Christmas is knocking on the door and I am just thinking of what this year's menu will be. I am wondering what you guys are eating this year at Christmas Eve.

As my husband is German and I am English, he normally prepares supper on Christmas Eve (his traditional day). He loves to cook king prawns sauted in olive oil with loads of garlic and chopped parsley, served with warm crusty white bread to mop up the juices. We both eat out of the saute pan at the table and it is quite a romantic way to share a meal. This is suitably light to prepare us for the next day's full on English traditional roast goose or turkey.

In the English speaking world the big day is Christmas Day and Christmas Eve is purely for last minute wrapping no your own.
So I would recommend Pringles as a typical Christmas Eve dish. If you would like to mix it up a ltittle bit how about Doritos?

AT my parents (my father is from Italy) Christmas eve is all seafood. We won't be there this year so I am doing my favorite of the night - Bacala (salted cod). It needs to be soaked for at least 24 hours (I do 2 days) and the water changed frequently. then I cut it into bite sized pieces, flour it and fry it a couple minutes. Its crispy, salty and flaky - and a bit fishier then fresh cod but I love it. I'll probably do some shrimp as well and a salad of fennel, radicchio and arugula (red, white and green )

And I always have leftover cold bacala christmas morning!!

Fondue chinoise and bourguignonne, as all the kids requested.

Tom

Turkey with stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, beans or peas, braised mushrooms, cranberry...problem is that was Thanksgiving. When I was growing up, we did the Danish xmas dinner...roast duck with apple stuffing, steamed purple cabbage, roast potatoes (I think), rice pudding.
We just decided to do the roast duck...but two of them, as they don't have much meat....

We adopted the excellent tradition of the main meal on the 24th since moving over from the UK 3 years' ago.

It makes the meal (still the standard turkey roast fare) much more special to have it after dark with candles, and gets me out of any cooking on the 25th so I can relax and play with the kids rather than doing the constant nipping out to the kitchen that's normally necessary.

The 25th is then like a UK Boxing Day, with cold meats, mash, salad and pickles.

We're going out for a fancy dinner on Christmas Eve, and then I haven't even decided on christmas lunch food. Maybe roast lamb if I manage to get to the butcher on Josefstrasse...

My husband is keen to go past the viadukt to pick up some fancy cheese, and I wouldn't go past pickled onions and chutney...

Edited to add: I think I told the kids I would make a pavlova for dessert...

Here's mine - I am aiming for the same variety if not more for a bunch of home sick fellow country men.

Now all I need is my hot-pot to arrive on time, no thanks to power.ch

I might take that one on board myself. Christmas day always seems like a mad rush to me.

Dinner for 1?


Going to be going out Christmas eve this year for dinner. Normally we get a huge Ham in with lots of pickles and some fish.

For me, Xmas eve was always the big day for my family in the States, but I guess this comes from my German ancestry. But my Mommy always made a big meal for Xmas day also

Hmmm, meat and fish, think I might add some fish as well then this year!

Tom

We normally go out for a fancy dinner on Christmas Eve and then cook a big meal on Christmas Day when everything is closed. (Yes, even in America there is a day when almost everything is closed!)

I made reservations this year for Christmas Eve at the Hotel de la Paix restaurant in Lausanne centre and here is their menu, in French first because it sounds so much more festive:


Translation: Champagne cocktail; some kind of little Christmas-inspired bonbon amuse-bouche; slice of duck foie gras encased in a spice "bark" with tomato-fig-cardamom chutney and toasty slices of baguette; the back? of a turbot with mascarpone, eggplant and a saffron and pesto tapioca; fancy meat loaf made with a Bresse guinea hen with mushrooms; a chocolate and hazelnut yule log with a lemon sauce; coffee and some little bites of deliciousness. Cost 85 chf p/p including champagne cocktail. Yum!

Then order a pizza when you get back home

Thank you guys for inspiration!

Christmas was 1 month ago...You should have said ''Thank you'' right after they posted their ideas. Or maybe you didn't even cook what they suggested as you are saying ''Thank you'' now, in January.But better late than never.

Groan away, Christmas was 1 month ago. But as I said before- better late than never.