Well, with some holidays already started, and others comming up, I figured
it was about time for the Holiday Recipie Item.

30 responses total.

What, no one else has a holiday recipe?

Here is an excerpt from the upcoming _Romanchik Family
Slovak Cookbook_.
 
Christmas Eve Mushroom Soup
 
 Slovak families, like many Eastern Europeans, have their
Christmas feast on Christmas Eve. After the feast, families go
to church for Midnight Mass. Before the 1960s, you had to
refrain from eating meat for at least eight hours before going
to Mass so that you could receive communion.
  So, the Christmas Eve meal was meatless. Families would serve
a fish, normally a carp, and this mushroom soup. By the time we
were kids, the rules had changed, and while we could now eat
meat on Christmas Eve, we still made this soup.
  When we were small, we would celebrate Christmas Eve at my
grandparent's house. There would be fifteen people there: my
grandparents, my Uncle John and Aunt Irene, their three kids,
and our family (there are six kids in my family). It was quite a
crowd.
  My grandmother pulled out all the stops at Christmas. It took
her at least a week to make all of the foods she served on
Christmas Eve. She would bake what seemed like an unlimited
number of nutrolls, poppy seed rolls, kolache and rozky. Of
course, I loved it all.
  All of these pastries, plus chocolate-covered cherries, hard
candy, and bowls of nuts would be sitting out when we got to her
house. As kids, we dug right in. Our parents tried to warn us
about spoiling our appetites, but I payed them no mind; I  never
had any problem with my appetite.
  Once we were all seated at the table, my grandmother would get
out a jar of honey, put a little dab on her finger, and anoint
all of us with the sign of the cross. She used to tell us that
this would make us sweet throughout the upcoming year.
  The following recipe is exactly as my grandmother
gave it to me. Like all of her recipes, it is incredibly
detailed.
 
Ingredients
 
2 tall cans mushrooms
3 small cans sauerkraut juice
1 quart water, more or less
1 medium onion plus 1 teaspoon instant onion
1/2 stick margarine plus 1 tablespoon butter
dash garlic powder
3 tablespoons flour
salt and pepper to taste
 
  "Put mushrooms in blender on chop for a split second. Only do
one can at a time with the juice. Pour chopped mushrooms in
four-quart saucepan, add the sauerkraut juice, and add the water
a little at a time. As you're adding the water, taste for
sourness. Add salt and pepper, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 teaspoon
instant onion, dash of garlic powder, and let simmer for one
hour.
  "Then, mix 3 tablespoons of flour with a little water to make
a thin paste (like for gravy). Add slowly, mixing with fast,
small strokes to keep it from lumping. Let simmer for 20 minutes
on low, stirring occasionally.
  "Brown in skillet 1 medium onion thinly sliced in the 1/2
stick margarine. Pour into the soup, stir well, and it's ready
to eat. That's how I do it. You can alter it to suit your taste
buds.
  "Call if you need help_reverse the charges."
 
  Despite my grandmother's exacting advice, the amounts are not
very critical. I use fresh mushrooms and sauerkraut instead of
sauerkraut juice. Chop the mushrooms coarsely (if you chop them
too finely, the soup will taste "musty").  Place mushrooms into
a pot, cover with water, add some sauerkraut juice, and simmer
for an hour. Add sauerkraut to adjust the sourness, then stir in
the flour mixture.
  We serve this soup with boiled potatoes and browned onions to
give the soup more body.

Yum!

I'd like to resurrect [sp?] the holiday recipe item...

Please do share your favorite holiday food treasures, be it a main
course item, side dishes, snacks, drinks, or desserts...  We have a lot
of collected "wealth" here in this conference, so lets make 
this year's version special!!  [BTW, I didn't get to come "home"
for any of the winter holidays last year and had to work for
Thanksgiving again this year... So I'm really tryiing to get into
the holiday spirit for  Christmas for this year, so I'm looking
for new and creative ideas--for while I'm here in NC as well as
when I come up to Michigan to see my family.]  Thanks in advance!

