma and great grandma would have done. Christmas in Florida wouldn't be complete without collards. (And Verzada, Spanish collard greens soup, on New Year's Day...but that's another story.)
Yum! I worked at a BBQ restaurant in college, and learned how to cook collards there. I'd never had them before, but they're amazing! I'll have to look into Verzada, thank you!
The wind was howling and I had one tree come down in the back, but it missed hitting anything, so for that, I'm grateful. I have a couple of rocking chairs on the front porch that I always lay on their sides when we're expected to get high winds. I remembered at around midnight, but it was worth getting up and taking care of it. It was still so warm out, so that was fine. It would be a real bummer to have those chairs rock back and crash through the windows, especially with the cold we're having now.
My brother lives in Waterbury. I don't know if he has power, but he does have a wood stove, so that's doable. It might make for a "rustic" Christmas dinner, but that's no big deal. I'm thinking I might get some battery backup for my solar, 'cause I don't have a wood stove; I have a propane stove on which I lit the pilot light in preparation, but for some reason, when I turn the thermostat up, it won't come on.
Fortunately, I have electricity, which runs the geothermal heat, but I just went to the Hannaford's in Middlebury and they don't. Anything that would be in the coolers, they had to move into trucks out back. I was shocked that I had electricity and they didn't. Tough timing. Anyway, wishing you and yours a very merry Christmas!
About half my county is still out of power, four days in. We got ours back early Christmas morning, so only a few days off for us....but we have battery backup and a generator, plus heat that doesn't require power...so it's less of a big deal for us. I can't imagine how all the electric heat people are doing right now. The elementary school is setup as a 24 hour warming shelter, but I bet a lot of people are cold and have frozen pipes.
Ham. Wife is trying an Italian glaze recipe she found. Uses white and Marsala wines. Looking back, I guess ham has been on my table most years at Christmas. I can't say I have too many family traditions, though I wish that I did! Merry Christmas, everyone.
I absolutely love ham dinner! Growing up, that was what we'd have when my parents had a good year and were feeling flush. Not that it costs anything more than turkey really, so I don't know why it was only for the specialist of special holiday years...but that's the way I remember it.
This past summer when my parent's visited, we bought a spiral sliced ham to celebrate. I guess it's still our specialist of the special occasions food =)
As a child Christmas dinners were a roasted turkey from a nearby farm, stuffed with my grandmother's homemade bread stuffing chocked full of chopped onions, celery, and giblets, mashed potatoes, winter squash and a green (frozen) vegie swimming in butter, and (canned) cranberry sauce all washed down with a big glass of whole milk.
For New Year's we had a game dinner every year. My Grandpa was an avid hunter and he stocked the freezer every fall with ducks, squirrel, rabbits, and of course venison, and my Grandma cooked them up, mostly in the oven. Those game dinners were wonderful and I'm very glad my late husband got to experience one of them before my grandparents got too old to continue the tradition.
For my own holiday dinners, I cook pasture-raised chicken and turkey parts from various local sources and/or from Northstar Bison in Wisconsin, giblet dressing made with organic bread in my grandmother's tradition, and organic vegies and cranberry sauce. I make a vast quantity, enough to eat for the week of xmas, and enough to freeze for the week of New Years.
I grow very little produce these days. Years ago we had a big garden and used to have a freezer full of home grown vegetables. Now (in my old age) I just patronize growers of organic produce and humanely raised livestock.
I should add, last year and this year I have been buying mead from Groennfell & Havoc, both owned by Vermont women. I love this honey wine, and would not have known about it, but for your blog, Ashley. Mead was just an alcoholic drink read about in old books to me, but you made a convert of me. I especially like the varieties made with cranberries or sour cherries, as these bitter fruits sort of ameliorate the sweetness of the honey. Mead is a perfect accompaniment to the meat & potato stick-to-your-ribs cold weather holiday feed.
