Christmas Plans???

What have you planned for this festive season?? Staying home? Visiting someone? What are you doing? I want to know???

I'm going overseas next week, I'll be gone for almost 1 month ...first time I will have spent Christmas away from my grandkids so I have mixed feelings about it...excited and a bit sad at the same time :)

Home with the kids, cooking, relaxing, at the beach likely.

Safe and fun travels to all!

Well, lots of sledding (a very pathetic hill in our backyard but one further down the road that's steeper), maybe some caroling, staying at home with family and puppers, and hopefully (crossing fingers), finishing up plans to move into my new apartment about 20 minutes away. Still waiting for my application to be approved but already put in a deposit and have my budget set! It's in a safe area and right across the street from a huge park with lots of trails (since I'll be taking Baxter).

Thinking of you all <3

Larry..you go to the beach at Christmas...isn't it freezing??? What are you cooking???

Maryanne...I call it sledging and I haven't don't it for years and years...jealous I am. Good luck in your new apartment...very exciting I imagine :)

Down here in Houston it stays warm. We sometimes go to a beach house outside Galveston that a friend has.

Cooking turkey, stuffing, several vegetables, apple-caramel crumb pie & others.

MA, that's a huge step moving out! Good luck & im sure you'll do well. If you're like my kids you'll see your folks often: doing laundry!

I have this really neat recipe with chicken and whisky that I'm sure you would like. It also has cream so...served only on special occasions...haha!!! I'll look it out and post...I'm pretty sure you'd love it Larry...

My siblings alternate on who is hosting Christmas each year. This year it'll be at my youngest brothers house. We generally do a large Christmas lunch outdoors. It has rained on Christmas the last 4 years though, so I am crossing my fingers for sunshine so we can kick a ball around and enjoy the sunshine.

Mel where do you live? We had rain the past 4 christmas' too, I used to live on the Gold Coast.

This year is my first full christmas away from home (Australia) because I'm studying in Austria and it's too expensive/not worth going home in the 2 week uni break. So I'll be in the Austrian alps in Innsbruck with my friend's family drinking mulled wine and snowboarding. My first white christmas! Yay!

This time its my turn to host so my parents, my siblings and my 11 nieces and nephews are staying over, I cannot wait. Love a busy house :)

Safe travels all and have a wonderful festive season

I am off work the 23-26, and am scheduled to be painting trim that weekend. Our home builder only gives us 4 days, and he offered to change the weekend we are scheduled to paint because of Christmas, but then it pushes our move date by 3 weeks and I don't want to do that lol.

So 23rd I'll be painting. 24th morning is church, afternoon more painting, evening dinner.

Christmas morning 5am I'll be up showering and packing stuff for the day, going to my sisters at 7am, breakfast and kids open gifts. Then at 10 we go to Jason's mom's house for 2nd breakfast and gifts. This year we will leave early to paint and then have his dad's side Christmas day evening.

Somehow I have to fit seeing my mom and dad/stepmom into all of this also.

I hate holidays.

Hellon, I'll swap your recipe for one my girls always demand for bread stuffing (or stuffed portobello mushrooms).

Ether, enjoy your first white Christmas, I grew up in Tennessee & do not miss them.

Mel, Em & Britt, nice to hear about siblings, they so rarely come up in threads.

Also, Britt, seems that on Christmas you become a Hobbit with second breakfast, supper & likely lunch at mom's. You make me miss living so far from my family.

I'm not going to Aruba so i will sit in a corner and cry about all the food i won't be eating

Ether, I live in Wollongong, about an hour and a half from Sydney. Wow, the Austrian Alps, how exciting. I hope to see a white Christmas one day too. Enjoy every minute of it, I am sure it's going to be a massive change from what we usually experience here Aus!

Larry, is turkey the main meat you guys eat over there on Christmas? I love the sound of all this hot food. We generally do a cold lunch, lots of salads, cold ham etc because it's too hot here during Christmas time.

Gives me the warm fuzzies imagining all of your plans.
We haven't figured out Christmas yet. My sister will stay in New York this year. Thinking we'll offer to have my parents as well as Kevin's mom and brother to our house in Reno. His dad will likely be in China. Snow doesn't seem to stick to the ground in Reno, but Mt. Rose (ski resort) is a 30 min drive.

Http://www.tartantastesintx.com/2014/01/scottish-recipes-balmoral-chicken-with.html

^^^^

There you go Larry. This blogger lives in Texas so I'm hoping she bought the haggis there and didn't bring it back from Scotland with her :)

Hope you enjoy it. I love mushrooms so I'd like the recipe please.

Hellon, this is my own recipe developed over the past 15 or so years. You can add salt &/or pepper but I have found it better without either to my daughters' tastes.