Homemade noodles...we have them for every holiday.  Use 6 eggs and about 3
to 4 cups of flour and 1 to 2 tablespoons of water...mix to stiff dough and
then roll out very thin.  Set on cloths to partially dry, checking and turning
once.  You want them to be rubbery, but not sticky.  Lightly flour each pad
of noodle dough and set the next one on it (stack them).  Roll tightly and
cut into thin strips.  Cook in a rich chicken, turkey, or beef broth.  They
cok in about 10 - 12 minutes.  Serve with salt.

I've never tried to make home made noodles but I hear they're delicious!
Thanks for the recipe... 

Any other suggestions or ideas?? I do know there are LOTS of people
here that cook/bake for the holidays--cookies/treats to full many courses
of meals... So don't be shy, share your holiday traditions and recipes!

i don't have the recipe on me, so i'm going to have to get a copy from 
my parents...but we make sand toerchen (sand tarts) every year...the
recipe is supposed to make 9 dozen, but we usually get at least twice
that!  :)  and they are *SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO* nummy.....:)
they are a pain to make, but worth it because it makes so many, and taste
so good.  :)

I'll post my recipe for mushroom-sauerkraut soup here once I convert it
from AmiPro to ASCII.

<abchan is astonished to find that someone else actually uses AmiPro since
usually when she tells people she uses it, they give her a blank look>

Our Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinners, back when they wre big, used
to look about the same, big turkey, some plate of veggies, shrimp we had to
dismantle ourselves, soup, etc.

But since I was under fifteen back then, I didn't have to prepare it.  I just
had to babysit six kids while the adults did the cooking.

Well, every since I was a little girl, my Bubbie, (Grandma in Yiddish) has
always made Mandel Bread during the Chanukah season.  Unfortunately, she is
no longer with us, but her recipe lives on. :)  

Mandel Bread is like a biscotti, except that it is not so hard, and is more
like a cookie that does not require dunking.  My Bubbie always made them with
almonds and then cinnamon and sugar on them. YUMMY!!!

The cooking for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner was shared by all females
over 18 which at the time, did not include me.  Well, that's not entirely
true, one of my uncles almost always pitched in too, but I know my other uncle
and my father and my great grandfather never helped with the cooking part.

Ok, y'all; its been 10 years since this item was active. So it's time to open
it back up for discussing holiday traditions with food, cool ideas, recipes,
etc.  What kinds of cool things will YOU be having this holiday season?

Well, my family does the whole Eastern Orthodox Christmas eve meatless 
meal every year. The only change is that now we do it on Dec 24 but 
when I was a kid, we did it on Jan 6.

I dont have any recipes though :(

When I'm home for Christmas in MI, we do the same meal every time.  
I've finally started bitching about it, because quite frankly, it 
wouldn't hurt us to expand our palates a little bit.  The meal is 
always:

ham
mashed potatoes (that my grandmother makes)
candied sweet potatoes
scalloped corn
some other vegetable concoction - usually green bean casserole
a jello salad
a spinach salad my mom makes
rolls

desserts are usually:

pies
pumpkin roll
fudge
cookies

So last year, when I did not go home for Christmas, I made the 
following for the people I had over:

BBQ baby back ribs and chicken
Grilled veggies
twice baked potatoes
sweet potato casserole (probably the best recipe I've ever had for 
sweet potatoes)
Green beans
Berry cobbler
brownies

It was so much fun to have different food!  This year, I have no idea 
what we're doing, but I'd kind of like to have enchiladas...

re #12
Ditto
I'll see if I can scrounge up a few recipes.  I think the big ones are the
round bundt cake and salata de beouf(potato salad with mayo & diced pickles,
carrots, taters, and peas)

Why is the Eastern Orthodox meal meatless?  Just curious.

re #15
There are a bunch of observances that require the absence of blood(meat) or
dairy to be considered a "fasting."
Xmas Fast is for many weeks leading up to Xmas then there is a week when you
stuff your pie hole silly with lamb and eggs, etc.

Eastern Orthodox people used to fast Wed Fri Sat by not eating animal products
or oils.  Nuts were okay, so almond milk was used.  Sunflower seeds were not
on the prohibited list of oil seeds so people started growing and using them.

We've done various different things for our Christmas meal; these days, its
usually dependent on which of the siblings host the holiday and what they want
each of us to bring.  This year, we'll be having our Christmas on 12/26 at
my brother and SIL's [that live in Bloomfield--my brother and SIL in AA hosted
Thanksgiving and another brother and SIL. I think hosted last year--though
I wasn't home for it].

