I give.

Up.  I give up.  I absolutely love the holidays, but I'm drawing the line on the food business right now.  There are some recipes in my family that have been enjoyed for years and years.  Some of them include barbecued meatballs, Hanky Pankies, chocolate fudge, peanut butter fudge, cocktail weiners, spicy pretzels, summer sausage and a couple different kinds of cookies.  I love all of these foods dearly, but even with four sons we are just not able to get through all of it.  I'm not cooking all of it.  I'm not cooking all of it.  I'm not cooking all of it.  We just don't need it. 

The other problem that I run into as the holiday gatherings begin this weekend and run for the next few weeks is that I feel compelled to gather all of the ingredients to prepare perfect meals.  While I feel that our country enjoys very reasonable food prices, it costs a fortune to prepare 2 or 3 special meals.  I have a house full of food.  If I don't have it, we don't need it.  Tucked away in my freezer rest some really nice celebration pieces, including two ducks, a turkey (or two), a few pork tenderloins and a leg of lamb (Dave's favorite).  What follows are the menus I propose for the following gatherings:

Saturday Dinner with Devenney Relatives
Country Style Ham (Dad)
Pumpkin buscuits (Karen)
Celeraic coleslaw (me)
Crudite (Karen and me)
Sticky toffee pudding (Karen)
Citrus salad (me)

Christmas Eve Dinner (just us)
Butternut squash soup
Barbecued meatballs
Hanky Pankies
Crab Meltaways
Apples and cheese
Schuler's cheese and chips
Egg nog


Christmas Morning

 


Christmas Day (with Dad and Grandma Warsop)
Roasted beet salad
Roast duck a la Alton Brown
Maple sweet potatoes
White and wild rice with dried cranberries, pecans and orange