Christmas: 6 practical ideas to cook as a family and celebrate togetherness

This 2021 everything has changed and we know it well. However, there are ways to see the bright side of tough times. Many families are on tight budgets, but that should not be an impediment to spending a Christmas happy and full of love. Here are some simple and quick ideas to prepare with things that we normally have at home.

These recipe ideas that I share with you can be prepared as a family, since they are very easy (even if cooking is not your strong suit). I recommend that you enjoy the route and not just the destination: for example, you could start from the morning of the 24th cooking as a family and thus create beautiful memories. This Christmas may be different, but it can also be unforgettable.

Here are my proposals:

1. Hot panettone mix for breakfast or lunch. We cut the panettone into sheets and flatten them with a roller or bottle. We fill them with slices of cheese and ham, and spread with olive oil or butter. We heat the sandwich until golden and the cheese melted.
2. Whole, green and red baked apples. We remove the heart and fill with cinnamon, brown sugar or sugar and a point of butter. We bake.
3. Baked sweet potatoes. We bake them with platen paper. They are so sweet that it only remains to open them a little in half and put a point of butter and a splash of orange juice.
4. Rice with olives or artichokes. We prepare the rice as we always do or with homemade chicken or turkey broth, and mix it with the olives or artichokes (cooked), previously blended with one or two tablespoons of olive oil and cooked for 5 more minutes in a pan . At the end we add the chopped Chinese onion and 5 finely cut pecans.
5. Potato salad. This dish goes very well with Yungay potato (white) because it does not break. We peel it and cut it into approximately 1 cm squares and cook it in boiling water with a little salt. When cool we add mayonnaise, olive or vegetable oil, lemon zest, crispy bacon, chopped parsley or Chinese onion, salt and pepper. If you want, you can add diced apple or grapes cut in half lengthwise, pecans or caramelized nuts … But if you don’t have them, it is delicious as is and thus we save a little sweet.
6. Baked turkey breast. Sometimes a whole turkey is a lot for a small family. That is why I recommend, if there are not many at home, to compare a breast and season it from the night before with its classic recipe. If not, a good dressing is to make 2 oranges, 1 branch of rosemary, 1 handful of parsley, 1 bay leaf, 1 clove of garlic, salt and pepper. They blend it all together and add it to the turkey breast the night before and refrigerate. Before cooking the turkey, remove it from the fridge so that it is at room temperature (a couple of hours). Then, they smear it in butter or olive oil, and cook it in a preheated oven over high heat for 20 minutes to seal it and make it juicy. Then they put platinum paper on it and cook it upside down for a couple of hours over medium heat. To finish it, they turn it face up again, this time without a platen, to give it the final browning. They can calculate 35 minutes per kilo roughly at 350 degrees, you don’t have to lose!

I hope you have a Merry Christmas and come into your kitchens to share and enjoy.