I keep seeing references to Groennfell & Havoc meaderies, but haven't yet tried anything they've made. I am happy there are local meaderies here in VT though. One of my favorites was Artesano in Groton, which my husband and I happened by on a road trip one summer nearly a decade ago. It was literally the week they were opening, and we were so excited when we walked in that the owner took up on a whole tour of his setup...we were literally their first customers, such nice people. It's been years since I've seen their stuff, which makes me sad, it was some of the best mead I've ever tasted anywhere.
If you see a bottle somewhere, definitely try it. They seem to still be open...at least according to the internet, but I have no idea where their products are sold at this point.
Your game dinner sounds amazing! We don't have any specific new years traditions, and it always seems like we're flailing around trying to start one...this year, we're going to make a Chinese feast (dumplings, Chinese takeout style food like General Tsos, etc). The kids are excited about this one, at least about making homemade fortune cookies anyway, so maybe this one will stick. Time will tell.
All the same wishes to you and yours, Ashley. If you care to share the recipe for homemade fortune cookies, I'd be thrilled to try it! If I run across Artesano products, I'll definitely try some of their mead. I ordered mead from Groennfell & Havoc that first year, then was delighted to find that the beer and liquor store where I return my empty bottles also carries their mead. That makes a trip thru the bottle redemption place less like a chore and more like something to look forward to!
The barrel was a gift but I know it is from Kenmore NY, not sure if they ship but seems likely. My son had the barrel charred so I had to buy whiskey for the initiation. You can't put fresh beer in a newly charred barrel or you ruin the beer. The barreled fig wine is fantastic! There are a few bottles left in the cellar and I brought one up. The extra year made it even better!
Yeah, I do so appreciate your compassion! Thank you for letting me whine! I called yesterday, and they said that they would pay up to $200 to have someone (a random "handyman" who they would call) come fix it for me and for the supplies needed. They have since rectified the problem, but, I, too, wish that they would send me a new one and then I could send this one back in the box. Then again, I can't move the thing by myself. I'm maybe mustering up the courage to do it. The lady I spoke with yesterday said that I could poke off the foam encircling the wires while the unit was off, but after that, I would need to have the unit on while caulking so that the machine would suck it into the void...never a dull moment; what I wouldn't give for a few!
Oh no worries! If that had happened to me, I'd be mad. I'm lucky enough to have an electrically savvy husband who could fix it quick...so no need to hire a handyman, but it still wouldn't be confidence inspiring, especially for something that costs so darn much. I hope you do enjoy it once it's up and running, and sorry you're going through that.
(Yes, never a dull moment...and I'd give quite a bit for a few here too. Right now the whole state is out of power, and literally every single house in my town...and they're saying it'll be off for everyone for at least a week, with another big storm in the forecast too. Grateful for my generator and solar panels right now, but still, not dull around here right now!)
Hi Ashley! Thanks for sharing....I love your roast goose....at my home, with my family, I serve roast lamb...we have a lots of these critters here in Oz....and home grown potatoes, peas, carrots and other veges....with gravy of course...I wanted to wish you and your wonderful family a truly delightful and fun Christmastime and a fabulous 2023! Many hugs, thanks so much, Barbara from south of Sydney xoxoxo
Merry Christmas from the burbs of
Chicago.. the roast goose looks AMAZING. My mouth watered😋. I can just imagine what your kitchen must smell like Ashley...
Thanks Kevin!
We’re greatfully having a wild turkey, potato’s from the garden, and the other fixings like carrots and butternut squash. Our family is all looking forward to the turkey for sure this year!
Tea will be tender spruce needles :-)
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Mmmmm! I absolutely love spruce needle tea, that sounds amazing.
thank you for the memories of many Christmas past of food
You are quite welcome!
This is such a good talking point!
