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The topics on here lately have been disgusting. Salmon, gluten free. Yuck. And not even a Thanksgiving recipie blitz. Let's get back on track & start with best Christmas dishes.

I am planning on making a rock salt prime rib for Christmas Eve which is really easy to do. Use a meat thermometer to get your temperature perfect, then season with garlic, pepper, rosemary & cover with rock salt. I like to use foil roasting pans so you can just pitch them when you are done. Perfect & tasty every time.

Okay, your turn to post favorite holiday recipies or treats & nothing gross!

BOTOX, BABY!

My Xmases are a bit weird. The family is painfully traditional when it comes to Thanksgiving with the menu varying very little from year to year.

Christmas, on the other hand, is something entirely different. The meals literally change from year to year. This year will be an herbed stock fondue with mixed green salads.

Do I have a favorite dish? I suppose it was a prime roast I did with a mustard pan reduction sauce several years ago. That was a KILLER sauce! I served it with roasted root vegetables and some gaudy desserts.

I'm contemplating duck or smoked brisket this year for something completely different.

Don't ask me about desserts yet.

Here is a brief cornbread recipe. I don't know if this is normal, something I randomly came up with one year. But, it's so good I call it "Your Cornbread Sucks." And I mean it.

Take however many boxes of Jiffy cornbread mix you need to feed however big your horde is. Keep all of the egg/milk mixtures as recommended. Fill your pan or muffin tin, and for each box you used take 1/8 of a stick of butter, melted in a mug, with a small amount of sugar mixed in with it. Take a small spoon and scoop a spoonful of the simple mixture periodically over your batter, using the spoon to puncture the mixture occasionally (this allows the butter/sugar mix to sink in without overtaking the whole thing - do this once per muffin if you are going that route). Roughly halfway through cooking, take your bread out and lightly sprinkle sugar over top of it.

Voila. Your cornbread most definitely sucks. I make this for just about every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, and sometimes just for the heck of it. And this is literally one of the only things I can cook, which is why I so enjoy being unnecessarily audacious about it.

The holidays with my family are pretty much pure traditional without a lot of experimentation. On top of that it's all food that tries to appeal to the masses...pretty much eat the same foods every year. Thanksgiving is turkey & dressing, etc. Christmas is Ham, cheesey potatoes, casseroles, etc, at one grandparents'; Rib Roast, mashed potatoes, etc at the other grandparents'.

I always have Christmas Eve dinner with my parents and that is open to a little more experimentation, but usually starts with a steak & seafood combo of some sort. No real favorite recipes though.

I took pies to Thanksgiving this year. I would highly recommend this recipe for Pecan Pie. A friend & I each made this to take to our family's thanksgiving, and both families raved about it. We did use dark corn syrup, and we used our goto crust recipe rather than the one she uses. The recipe we use is from one of Alton Brown's.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/11/pecan-pie/

Yum! Those sound so good guys. I will definitely try the cornbread. Mark, your fondue sounds good too!

The menus have been settled and here they go.

Xmas eve will be a trio of fondues: stock, cheese, and chocolate. Xmas morning will be Belgian Waffles, sausage, and broiled grapefruit. Xmas evening will be two soups and homemade bread. Chicken tortilla and French Onion.

Desserts are going to be at the Xmas eve whimsy of me and brother in law.

Food, drink, and merriment are the reasons for the season!