What are you having for dinner tonight?

Lifecoach5000@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 90 points –

I am thinking about making myself something delicious. Not celebrating with anyone this eve but curious what everyone else will be eating.

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I’m by myself. I made a frozen pizza. I didn’t realize it was Christmas Eve until I saw this post and read some of the replies. I really don’t care about the holidays.

I knew because tv, but am Jewish, so.. meh. Will also just be having something from the freezer.
Enjoy your pizza!

Tacos and Gluwein.
As is tradition. At least, those are our traditions.

That sounds awesome.

You gotta give us the story of how it came to be.

Tacos and Gluwein are spectacularly, gloriously far apart culinarily.

How did you come to having a middle American dish with a northern European beverage?

Nothing really spectacular. Gluwein is a tradition from my family (which has some roots in Germany). I always had it at my parents home during Christmas time. And since my wife enjoys it, she agrees with me making a batch for Christmas. Tacos came about because my wife makes good tacos and neither of us is much into the traditional ham or turkey dinners which are common. One year, we just agreed to tacos and that's been that. Christmas now means tacos and Gluwein.

That's awesome.

I'm in Denmark (so close to Germany) and we usually have the Danish variety of Gluwein, Glögg, multiple times throughout December.

I can totally relate to not being much into traditional Christmas cooking. My family isn't either, so we try something new every year.

Leftover chicken con mole, in an enchilada. And some scraps of banana bread I made the other day.

I had raclette and I'm about to go down on some delicious riskrem with cherries and I will hopefully find the hidden almond.

Something I had for breakfast upset my tummy so I'm skipping dinner tonight. My husband is currently making himself some veggie (soy) chorizo and eggs. I may make myself some chicken broth later.

Did you decide what you're making?

South American here, we celebrate on the 24 at night. Spent all day cooking with my parents, there's turkey, baked potatoes, Caesar salad, 6 topes of hot sauce, carrot pudding for desert. Egg nog, spiced wine and a drink called canelazo made with naranjilla a relative of tomatoes and golden berries spiced with cinnamon and star anize

Sounds amazing!

An Argentinian friend told me she felt some of their Christmas food was a bit strange, as it was a lot of heavy food that you'd otherwise never eat in summer but that's eaten anyway because it's associated with Christmas. Does this fit your experience?

It's ten below where I am, and I certainly wouldn't mind being served up that dish haha

We sont really have many summer / winter foods here since I live in the equator and seasons are non existent. But Turkey it's pretty much only a Christmas thing.

Had it about an hour ago: a sort of one-pot pasta and lentil stew thingy, made in our slow cooker. I wouldn't call it it a particular favourite of mine, but it has the advantage of being dead easy and surprisingly substantial.

Pasta with lentils sounds delicious.

I used to make lentil and navy bean chili a lot. You've inspired me!

I'm celebrating it in family. 4 relatives, me, 2 cats, and probably 1-3 uninvited (but still welcome) guests. It'll be:

  • Snacks - 2 types of chips, mozzarella with olive oil and oregano, salsicho (local sausage, nice to eat with some sprinkled lime), olives.
  • Booze - beer. Sis is bringing something else too but I don't know what.
  • Soda - for the kids. Or rather the 16yo "kid". And likely for the adults to mix with the booze.
  • Main meat - one of those big chicken breeds with fancy names, locally called "chester" or "fiesta". If I were to choose it would be mutton, but I'm the only one who eats it so... I'm still glad that it isn't turkey. At least Kika (cat #1) gets some chicken breast as a treat.
  • Siding #1 - white rice otherwise there's a bloody revolution here.
  • Siding #2 - a yucca meal farofa. I wasn't in charge of it, so I don't know what's in.
  • Salad - a salad with everything and a bit more: ricotta, arugula, bacon, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, croutons, and a yoghurt-based dressing. Siegfrieda (cat #2) gets some yoghurt as a treat.
  • Dessert #1 - a fake tiramisù with pasty cream instead of zabaglione + mascarpone because it's how my family likes it. 22:00 yesterday and I was still preparing it.
  • Dessert #2 - sweet french toasts with syrup. I'm expecting the sweet teeth in the family to drizzle its syrup over the tiramisù.

It's theoretically for five people but we're expecting 1~3 more to come in, and leftovers always become part of the Christmas breakfast and lunch, so we give ourselves the luxury to go a bit overboard. Plus three pairs of hands to cook, fuck yeah.

(Happy Christmas for everyone here!)

Soda - for the kids.

Just asking on your opinion, is it otherwise weird/rude to refuse drinking alcohol when it's not due to religion or health issues?

