Christmas recipes, cookies, cocktails, cheese boards, and gift guides.
The easiest Christmas cocktail recipes to batch the night before are ones built mostly on spirits, juices, and syrups that hold their flavor in the fridge, like a moscow mule base, spiked hot chocolate, or mulled wine, with anything fizzy poured in right before serving. I used to spend the first hour of every holiday
The cheapest way to build a christmas themed charcuterie board is to buy two blocks of cheese instead of a pre-sliced variety pack, cut each block three different ways to fake the look of four or five cheeses, and lean on rosemary sprigs, pomegranate seeds, and homemade dried orange slices for the festive color instead
The best make ahead skewer appetizers use firm, well-dried ingredients threaded in an order that keeps the wettest piece, usually mozzarella, near the top and added last, with any dressing held back until right before serving. I have brought soggy antipasto skewers to a party exactly once, and the memory still makes me wince a
The easiest Christmas breakfast recipes are the ones you build the night before, and a hash brown sausage and egg casserole is the one that gets the whole table fed while you’re still in your pajamas. I used to think a big holiday breakfast meant getting up at 6 a.m. to stand over a skillet
A poinsettia cocktail is cranberry juice, orange liqueur, and sparkling wine, and the cranberry base batches perfectly the night before. The ratio I use, why it isn’t quite a Christmas mimosa, and how to scale it for a crowd without losing the bubbles.
My cranberry Moscow mule is built to be batched the night before, with the vodka, cranberry, and lime mixed ahead and the ginger beer poured in at the glass so it never goes flat.
To make mulled wine you can batch ahead, simmer a cheap dry red with cinnamon, cloves, orange peel, and sugar, stir in brandy off the heat, then chill it overnight and reheat it low and slow. The batch-ahead method, the wine to buy, and how to hold it warm in a slow cooker all night.
The most elegant Christmas appetizers use just two or three high-quality ingredients arranged simply, like cranberry brie bites, whipped feta with hot honey, marinated shrimp, or prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, and most of them take about 15 minutes of hands-on work rather than any real cooking skill. I used to think elegant meant complicated. My first few
Coquito is a rich Puerto Rican coconut and rum drink you make by blending coconut cream, coconut milk, evaporated milk, and condensed milk with warm spices, then chilling the whole batch for at least a day so the rum and coconut actually taste like one drink instead of two.
Cranberry brie bites are mini muffin-tin appetizers made by pressing squares of puff pastry into the cups, tucking in a cube of brie and a spoonful of cranberry sauce, then baking at 375°F for 15 to 18 minutes until the pastry puffs golden and the cheese turns soft and melty. That’s the whole idea, and
The best marinated shrimp appetizers use shrimp that’s already cooked, tossed cold in a lemon garlic marinade and chilled for at least two hours, because raw shrimp left sitting in lemon juice starts to “cook” from the acid and turns rubbery. I used to think marinating meant dumping raw shrimp into a bowl of lemon
Prosciutto wrapped asparagus is roasted asparagus spears wrapped in thin strips of prosciutto at 425°F for about 12 to 15 minutes, until the prosciutto turns crisp and the asparagus is tender but still has a bite. I make this one so often that I don’t really measure anymore, but the first dozen times I did,
The best budget Christmas dinner idea is building your whole menu around brown sugar pork tenderloin instead of prime rib or ham, since it costs a fraction as much per serving but still looks like a restaurant plate when you slice it at the table. I used to think a fancy Christmas dinner meant a