I’m Australian and we have our Christmas in summer, but I live in the U.K. where tradition is everything. I’m learning a lot! One thing I’ve always wondered about is fruit mince - fruit mince pies are very popular, and now
I think about it the summer fruit was preserved in brandy and baked up in pastry. I’m England it was probably imported from France or
Spain, those fruits don’t grow in the U.K.
and you would have had
To have been wealthy to afford it.
I think you're right, and they'd have been made from dried fruit or alcohol preserved fruit. Or, citrus fruit from Spain and North Africa, if you're wealthy enough.
It is a different world when your Christmas happens in summer, or in my case growing up, a place that doesn't really get winter. I grew up in the Mojave in California, and we'd BBQ in tank tops and flip flops for new years. It was almost always 80 degrees on Christmas day, with plenty of tropical fruit.
Over the last 10 years, we have changed our traditions extensively. This year, we are making a Mexican dinner with Carnitas,
Spanish Rice, homemade guacamole, tortillas, pot of beans, cornbread…We are all trying something new from scratch. We are pretty excited. There’s only 5 of us but I heard this older lady say she would be alone. So even though I do not even know her, I can find her number and invite her to our non traditional Christmas dinner. Merry Christmas everyone! From sunny & COLD (65 f) Phoenix AZ!!
Nice! Over the years we've had all manner of different feasts, and I've gotta say, my favorite was our Indian curry feast with fresh Naan, Korma and even handmade samosa! A Mexican dinner sounds amazing!
(Half my family is from Argentina, so we'd always have Empanandas and Rompope at Christmas dinner growing up, along with turkey and mashed potatoes, so that sounds just right to me!)
My mother always made a tourtiere. (French Canadian meat pie) to have on Christmas eve. Now i make one. Rib roast for Christmas dinner and mince meat pie for dessert. With the cost of beef this year I will probably cook a venison or bear roast
My husband's mother is French Canadian, and he always talks about her tourtiere...but somehow I've yet to make it. We have something like 100 lbs of ground beef in the freezer right now...so I think it's finally time I make it. Thanks for the reminder, it's always sounds so darn good. Enjoy your venison or bear roast, last I looked a plain jane roast was selling for about $25 per pound here...and steak for $46...so wild meat is the way to go! (Or, in our case...absurd quantities of ground beef.)
It's typically made with ground pork but beef should work
this recipe says it's for 2 pies but i make one pie with this filling. I hate thin pies
A traditional French-Canadian holiday meat pie, delicately spiced and seasoned. Serve with a sauce on the side.
• 2 to 3 medium potatoes, boiled and mashed
• 1-1/2 pounds ground pork
• 1/2 pound ground beef
• 2 medium onions, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon sage
• 1/8 teaspoon allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3/4 cup water
Combine ingredients, and brown in large skillet. Do not overcook. Drain fat. Make upper and lower crusts for 2 pies. Fill bottom crust with meat filling, cover with top crust, and bake at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes; then reduce heat to 350 degrees F and bake 40 minutes more. Makes enough filling for 2 pies.
OK that sounds seriously delicious and I've saved the recipe to try it! Thanks, Rob!
------On edit months later, probably no one will see this, but I made a tourtiere a few weeks ago, following your recipe with only these two minor changes, I had no allspice so just substituted a little extra nutmeg, and I added a few cloves of thinly sliced garlic to the chopped onions. I used one pound of ground pork and another pound of ground elk, and I cooked it as a deep dish pie in a large round casserole dish. It fed me for the better part of a week and it was in some dimension far beyond delicious! This was the first tourtiere I've ever made, but it most definitely won't be my last! Thanks ago for sharing your mother's amazing recipe!
Oh thatbsounds heavenly!
Cranberry Orange Bread has become the tradition for me to give out at Christmas. I do miss Omma's mohnstrudle though. Merry Christmas!
Your cranberry orange bread is amazing, I just wish I could get the kids to eat anything cranberry. I'd make it...but then I'd eat the whole thing myself. Not that bad an idea...but still.