I don't think that it's weird; it's a personal choice, and I think that it should be respected. I said that the soda is for the kid because he got to choose it and from earlier experiences he's the only one who drinks it.

Egg roll in a bowl. It's basically the filling of an egg roll, minus the fried wrapper that would normally go around it. It's like a stir-fry, really. Cover it in chili garlic sauce and that stuff is fire.

Sounds delicious! Do you have a particular recipe you'd recommend?

I'm having a ribeye, gratin potatoes, brussel sprouts, and a slice of pie. I'm having a glass of Maker's 46 to cap it off.

I chose to eat alone tonight so I didn't do all the fixings, but it's enough for me. Last week was a tough one and for three days I've chosen not to deal with people. I may go out for a nightcap later but I'm not going to be dealing with anyone while I do.

By the way, PSA for anyone like me who has been saying gratin wrong for a long time, the proper pronunciation is gra-TAN (rhymes with Dan) or gra-TAAN (rhymes with Don). I said GRA-tin (rhymes with rotten) for 40 years on this earth.

Or at least, now someone who properly knows the exact right way to say it can reply to this and correct me.

As a Canadian, I really enjoy listening to Americans pronounce French words.

Editing to say, my French isn't great but I don't think you really say the N in gratin (or maybe that depends on regional accents, I'm not sure). I would say it more like "grah-ten" but without really saying the N. You kind of just hint at its existence. Maybe? We need an actual Francophone here...

there are millions of French words that get mangled by English speakers every day. Just speak French instead. And gratin does not rhyme with Don or Dan

Thanks for using your knowledge to tell us what it doesn't rhyme with.

Super helpful or as they say in France apparently, 'just speak french instead'.

There is no equivalent in English. French has something like 20 different vowel sounds while English has 5.

Maybe pizza, if I don't get lazy first and actually make one.

Chicken gnocchi soup and sandwiches

It's my first time making my own gnocchi 🤞

My trick for gnocchi? Ziplock with the corner cut off.

I’ve only seen it made on tv. Good luck and hope it turns out well!

It was decent; we had fried them lightly before adding to our soup but that made the texture different than expected. Was still tasty so we'll be experimenting on how to best perfect it :)

Indian takeaway for Christmas Eve on my end. Going thru a rough time and I have no family or friends, so this is the best way I know to enjoy myself.

Tomorrow for Christmas I'll be making a small ham with brown sugar glaze and will use it for sandwiches, and I'll use the leftovers for ham, green bean, and potato soup in a day or two.

My daughter requested meatballs for tonight. My wife makes them from scratch. Probably with potatoes and gravy poured on both meat and potatoes. Tomorrow (Christmas day) wife and mother slow cook a big beef roast.

LOVE THIS THREAD! It feels so cozy and home-y up in here with the Lemmy family!

We had guests over, and they made homemade perogies.

They were great.

Tamales

Same: tamales, Spanish rice with pigeon peas in it and side of refried beans. Tamales are a must-have in my house around Christmas or I will turn into the grinch.

I cook once a week+ so day 8 of fried rice, chicken, veggies and a Hong Kong sauce made with spicy mayo, teriyaki, and some fish sauce mixed. Might do that now for lunch and guacamole, chips, and a beer for dinner. Cheers solo crew!

Normally, I would roast a chicken (Turkey is expensive and too big for my Japanese oven and Goose is also expensive and I have no experience with it), make dressing, roast some veg, make mashed potatoes and gravy, and probably make something like brownies for dessert. This year, we're going to hang out with friends of the wife, so I'm not sure what the plan is.

I am making oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies, though, using my grandma's old recipe. I actually put in a bit less sugar today and they turned out more like she used to make, so I'm guessing some things were left out of the recipe. I guess it's also possible that the type of sugar differing is an issue (we don't really have brown sugar that's the exact same here in Japan as in the US, and we also tend not to use granulated sugar in a lot of stuff) as I'd end up with rather flat, crispy cookies rather than the more pillow-y type like I made this morning. Shortening could also differ somehow, I guess, from the Crisco she used.

Fried trout fillets, potatoes, broccoli and green beans, with lemon, butter and some hot sauce. Chestnuts for afters. And half a bottle of Baileys.

This just sounds really great and wholesome.

Sadly the chestnuts were really disappointing (thanks Tesco), loads of bad ones, and just not a great flavour. Everything else was chef's kiss though.

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Just made some home made chicken fried rice for me and the wife. Dunno about tomorrow yet, we haven’t decided between pork chops or chicken fried steak.