One of the traditions we had growing up was baking up a variety of cookies,
usually all on one day, then make up plates to give to neighbors and friends.
That tradition has fallen to the wayside as the various family members have
moved. Though I'm trying to get the next generation-of nieces and nephews,
to think about doing some of this christmas baking...

Jim's Christmas tradition is we visit his sister and nieces and nephew and
he eats himself sick while doing home repairs and improvements for them for
a few days, and we come home with enough cookies to make him sick for another
day.  This year I will be contributing dried apples, apricots, cherries,
pears, mulberries, sour cherries, black raspberries, pawpaws, tomatoes and
squash and pumpkins.  Carving pumpkin is much improved by drying - it is
crunchy and has a strong flavor instead of being nearly liquid and bland. 
We have to try sweet potatoes next.  We also did apple, peach, and pawpaw
fruit leather and want to try it with a sweet squash.

thanks for the explanations, I never knew that!

We don't do anything for Christmas or Christmas eve meal.  Formal, 
that is.  My family typically does a potluck the Saturday or Sunday 
before Christmas, and it's always different.

When I was growing up as a kid, my mom would make a ham and a few 
other things, and we would basically just snack through-out the day, 
but not have a formal sit-down meal.  My whole family pretty much does 
this, except my brother Mike. He invited us to his sit-down dinner on 
Christmas day, I think they are having prime rib or something.  My 
oldest sister always has a Christmas day bash and just does a serve 
yourself spread, usually containing fish of some kind and lots of 
indian food.  I like her Christmas "meal" the best.

I like it that way.  It makes it kind of a fun informal day.  If my 
inlaws stay with us (or us with them) we will have a traditional 
sitdown with ham or turkey, potatoes, green bean casserole, etc.

When we spend Christmas with my sister in law we do a Brazilian feast 
on Christmas eve, which is also one of my favorites.  That's the only 
formal meal that I've done on Christmas Eve, usually we just go look 
at Christmas lights.

So I have lots of variety and options during the holidays.

Sounds cool, Jeanne! You definitely don't get bored with the variety! :-)

What's a Brazilian feast?  A 'brazilian' different kinds of dishes? ;)

Aren't you clever!!!!!

Sly; like a fox!

A holiday dessert from the past is this wonderful cherry cheesecake that my
Mom used to make. It had a graham cracker crumb crust, the filling had cream
cheese, dream whip, and I'm not sure what else, then with the cherry pie
filling on top.  I'm hoping to get the recipe for this.  My younger brother
ended up with my Mom's old recipe box [it was left there when he bought the
family house after my parents moved to a retirement village]--so I'm trying
to get Mike to remember to get the recipe box for me--and hopefully, it will
include this recipe. Besides tasting good [at least in my memory it did], it
will also bring back good memories of when the whole family was together...
[My Mom now has dementia and my 2 eldest siblings have passed away.]

If you don't get it, let me know, as I have tons of community 
cookbooks (I love collecting them) and there is bound to be something 
in there like it.

Jeanne's family is really nice so you KNOW that Christmas with them
rules no matter what is on the menu. 

As for a nice explanation of the Russian Christmas tradition, I have
always liked this site:

http://russian-crafts.com/customs/christmas.html


I love the meal now but my Baba (That's right, I have a real genuine
Russian grandmother) always loves to tell the story about how when I was
a kid at church Matushka Barna asked me in Sunday School to describe the
Christmas Eve tradition in our family and I said "Oh that is the day
that we go over to Baba and Dedo's house and Baba makes a lot of yucky
food"

The winter holidays are upon us. What's on YOUR holiday menu?  [I would 
share mine if I knew what it was going to be but I don't know yet. Will 
be going to my local brother's sometime on Christmas Day. Details to be 
determined. The family gathering to include my all of my brothers will
be  sometime later, date still to be determined; they haven't gotten
their  act together yet. My sister won't be home this winter; she's
traveling  with a friend...]

Red cowpea soup with the last mustard greens from the garden.

Ham.  Mashed potatoes.  Sweet potatoes.  Scalloped corn.  Salad.  
rolls.  

We are *exceedingly* traditional.

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