Beer Forum

What is everyone preparing for Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate?

We normally travel to New Orleans for Thanksgiving where my mom does all of the cooking. We host a Christmas Dinner where we go all out. I'm in charge of cooking gumbo and all of the meats. My wife handles the side dishes.

The Meats I will prepare this year are Standing Rib Roast (prime rib), a fried turkey and a smoked ham.

I plan on incorporating some of my homebrew into the cooking this year. I plan on brining the turkey with a very malty ESB, bay leaf, thyme, onions, garlic, kosher sea salt and a bit of crawfish boil seasoning.

The prime rib will be seasoned with Montreal steak seasoning, garlic, and rosemary. I will smoke the prime rib with a few mesquite wood chunks in an electric smoker. I have a fantastic IPA that I plan on creating a reduction sauce for the prime rib or the ham, I haven’t decided yet. Maybe I will look to Paxton for inspiration.

The ham will be smoked with oak in my big smoker along with some turkey parts (necks, wings, drum sticks) that will be used for seasoning meat for the greens etc.

The side dishes will be seafood dressing, collard greens, baked spaghetti (everyone else calls it macaroni and cheese, and sweet potato soufflé.

The gumbo takes a thread by itself.



Ohh, I have 4 beers on tap:
1. 108 IBU IIPA
2. Blue Moon clone
3. 1.065 OG ESB I think it has 38 IBUs
4. Cranberry Zinger. (The wit was a 10 gallon batch, I added cranberries, granny smith apples and navel oranges to the secondary to 5 gallons)

What's on your menu?

This one is pretty good if you are expecting folks over to your house. Disappears quickly.

Chili-Bacon Grissini

30 thin slices bacon
30 grissini (thin Italian bread sticks)
1 cup brown sugar
¼ cup chili powder
1 Tbsp. Cayenne pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Let the bacon stand at room temperature for about 10 minutes to let it soften slightly.
Gently wrap one bacon slide in a spiral around each bread stick, leaving about ¼ of the bread stick exposed on one end. Place the bread sticks on a tray and set aside.
Cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and place a baking rack on top of it.
In a shallow dish that is long enough to fit the bread sticks, combine the sugar, chili powder and cayenne pepper. Stir until they are combined well, pressing out any lumps with the back of a fork.
Roll each bread stick gently in the mixture, coating the bacon well. Arrange the bread sticks about ½ inch apart on the baking rack.
Bake the bread sticks for about 20 minutes, or until the coating is caramelized and the bacon is a deep mahogany color.
Loosen the bread sticks gently from the rack and cool for 10 to 15 minutes until they are firm enough to pick up. The bacon will become crisp and the bread sticks will harden as they cool. Serve at room temperature.

codewritinfool wrote:This one is pretty good if you are expecting folks over to your house. Disappears quickly.

Chili-Bacon Grissini

30 thin slices bacon
30 grissini (thin Italian bread sticks)
1 cup brown sugar
¼ cup chili powder
1 Tbsp. Cayenne pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Let the bacon stand at room temperature for about 10 minutes to let it soften slightly.
Gently wrap one bacon slide in a spiral around each bread stick, leaving about ¼ of the bread stick exposed on one end. Place the bread sticks on a tray and set aside.
Cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and place a baking rack on top of it.
In a shallow dish that is long enough to fit the bread sticks, combine the sugar, chili powder and cayenne pepper. Stir until they are combined well, pressing out any lumps with the back of a fork.
Roll each bread stick gently in the mixture, coating the bacon well. Arrange the bread sticks about ½ inch apart on the baking rack.
Bake the bread sticks for about 20 minutes, or until the coating is caramelized and the bacon is a deep mahogany color.
Loosen the bread sticks gently from the rack and cool for 10 to 15 minutes until they are firm enough to pick up. The bacon will become crisp and the bread sticks will harden as they cool. Serve at room temperature.

I can vouch that these things are mighty delicious!

Also, bacon wrapped around waterchestnuts (although I hate waterchestnuts) is good with some brownsugar/cinnamon.

We don't usually do a whole lot of cooking for the holidays, but Christmas Eve is my Mom's birthday, so this year SWMBO and I are having my parents and my brother down for XMas Eve dinner. Not totally sure what we're going to serve as far as sides and what not, but I've got some Janet's Brown and ton of stuff to pick from in my cellar (ok, not a TON, but a good selection) and I do know that we're going to do bacon wrapped filets.

My wife's family always does a big family dinner on XMas day... ham, potatoes, what-not... nothing all that special. At least, there is never anything that makes me say... I can't wait for XMas dinner so I can have (insert tasty food here).