That sounds like fun, Jkom! The cabbage-bread soup particularly tempts me, as does your turkey-orzo.

Your soup dinner sounds great to me! How many people for the three soups mentioned? And could you share the turkey orzo recipe?

Our Christmas Eve dinner was pretty traditional for our family: appetizers and wine/cocktails, grilled beef tenderloin, grilled fish for some, oyster casserole, dressing and gravy, apricot casserole, fresh green salad with pears, pecans, and craisins, lot of desserts including Lemon Coconut Chess Pie, Caramel Cake, Rum Cake, and vanilla ice cream with homemade bittersweet chocolate sauce.

A few of us gathered around while my BIL was making the oyster casserole so we could see just how he made this dish that we love. Very easy, and only a few ingredients - oysters, saltine crackers, pepper, butter.

Teresa

I love Miso soup and also make the broth with bonita flakes and kombu, but that is definitely not vegetarian, unless tuna is now a vegetable! That reminds me of My Big Fat Greek Wedding!

I also love the idea of having a variety of soups for a meal, and the cabbage bread soup sounds very interesting, as an alternative to French onion soup.

Our Christmas Eve was very low key. It was in the 70s that day (much cooler than the 80 degrees the day before), and so we grilled outside. We had Cajun chicken breasts, Yukon Gold potatoes, and a lettuce and mushroom salad with a Ranch dressing that I made with Meyer lemon juice, garlic, fresh dill, etc. After the main food was cooked, we grilled some Habanero chilies, shallots, and ripe jalapenos so that I can make more Mesquite smoked Habanero sauce. Breakfast that day was an omelet with mushrooms, spinach, onion, half a Habanero, and Jarlsberg cheese, served with pumpernickel toast. I generally make a three egg omelet for the two of us, and half a Habanero was the right amount for three eggs. I do not use black pepper when I use chilies, but I did add a bit of thyme.

I really like the idea of paring down and making things simpler and less stressful. Also, if I cook too much, then I end up with too many leftovers.

Christmas Day I make Latkes and a loaf of whole wheat onion bread. I used the liquid I squeezed out of the grated potatoes/onions in the bread. We had sandwiches and Minestrone soup for a late lunch, and at dinner time we watched the last "X" Men movie and ate popcorn. I had not made popcorn in a very long time and had just bought some fresh corn to pop. We had tried to watch the movie a couple of days earlier, but Warner Brothers forces you to watch countless trailers before the movie will start (on the BluRay disc), disabling all menus until the trailers have finished. I eventually figured out that I could run the disc in the BluRay player while watching cable on TV, and then switch to BluRay after the commercials had run. I hate it when studios disable menus to force you to watch promos. I liked the movie, once I was able to figure out how to avoid the trailers. It did seem like a popcorn movie. I season the popcorn with Cajun seasoning (no butter), and I popped it in avocado oil.

Kevin is on call at work but for now is working at home. He will have to go in briefly some time today to fix some kind of problem with some Walmart orders, even though Walmart is not one of his normal clients.

Lars

Your soup night sounds fab!

We did a nod to it being Christmas Eve with a beaded tree for a centerpiece.

Ann T., avoid your eyes, and skip the rest. :)

Soup was minestrone flavored stone soup. I think the caterer left as much food as was served at our big party, so there were a lot of celery and carrots, grape tomatoes, cauliflower and broccoli left. Those were all diced for the soup, plus a couple of onions, half a head of garlic, some yellow vine tomatoes, a bag of baby kale and a white cabbage. So I didn't have to go down to the garage, the base was what I had in the kitchen freezer. That's three cups of low FODMAP chicken stock and three cups of beefy cabbage soup. I added a can of crushed tomatoes, a small can of fire roasted, and a smaller can of tomato sauce, plus vegetarian no-MSG bouillion and a little jarred soup base, for the salt. :) Some pepper, Tabasco (because I was too tired to clean serrano peppers from the garden) and mostly red wine.

The starter was salmon salad made from the cranberry mustard salmon skewers leftover, broken up and dressed with what I think was the remoulade from the fried chicken drummettes. It had separated, and was a thick mayonnaise consistency and very herby, with a good acid sharpness that went well with the fish (which hadn't gone fishy). That was served with the leftover tortilla chips and relishes: baby corn, spiced baby carrots, pickle chips, raddishes and mixed olives. I also made some kale chips for something light. :)

The soup was served alongside a leftovers casserole: a layer of latkes on the bottom (I thought they'd make it easier to serve but they fell apart), then layers of jewel rice, butternut curry, chopped broccoli, then filled with a bread pudding made from dry, bready donut holes, a (new) pretzel baguette, the chicken from the drummettes, the Moroccan beef cubes from another skewer, a couple of sundried tomato chicken sausages I had in the fridge to add more meat, and a couple of (new) leeks sautéed with a packet of small diced pancetta. There was cinnamon on the donut holes, the flavor of which came up more in the custard than it had on the donuts, but it went well with the garlic pepper I seasoned it with.

Dessert was a tarte made from a sheet of frozen puff pastry that needed using. It was brushed with leftover passion fruit sauce, topped with leftover crème anglaise, and leftover fruit. :) There were also everybody's favorite freshly baked Toll House cookies from the Toll House cookie expert and party colored Dutch chocolate half dollars (leftover).

The pudding casserole could have been improved upon (custard in the bottom layer under the curry to glue it together--the curry was a rich paste so I thought it would do the job, but it just softened everything--and cut up the donut holes smaller so they'd stick better), but everyone liked it and ate well of it. I heard a few "stuffed"'s. :) My fridges heaved sighs of relief to see so many containers removed!

Most of all, we had a delightful evening with loved ones who couldn't be at the big party.

I went to my step sister's for Christmas eve dinner. A whole loose interpretation of the italian 7 fishes. Herring gravlox oysters for appetizers. Then an amazing tomato fish soup with canadian shrimp mussels halibut and I forget number seven....

publickman, your post made me laugh! Out here in the Bay Area, 99% of all self-professed "vegetarians" are really "flexitarians". To them, fish just doesn't count, LOL.