Complete Holiday Feast 🎄🍴🎁
A stunning 5-recipe set that will thrill you and yours 🙌
The big day is only 5 days away! 🎄 ⛄️
(or 4 depending on how you celebrate)
Regardless I’m dropping a full 5-dish meal set that will thrill your family and guests.
First things First:
I was honored to be invited by BowtiedBull to write a guest Holiday food post in their Substack.
Please go check out the edition, I dropped a new recipe there, and also get on the BowtiedBull Substack list for life changing perspectives on finance, wifi money and investing 🙌
*For those unaware this account was started as a response to the writings of BowtiedBull.
The holiday meals are known for being:
stressful
meal making is a hassle
there’s never enough room in the kitchen
you don’t have enough oven space
the fridge is too full
On top of that, I’m going to teach you how to think like a chef and make this entire meal efficiently and affordably.
Funny thing is, I made this entire menu for some close family members last week so I could share these dialed in recipes with you in plenty of time.
We ate like kings 👑. The flavors were out of this world… maximum enjoyment. 🙌
Only after did I realize that this entire menu is extremely affordable in relation to most holiday meals.
Use all, or some, of these recipes to elevate your big holiday meal.
Inspiration:
This holiday season I’m taking some inspiration, as well as some creative license, from the UK 🇬🇧 .
“A Christmas Carol” is one of my favorite Christmas stories. Mama Octopod used to read this story to us kids every year before bedtime during December.
As such, in addition to my affinity for Dickens writings, most of the time when thinking of a Christmas Feast I think of Ebenezer Scrooge taking the prize bird from the poulterers window and surprising Bob Cratchit and Co. to make a memorable Feast.
Add to that, the Brits have a wonderful tradition of Roast Lunches. Carveries the countryside over have lines of people waiting on perfectly roasted meats, sliced freshly off the joint accompanied by the crispiest roast potatoes and pillowy Yorkshire puddings… doused in waterfalls of gravy. 🤤
The magic of this meal is that most of the ingredients are humble… flour and milk for the puddings, spuds and fat for the roast potatoes.
One memory I still carry with me is the first time I took a bite of a Yorkshire pudding doused in gravy. An older gentleman was dining with us and proceeded to tell the story of how in WWII his parents would feed the children yorkshire pudding slathered in fruit jam before special meals so the kids would be more full and eat less meat… since meat was scarce and at a premium.
The irony is now, once you have a proper Yorkie dripping with gravy… you may find yourself enjoying that peasant item more than the roast it accompanies.
Creative License
For the sake of efficiency and less stress we are doing away with the huge bird and going to make a Royal Roast 👑
Following that will be my personal recipes for the perfect potatoes and yorkshire puddings that has bowled people over for years.
Add to that a hack for easy gravy… and then we come to the sides.
Ah, yes.. the sides.
I think that people are so used to being underwhelmed by side dishes that as long as you execute your mains properly, you can blow people away with delicious side dishes because they just aren’t expecting much.
Case and point with the (2) sides I whipped that were absolutely perfect with this roast meal… don’t sleep on these flavor bombs.
Efficiency:
I’m going to show you how you can do all of this with just one stove and one oven and write an order of preparation so you will not waste anytime… it’s all timed out for maximum efficiency.
Speaking of efficiency… quick round math puts this feast at approx ~$15 per person and will easily feed 10ppl. (*Yes this could be slightly more or slightly less depending on your geography… this is still cheaper than Chipotle or Uber Eats 🤢).
Menu:
Crown Roast of Pork with Rosemary
Duck Fat Roasted Potatoes
Yorkshire Puddings w/Gravy
Parsnip-Apple Puree
Maple Roasted Pears with Walnuts & Dill
Today I’m dropping the “Big 3” then following tomorrow with the sides and complete schedule to cook day of.
It would just be too much to put all of this into one substack, so this gives you a bit of time to digest 😉
Without further ado…
Crown Roast Pork fit for a King
Perfect Roast Potatoes
Legendary Yorkshire Puddings