STUFFED PORTOBELLO MUSHROOMS:
Ingredients:
Four whole Portobello mushrooms
olive oil
one large fresh onion
1/4 pound prosciutto ham (or corned beef)
dry white wine
fresh or dried herbs (rosemary [best ground before using], sage, parsley, savory)
coarse bread crumbs
Parmesan cheese

Instructions:
Pick the mushrooms with the best shape & condition. Trim mushrooms by cutting off the stems, scraping out the gills and a little of the meat, then chop the trimmings finely. Careful not to scrape too deeply.
Saute the trimmings mixture in olive oil along with minced fresh onion until onion is caramelized, then reduce heat and add finely minced prosciutto ham, mixing thoroughly (if ham is off limits you can substitute corned beef). Add a small portion of dry white wine when the mixture gets thick (I prefer Chardonnay). Mix in chopped fresh or dried herbs (rosemary, sage, parsley, savory). When mixture is heated and is fairly dry remove from heat and mix in coarse bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. Thoroughly mix.
Place the scrapped-out mushroom caps on a tray greased with olive oil. Stuff spoonfuls of the mixture into the caps and drizzle with a bit of olive oil. Bake at 300 F until tender, about 20 minutes.

Yum...I'll be sure to try these. I have three of these herbs growing in my garden but...what is savory?

Can you buy haggis where you are?

I checked when I got your link. Since the early 70's sheep lung has been banned from import and since the Mad Cow scare all sheep pluck is banned. So, no, I cannot get Haggis. Which is too bad because I developed a taste for it when I went there a few years back.

I may try the recipe with black pudding, at least that has not been banned.

I stumbled across this the other day:

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/scotland-now/haggis-ban-set-lifted-allowing-9343478

I don't think tinned haggis is in the traditional skin form (which was originally the stomach) but, I could be wrong having never bought it in a can. I can buy fresh haggis here but cannot donate blood because I visited the UK 4 years ago...figure that one out if you can :) I also don't thing the original haggis had any cow meat in it???

Mark...for some reason I was unable to read your link and...the original recipe I had for the Balmoral Chicken was an old Daily Record recipe which I can't read either now...any idea why? The page is there but no text? I'm using google chrome???

They're supposedly uplifting the ban on haggis, but not sheep lung, so an alternative would have to be used for that.

Both the links are working for me, I think it might be an issue with your internet connection?

Mmm...like I said, the original recipe used the stomach so...would that pass the test :)

I think my internet sucks over here...I drop out a least 20 times a day...

There's no ban on sheep lungs here, and there's supposedly a place in downtown Toronto to get authentic ones, might have to stop by soon.

I was wondering about sausage skins as an alternative...I guess you'd end up with sausage shaped haggis but...what the hell...it would still be haggis, right?

What would you in Canada do with sheep lungs Mark??? Do you have a secret recipe you'd like to share :)

Larry, I'm drooling. Your stuffed mushrooms are happening in my house THIS WEEK.

I'll be sitting by the swimming pool at my in-laws' new house, eating skewered prawns and mango salads and pavlovas while moaning about greed and consumerism while showering my daughter with 20 different kinds of plastic crap.

^^^

Abby..how does that compare to last year when you went to India for Christmas...I just bought a tandoor oven BTW!!!

Awww thanks for reminding me about last Christmas, Hellon, I hadn't thought of it. Yes, very different worlds indeed.

What's your tandoor oven like? What will you make? Mmmm, buttery naans....

Hellon, the description of original recipes I've found all require sheep pluck, which is internal organs including the lungs. The lungs have been banned for health reasons long before BSE came around. Because BSE affected sheep as well as cattle they were included in the Mad Cow ban. I think the BSE issue has been sorted out but lungs remain a problem.

Jane, let me know how the shrooms come out.

Abby....here is a picture of my tandoor oven...looks a bit like R2-D2 I think haha!!!

http://www.tandoorliving.com.au/Tandoor-oven-tandoori-cooking-pictures.html

I'm still experimenting at the moment. Mostly things on the skewers. The naan has a bit of a knack to it...even Gordon Ramsey had problems getting it to stick in the beginning....I managed to get my first lot done ok but the second lot ended up in the coals haha!!

Larry...I don't think they include the lungs anymore and, I do remember something being said about the stomach also. I've ordered one and will pick it up this weekend, I'll try to remember to ask how it's made these days.

We had plans to stay in Gatlinburg, TN for a few days during the Christmas holidays. Now most of the city is destroyed due to the fires. :(
We're still talking about going to maybe offer some time or donate what we can.

Other than that, I'm kind of excited for Christmas because I'm getting a new vacuum and food processor lol

Plan is to find a job, to start doing things i cant talk about here,

Mostly to get my feet completely back. I dont think i mdoing anything with my friends or family or anything.

So wooo

I'm working at the shelter Christmas Eve and day...I'm having Christmas dinner on new year's Eve....

I really enjoy watching my folks open their presents that a local church donates....they get very emotional, it's a special time so I volunteer to work the holiday. I was supposed to work on Thanksgiving, but with gram passing the day before...I went to ks instead.