I have toted thanksgiving dinner about 1 1/2 hours....but never Christmas.
I did turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing of course, cranberries, pumpkin pies, home made rolls and fruit salad.
I made the mashed potatoes while the turkey was cooking and nuked when we got there....just did steamed greennbeans and did that there....the stuffing was in a casserole dish,

Anyhow When the turkeyw as done, I loaded it into a cooler made the gravy with the drippings in the pan, put the rest of the stuff in other coolers and got in the car and went.
When i got there, the table was set....and I got the casseroles into the oven, the green beans to cooking, the potatoes in the microwave and began to carve the turkey.
It was surprisingly easy
I think a paella would be gummy for having sat...I had paella at a hotel buffet in Madrid...and it was gummy.
I can't think of many seafood dishes that hold well at all...I would think more of ham, scalloped potatoes a fruit salad and simple steamed veggies....maybe some sauteed apple slices for "fancy".
Linda C

Nina,
The fish soup, put it together w/o the fish, add the fish when you get to your location. Apply the same to the paella as well.

Lucy

Linda- unfortunately we arrive in the morning. I'll be bringing dinner, which won't be served until 5 or 6pm at the earliest. So bringing it ready to serve isn't an option. It's got to be something that can be made ahead and re-heated.

Lucy- if I can do this with the fish soup that would be perfect. They would love it, and they don't do the "big fish" on Christmas Eve like we do so it wouldn't be too much fish.

Hmmm, maybe the fish soup and a filled pasta? I could make ravioli ahead of time & freeze them to boil as needed, right?

Nina

The fish soup would & could work wonderfully and homemade rav's YUMMO! The rav's wouldn't necessarily need to be frozen, cook al dente, place in a lasagna type baking pan, top them w/sauce, cover, transport & heat in oven. There ya go!

Lu

Oh yes, I agree about the ravioli, I think most of that type of dish with sauce only gets better when it sits for a while.

Vegetables seem to travel and reheat well, if you do them without sauces, but maybe that's just me. I will admit that I love Harvard Beets, especially rewarmed. and soups seem to lend themselves to reheating too, I've had warmed up salmon chowder and oyster stew as well as leftover veggie or chicken noodle, they're all good! I think creamy soups are little more difficult to deal with than broth based ones, but not impossible.

Salad? Tossed? Green? Fruit? I think many could be just put together when you're ready, if all the components are transported separately.

It's very nice of you to do this for your MIL, and I think it'll also be nice to be able to enjoy the day, without spending it all getting ready for dinner. Have a great time.

Annie

I actually had a minor brain storm this weekend & thought of manicotti. The real kind with the homemade shells. Nobody seems to make that anymore and I know that I can definitely make it ahead. Now if I do this do I freeze it uncooked or cooked?

Lucy- I also test drove the fish soup this weekend and oh. my. GOD!!! It was fabulous. I'm just afraid that it might be too filling with pasta after it (read- it's so good that everybody wille at too much of it & not have room for pasta).

Nina

What a nice thing for you to do!
Can I have that delicious fish soup recipe please?

Nina,
Manicotti, that sounds wonderful. Do you make the crepes for those? It's been about a year since I've last made them....boy are they good!

Lucy

Sorry I meant to add, you could make them, line them up on a baking sheet, freeze individually , & then zip-loc. Evening before or day of, place them in the baking pan, add the sauce, bake when you get there.

Lucy

Zuppa de Pesce...I make it all the time (mine is mainly a shell fish base) you can throw all the ingriedients in including the tomatoes,garlic and wine in a big stock pot cover and secure lid put on the stove 15 minutes before dinner beautiful!!! Paella is a hard one ...sorry...imo...just one of those meal to cook and serve ASAP....Lasgna,eggplant parm all can be carted and thrown in the oven 1 hour before (just prepare it up to the baking point)... so can a pot of Italian Gravy with meat (of course made in advance) You can do as I do boil your macaroni to Al Dente cool under cold water add a tablespoon of olive oil and zip lock it...when its time to eat place in a colander and run hot tap water over it drain and dress with any hot sauce..including the Fish sauce!

Nina,

I just had to share.

I did the same thing several years ago. My mom was ill but still wanted to have the family at her house. I told her that I would bring every stick of food right down to the butter to prevent her from doing anything in the kitchen.