First year we have been alone for Christmas so we aren’t doing anything special. Didn’t even put up a tree

Nothing wrong with that. Enjoy your holiday however you like. I’m solo this eve myself and cooking for one ☝️

Homemade Trompo tacos.

Also, tamales and ceviche.

My wife and I make a big baked ziti every Christmas eve (well, she does most of the work but I help wherever I can) and eat it over the next 2 days. It just came out if the oven!

Also got some cheese/meat/crackers/jam for a low-rent version of charcuterie to snack on.

For drinks, various holiday cocktails we can make out of brandy, rum, whiskey, amaretto, schnapps, coffee, eggnog, cider (not all at once of course, just various mixes we make on the fly). We are also gonna mull some wine later and there is some beer in the fridge for if we get lazy or sick of all the holiday stuff.

This all goes down while we have an endless stream of christmas movies/specials/episodes playing.

Eve, we made Cincinnati-style chilidogs. Homemade chili was great, but store-bought buns weren’t great, and neither were the dogs, but it’s rough to get proper ingredients on a different continent. I may try it again this week but with cornbread (I have extra maize flour around, but no spaghetti).

The cornbread version was a total hit!

Texas barbeque because I'm sick of having turkey for every holiday and my SO doesn't want to get Peking duck because we're getting that for lunar New Year.

gonna play some dino nugget roulette. some were recalled a couple of times recently.. dunno if the bags in the freezer are 'ok' or not. don't care, but i think they predate the recalls.

I'm marinating a salmon steak in an Asian sauce mixture, and roasting that. I'll make some fried rice and steam some broccoli, and pour the remaining sauce from the salmon over the broccoli. This is something I meant to do last night but didn't get around to it, so it's my christmas eave dinner tonight.

My family has a tradition of following my Nonna's old family recipe for homemade pasta and sauce.

Slow cooked pork ribs with boiled potatoes and sour cabbage. It's a tradition to the point of pretty much being mandated by law at this point.

Thought it was Christmas eve dinner tonight but the person cooking changed it to tomorrow which doubles up with other family Christmas dinner. So thats a mess but now it's chinese takeout tonight.

Chinese takeout was tradition on Christmas every for us from the 70's up till my digestion couldn't take it anymore, fond nostalgic Christmas memories.

I'm in the car while my wife runs in to grab our Xmas eve Chinese takeout. It's a nice tradition since we end up cooking up a storm on Christmas Day.

Crispy Hawaiian tofu with egg-fried rice. Normally eat it with regular rice but this is a special day and husband wanted to treat me since I've not been at all well these last few weeks. Bloody love egg-fried rice.

Now absolutely stuffed and feel like I never want to eat again, although he's already prepping our two-person Christmas dinner for tomorrow so I won't tell him that!

I'm having lobster tail, mushie peas and unclel Ben's rice. It's not the most elaborate meal but it's comforting and delicious.

I’m going to be having lobster tail myself here shortly! Butterflied and grilled!

Sushi tonight, but I'm making French onion soup for whenever over the next few days. Always better the next day.

Aw yes. Is it cold where you are? French onion soup is the best in chilly weather.

Yep. 40F and rain for a few days here. Need that warmth. Happy holidays!

In respite from the prep cooking I've been doing and the big meal tomorrow we are ordering pizza tonight.

I'm on my own this year, since my wife is out of town. Friends invited me to have Christmas eve dinner with them last night. I brought vegan Swedish meatballs and rye bread (I made them both). They had a lot of good vegan and non-vegan food there. We also drank tequila and blackberry moonshine :). Tonight, I'm having leftovers, and I'm also making some cardamom buns.

A traditional sour cabbage soup called Kapustnica, followed by homemade pork schnitzels with potato salad. For drinks we have boiled plum wine with spices.

I've been working on smoking a brisket all day. Been fighting with the fire half the day so we're running a little behind but it finally came up to the target temp and is resting now while the baked potatoes are cooking. I've only tried a brisket once before and wasn't too happy with how it turned out. Today's method involved a simple seasoning and wrapping it in foil half way through to really cook in those juices, so we'll see how it turns out.

Typical dinner - fish soup, fried carp with potato salad.

I really like it, each year we have lots of potato salad and strong soup.

Eggnog German pancakes tonight, crème brûlée French toast for Christmas morning breakfast and a slow smoked brisket a d smoke Mac and cheese for the big meal

I had noodles and tinned mackerel for Xmas dinner (I live alone).

I plan on going to the supermarket for vegan Ben & Jerries and Mr Kipling iced Xmas slices Boxing day. I'll eat both in one sitting then fall asleep on the sofa.