I’ve been asked by Macy’s to help them with their Mblog recipe showcase. Check out Macy’s Facbook Page, where Macy’s fans can submit their favorite holiday recipes for a chance to win a dinner with a renowned Macy’s Culinary Council chef, including Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck, Cat Cora or Todd English. Although I am not being compensated, my recipe and story have a chance to be featured in Macy’s Mblog. Since I love the Macy’s Day Thanksgiving Parade and always get to see it in person, I wanted to show some support.
There’s also something in it for you if you are the lucky winner! Tell me what your favorite holiday dish is by commenting on this blog post and you will have the chance to win this beautiful Stainless Steel Martha Stewart Roaster
It’s Christmas Day at my friend Debbie’s house, an extravagant food-filled event with family and friends. The hors d’oeuvres start early in the day, with delectable nibbles served one after the other, preceding an elegant sit down feast. My friend is dressed to the nines and unruffled as she proudly heats and presents an assortment of lovely homemade appetizers to her guests. You may wonder how she does it! The answer is simple: “With a little help from her friends.”
It’s been years that we’ve been cooking together for our holidays and often our friend Jackie will join our fun tradition as well. We’ve made Asian crab cakes, spiced lamb meatballs, lobster and corn empanadas, pork and bok choy dumplings, cheese crackers, caramelized blue cheese squares, blue cheese stuffed dates, Swedish butter cookies, chocolate truffles — you name it! We carve out several dates in December to start cooking, baking and freezing together.
There’s a lot of laughter in our kitchens as we splatter, sizzle and mix in large quantities together all while sharing stories and keeping in touch with each other’s lives. While the outside world bustles about in shopping malls and traffic jams, it may be messy, but all’s calm and quiet in our kitchens together. Last year, Debbie was so dreamy talking to us that she accidentally put an extra few cups of sugar in her cookies. We were hysterical, adding more eggs, sugar and vanilla to get the consistency right! Alas, we did and the cookies — many of them — tasted as good as usual. We ended up having more fun as a result of our merry little mishap. If you have a moment and you want to get a little laugh, watch our video of last year’s mishap (that’s me in the hat!).
As we serve our food to guests, each and every course we present is infused with meaning and the fond thoughts of cooking together.There’s no holiday stress in our time together; just the simple enjoyment preparing for our respective gatherings.
Lobster Empanadas
Makes 24
These two-bite empanadas make an extraordinary appetizer for a holiday cocktail party. Puff pastry dough is a fine substitute for flaky empanada dough. They can be made ahead of time and frozen.
2 dozen mini empanada dough rounds (or 3 inch circles cut out of puff pastry)
2 tablespoons butter
2 shallots, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
1 2 ½ pound steamed lobster, meat removed and cut into small chunks
1 cup sweet corn kernels, blanched slightly
1 cup béchamel sauce (see recipe below)
1/8 cup cilantro, chopped finely (If you don’t like cilantro, use can parsley.)
1 egg, plus a bit of water for egg wash
In a medium sized skillet, melt the butter on a medium-low heat. Add the shallots and cook for five minutes until tender. Season with salt and pepper. Add the corn, lobster, béchamel sauce and cilantro. Stir well and set aside to cool.
To assemble the empanadas, spoon a small amount (1 teaspoon) of filling into the center of each empanada wrapper. Fold the dough in half over the filling and crimp the edges together by using a fork or your fingers and twisting like a rope. Repeat until all the filling is used.
To cook, pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees. Brush the tops of each with egg wash. Bake on a cookie sheet until golden for approximately 20 minutes.
Béchamel Sauce
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup hot milk
Pinch of nutmeg (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
Melt butter in a saucepan and stir in flour. Whisk together and stir for several minutes. Gradually add the hot milk. Stir constantly until the sauce thickens. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg if desired.
Smokey Lime Dip
Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl and serve with the empanadas.
1/8 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 tablespoon chives, chopped
½ teaspoon smoked paprika
Juice from ½ of a lime
We LOVE double baked stuffed Idaho potatoes. The potatoes are baked whole, then cut in half and mashed with butter, milk and cheddar cheese (oh so fattening and only once a year at Christmas!)and put back in the potato shells and rebaked. We make a ton of them and all fight over them, end up with two or three left over and then fight over them again the next day. Yum!!!
Hi Al,
It’s me. 🙂 I have spent the last three years perfecting my husband’s granny’s macaroni and cheese recipe. It’s perfectly southern. Colman’s Mustard powder, hand-shredded cheddar, milk, eggs. It’s a meal in a side-dish.
I made it last weekend, and my mother-in-law said I had it perfect.
Finally!! 🙂
So that’s my current fave. I’ll make it for you next time you head south.
Alison,
They look great, why do I have to learn about them this way? I’ll get everything as I would like to have them around the Holidays. Will you be up for this?
Lou
Now Lou, I know you’ve tasted these and I even had you taste test the smokey lime dip and you said it was the perfect accompaniment and you wouldn’t change a thing.
And Leah, you’ll have to share that recipe with everyone. Sounds completely different!
Sure will – I’ll email it to you this evening!
My favorite holiday dish is definitely cornbread sausage stuffing with tons of cranberry sauce on top.
My favorite holiday dish is a sweet potato casserole, with a lovely pecan/brown sugar topping rather than marshmallows. But the best part is how I got the recipe. We sponsor kids from Save the Children in the Southern region of the U.S., and one year we got the recipe card as part of a Save the Children thank you. I know it sounds sappy, but the recipe card is my special reminder to think of others at this time of year.
My mother-in law’s sweet potato casserole which does not have the marshmallows on top but a nutty, crunchy topping made from corn flakes, butter and walnuts. I still have her hand written recipe card. She passed away ten years ago. Making this dish is a way to remember and honor her memory. We all think of her when we make this dish.
The roaster looks awesome and my favorite recipe is the plum stuffing my mother- in- law makes and my all time favorite was the homemade caramel icing and caramel cake that my mom use to make. She is now deceased.
It’s so nice how many of the dishes are those that remind us of others. Plum stuffing! I’ve never tried a plum stuffing. . .curious about that! And caramel cake, what could be bad about that!
Turkey. Warm, moist with gravy running all over it. Turkey!!!
Now I need a lovely roaster to cook it in.
I don’t have a recipe, per se, but a recipe memory. I loved always going to my grandma’s house for Thanksgiving and she made it so special. There are lots of things I do to replicate her day…like, the same green lace table cloth and always…the relish tray! We make our dressing with sage, onions and celery, and we don’t have marshmellows on our sweet potatoes as that’s not how Gram loved it. My favorite recipe memory is when she made mashed potatoes with gravy and she always added loads of butter, milk and then a touch of sour cream to her potatoes. Her gravy was made from the turkey…with varying degrees of flour and butter and water. She laughed and laughed as she was cooking and I think…that is why I love to cook today. It isn’t about what you make, but what you make OF IT. She made a home, a welcoming table, and a lifestyle. I try to recreate it all everytime I have a dinner. I am hosting thanksgiving this year, and I hope that I can be as welcoming as my Gram always was. It is a gift, I think, to have folks feel welcome in your home. I hope I inherited that from my Gram.
That was really beautiful Christine. And you’re so right. Very well said. I am sure you will make your Gram proud this Thanksgiving!
My wife makes great dressing and could really use this pan for a big batch.
When’s the drawing?
Thanks so much for letting me enter.
David