My husband, 2 kids and I started out on our 150 mile adventure early Christmas morning with food for 25 people. We got about 20 miles and had a flat tire. So we took everything our of the trunk (food, presents and assorted other items) to get at the spare. I think we must have looked pretty pathetic with all of us standing along the road with all of our belongings. We put on the small spare tire and went back home to switch cars.

Then about 50 more miles into our trip the oil light went on.........and off again when we pulled over. We kept driving.

Another 25 miles or so I was talking to my husband and the lens just popped out of his glasses! Fortunately it popped back in easily.

Just 45 miles short of our destination we came across a woman who was stranded with her broken-down car on the side of the road. We stopped for her and took her to her destination.

It did get me to thinking that there were 20 plus people in danger of eating wieners from the spinner cooker at the local convenience store for their Christmas dinner.

It was one of those days when it was just best to laugh.

We stay home now.

Colleen

Here's a seafood dish that I've made a few times now for our Christmas Eve dinner. If you like salmon, this is really delicious and the presentation is pretty impressive.

With your requirement of being on the road, this recipe works very well to do all the prep work ahead of time and just put it in the oven to bake. The recipe calls for wrapping 4 individual pieces of salmon in puff pastry, but for a larger group, I just wrap one larger salmon filet in the puff pastry, then bake it a bit longer. I've also made it with filo dough (layer with melted butter 3-4 sheets) instead of puff pastry and it is delicious.

Kulebiaka (or Coulibiac)
Salmon in Pastry
(this is from Bon Appetit)

Salmon, Rice, Pastry
1/2 cup long-grain white rice
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
1/2 cup minced leek (white and pale green parts only)
6 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, chopped
2 sheets frozen puff pastry (one 17 1/4-ounce package), thawed
4 6-ounce (4x2 1/2-inch) skinless salmon fillet
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water

Dill Sauce
2/3 cup bottled clam juice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 1/4 cups cre fraîche or whipping cream
3 tablespoons minced fresh dill

Preparation for salmon, rice, pastry:
Bring medium saucepan of salted water to boil. Add rice; boil uncovered until just tender, about 18 minutes. Drain.
Melt butter in heavy medium skillet over medium-low heat. Add leek; sauté until beginning to soften, about 4 minutes. Add mushrooms. Cover skillet; cook until mushrooms release their juices, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Uncover skillet. Increase heat to medium-high; sauté until liquid evaporates, about 3 minutes. Transfer to bowl. Add rice. Season with salt and pepper. Cool completely.

Butter large baking sheet. Roll out 1 pastry sheet on floured surface to 12-inch square. Cut into 4 equal squares. Divide rice mixture among centers of squares, mounding in oval shape with ends toward 2 corners of pastry. Set salmon atop rice. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bring pastry corners up around salmon (pastry will not enclose salmon completely.) Roll out remaining pastry sheet on floured surface to 13-inch square. Cut into 4 equal squares. Lay 1 square atop each salmon fillet, tucking corners under bottom pastry to enclose salmon completely. Pinch edges together to seal, brushing with egg mixture if necessary to adhere. Arrange salmon packages, seam side down, on prepared baking sheet. Cover and chill 30 minutes. (Can be made 8 hours ahead. Keep chilled.)

Preheat oven to 400°F. Brush top of pastry with egg mixture. Bake until golden and thermometer inserted into fish registers 145°F, about 30 minutes.

For dill sauce:
Combine clam juice and wine in heavy small nonaluminum saucepan. Boil until reduced to 1/3 cup, about 9 minutes. Reduce heat to medium. Whisk in creème fraîche. Boil until reduced to 1 cup, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in dill. Season with salt and pepper.

If crème fraîche is unavailable, heat 1 cup whipping cream to lukewarm (85°F). Remove from heat and mix in 2 tablespoons buttermilk. Cover and let stand in warm draft-free area until slightly thickened (24 to 48 hours, depending on temperature of room). Refrigerate until ready to use.