I'm enjoying the distinctive (!) fragrance of a huge pot of freshly picked collards on the stove, just like my mom and grandma and great grandma would have done. Christmas in Florida wouldn't be complete without collards. (And Verzada, Spanish collard greens soup, on New Year's Day...but that's another story.)
Yum! I worked at a BBQ restaurant in college, and learned how to cook collards there. I'd never had them before, but they're amazing! I'll have to look into Verzada, thank you!
The wind was howling and I had one tree come down in the back, but it missed hitting anything, so for that, I'm grateful. I have a couple of rocking chairs on the front porch that I always lay on their sides when we're expected to get high winds. I remembered at around midnight, but it was worth getting up and taking care of it. It was still so warm out, so that was fine. It would be a real bummer to have those chairs rock back and crash through the windows, especially with the cold we're having now.
My brother lives in Waterbury. I don't know if he has power, but he does have a wood stove, so that's doable. It might make for a "rustic" Christmas dinner, but that's no big deal. I'm thinking I might get some battery backup for my solar, 'cause I don't have a wood stove; I have a propane stove on which I lit the pilot light in preparation, but for some reason, when I turn the thermostat up, it won't come on.
Fortunately, I have electricity, which runs the geothermal heat, but I just went to the Hannaford's in Middlebury and they don't. Anything that would be in the coolers, they had to move into trucks out back. I was shocked that I had electricity and they didn't. Tough timing. Anyway, wishing you and yours a very merry Christmas!
About half my county is still out of power, four days in. We got ours back early Christmas morning, so only a few days off for us....but we have battery backup and a generator, plus heat that doesn't require power...so it's less of a big deal for us. I can't imagine how all the electric heat people are doing right now. The elementary school is setup as a 24 hour warming shelter, but I bet a lot of people are cold and have frozen pipes.
Thank you. Yes there are pitfalls to country living but I go back to it in a second if I could.
Hope your New Year is wonderful
Likewise, happy new year!
Ham. Wife is trying an Italian glaze recipe she found. Uses white and Marsala wines. Looking back, I guess ham has been on my table most years at Christmas. I can't say I have too many family traditions, though I wish that I did! Merry Christmas, everyone.
I absolutely love ham dinner! Growing up, that was what we'd have when my parents had a good year and were feeling flush. Not that it costs anything more than turkey really, so I don't know why it was only for the specialist of special holiday years...but that's the way I remember it.
This past summer when my parent's visited, we bought a spiral sliced ham to celebrate. I guess it's still our specialist of the special occasions food =)
(Now I'm thinking about ham...mmmm...ham...)
Enjoy it!
As a child Christmas dinners were a roasted turkey from a nearby farm, stuffed with my grandmother's homemade bread stuffing chocked full of chopped onions, celery, and giblets, mashed potatoes, winter squash and a green (frozen) vegie swimming in butter, and (canned) cranberry sauce all washed down with a big glass of whole milk.
For New Year's we had a game dinner every year. My Grandpa was an avid hunter and he stocked the freezer every fall with ducks, squirrel, rabbits, and of course venison, and my Grandma cooked them up, mostly in the oven. Those game dinners were wonderful and I'm very glad my late husband got to experience one of them before my grandparents got too old to continue the tradition.
For my own holiday dinners, I cook pasture-raised chicken and turkey parts from various local sources and/or from Northstar Bison in Wisconsin, giblet dressing made with organic bread in my grandmother's tradition, and organic vegies and cranberry sauce. I make a vast quantity, enough to eat for the week of xmas, and enough to freeze for the week of New Years.
I grow very little produce these days. Years ago we had a big garden and used to have a freezer full of home grown vegetables. Now (in my old age) I just patronize growers of organic produce and humanely raised livestock.