Transfer salmon packages to plates. Spoon Dill Sauce around and serve.

what if you prepared some of the things and froze them in muffin cups [maybe silicon?] and popped them out into freezer bags so they would be easier to reheat? You could flash freeze veggies that way and then put them in the Ziploc steamer bags for easy preparation at your destination maybe. And little muffin tin blocks of soup that you could ziploc and then boil in the bag? There are so many great new preparation plastics that could make it less stressful when you arrive to reheat things. You could even prep some frozen stuff into crock pot liners, pop 'em in the crock pot and avoid clean up.

Good Luck, what a nice thing you're doing trying to make this less work for your extended family! Hope Santa rewards you! ;-)

Oh Colleen! What a Christmas!

Staying home really isn't an option for us. We do Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas day with his. That's the way it is, carved in stone. My MIL is my husband's step mother and they spend Christmas eve with her 4 kids & 10 grandchildren. My family does the big Italian fish fest on Christmas Eve so we spend the Eve with mine (especially since I'm the one cooking for the past few years).

But Colleen's story reminded me of one Christmas...it was the year before my son was born. It was slushing when we left our house to head out to the in law's but wasn't doing anything once we got there. We arrived around 10AM and I told my MIL that because of the weather we'd be heading home no later than 5. She responded that dinner would never be ready in time. It was 10AM. She was making a roast. I don't understand why the roast couldn't have been put in the oven at noon but we left at 5pm without dinner, cruising on nothing but some crackers and clam dip.

We had been watching the weather channel all day to get an idea of what was happening back home but I guess everything was pre-recorded because while they were getting nothing on LI we were getting pounded back home. It took us over 4 hours to get back home, basically with the highways getting closed behind us. It was a long, slow, slog. Cars were skidding off of the road everywhere, unable to negotiate the high drifts of snow...I honestly don't know how my little CRV managed it.

We got home after 9. I called my brother's house to let my mother know that we were home safe. My SIL answered & asked how Christmas was, what we had for dinner. When I said that there was no dinner she told us to come over (they live across the street) and by the time we arrived she had dishes from every course of their dinner reheated & waiting for us.

Meanwhile, you guys are giving me some great ideas! Freezing individual portions is very clever. I hand't thought of that. The salmon sounds divine, and so fancy!

The fish soup...I'm thinking...if I buy a bag of the mixed shellfish that they sell at Trader Joe's I could just throw it in frozen which would mean less chopping & work the day of. I think that I can even get frozen clams (clams are my son's favorite).

Lucy- I haven't made "real" manicotti crepes in forever. I'll need to see if I can find my mom's original recipe since even she stopped making the real deal years ago & was using her own crepe recipe instead for the shells.

I came across a couple of recipes- one with a spinach filling in a red sauce & one with a prosciutto filling in a white sauce and they both sound promising so I may make a pan of each.

The trouble is that I don't know how many people we'll be. Shouldn't be more than 8.

Salad travels easily & I can make a simple steamed veggie for a side, like haricots. Actually if I make a nice lemon vinegarette for the veggies ahead of time I can steam pretty much anything on site!

I really appreciate all of the ideas and suggestions (and stories). I knew you guys could help me figure this out!

Nina

Nina, here is a recipe for Canelloni/Manicotti from Lori of this forum...an Italian girl so you know it's good!

I make it with both a red sauce and the white sauce and usually add prosciutto as well. It is a delicious recipe.

Canneloni Stuffed With Spinach And Ricotta

Notes: Lori's recipe originally called for 2 pounds fresh spinach, cooked and drained. I have served with the cream sauce or a tomato sauce

6 eggs
1 1/2 Cup flour
1/4 Tsp salt
1 1/2 Cup water
1 Package frozen spinach ,thawed and drained
1 1/2 Cup ricotta
3/4 Cup parmesan
2 egg yolks
Pinch nutmeg, salt and pepper
1 butter Unsalted
1 Cup heavy cream

Combine first 4 ingredients in bowl with electric mixer. Let stand at least 1/2 hour. Cook individual crepes over med heat.

Combine spinach , ricotta, egg yolks. 1/4 cup parmesan, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Blend well with a fork.

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a casserole dish with the butter. Spread mixture onto to crepes and roll up. Lay seam side down in the dish. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup parmesan. and pour the cream over top. Bake until they turn golden, about 20 minutes.

Here is one from Malto Mario that sounds way over the top, in a good way! I've been meaning to try it but the occasion hasn't presented itself.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mario's recipe