I should add, last year and this year I have been buying mead from Groennfell & Havoc, both owned by Vermont women. I love this honey wine, and would not have known about it, but for your blog, Ashley. Mead was just an alcoholic drink read about in old books to me, but you made a convert of me. I especially like the varieties made with cranberries or sour cherries, as these bitter fruits sort of ameliorate the sweetness of the honey. Mead is a perfect accompaniment to the meat & potato stick-to-your-ribs cold weather holiday feed.
I keep seeing references to Groennfell & Havoc meaderies, but haven't yet tried anything they've made. I am happy there are local meaderies here in VT though. One of my favorites was Artesano in Groton, which my husband and I happened by on a road trip one summer nearly a decade ago. It was literally the week they were opening, and we were so excited when we walked in that the owner took up on a whole tour of his setup...we were literally their first customers, such nice people. It's been years since I've seen their stuff, which makes me sad, it was some of the best mead I've ever tasted anywhere.
If you see a bottle somewhere, definitely try it. They seem to still be open...at least according to the internet, but I have no idea where their products are sold at this point.
https://www.artesanomead.com/mead
Your game dinner sounds amazing! We don't have any specific new years traditions, and it always seems like we're flailing around trying to start one...this year, we're going to make a Chinese feast (dumplings, Chinese takeout style food like General Tsos, etc). The kids are excited about this one, at least about making homemade fortune cookies anyway, so maybe this one will stick. Time will tell.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you!
All the same wishes to you and yours, Ashley. If you care to share the recipe for homemade fortune cookies, I'd be thrilled to try it! If I run across Artesano products, I'll definitely try some of their mead. I ordered mead from Groennfell & Havoc that first year, then was delighted to find that the beer and liquor store where I return my empty bottles also carries their mead. That makes a trip thru the bottle redemption place less like a chore and more like something to look forward to!
The barrel was a gift, it was purchased at Kegworks in Kenmore NY. The fig wine is amazing and even better after sitting for a year.
The barrel was a gift but I know it is from Kenmore NY, not sure if they ship but seems likely. My son had the barrel charred so I had to buy whiskey for the initiation. You can't put fresh beer in a newly charred barrel or you ruin the beer. The barreled fig wine is fantastic! There are a few bottles left in the cellar and I brought one up. The extra year made it even better!
Good to know about the Fig wine. I may add some oak chips to mine, lacking a barrel. Sounds like the perfect combination!
Yeah, I do so appreciate your compassion! Thank you for letting me whine! I called yesterday, and they said that they would pay up to $200 to have someone (a random "handyman" who they would call) come fix it for me and for the supplies needed. They have since rectified the problem, but, I, too, wish that they would send me a new one and then I could send this one back in the box. Then again, I can't move the thing by myself. I'm maybe mustering up the courage to do it. The lady I spoke with yesterday said that I could poke off the foam encircling the wires while the unit was off, but after that, I would need to have the unit on while caulking so that the machine would suck it into the void...never a dull moment; what I wouldn't give for a few!
Oh no worries! If that had happened to me, I'd be mad. I'm lucky enough to have an electrically savvy husband who could fix it quick...so no need to hire a handyman, but it still wouldn't be confidence inspiring, especially for something that costs so darn much. I hope you do enjoy it once it's up and running, and sorry you're going through that.
(Yes, never a dull moment...and I'd give quite a bit for a few here too. Right now the whole state is out of power, and literally every single house in my town...and they're saying it'll be off for everyone for at least a week, with another big storm in the forecast too. Grateful for my generator and solar panels right now, but still, not dull around here right now!)
Hi Ashley! Thanks for sharing....I love your roast goose....at my home, with my family, I serve roast lamb...we have a lots of these critters here in Oz....and home grown potatoes, peas, carrots and other veges....with gravy of course...I wanted to wish you and your wonderful family a truly delightful and fun Christmastime and a fabulous 2023! Many hugs, thanks so much, Barbara from south of Sydney xoxoxo
Oh my do we love lamb! I think that's what's happening for new years, just so we can have the whole menagerie this month. Yum!
That sounds wonderful! Enjoy it all! Hugs!