Fancy Sit Down Dinner Or Lovely Brunch? Start A New Christmas Tradition This Year

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 at 5:30 pm

Perhaps your family is re-thinking their Christmas dinner plans this year. You may be traveling, you may be eating a meal at several family’s homes, or you simply want to cut costs this year by eliminating a big sit-down dinner. Planning to share a Christmas brunch may suit your plans this year for any or all of those reasons.

When the family budget is tight, you may want to reconsider a big dinner. Sit-down dinners will normally cost quite a bit more than even the loveliest brunch. The reasons are numerous. First of all, you will most likely have a large main course, like turkey, duck, or prime rib. Then you’ll want to have all the sides that go along with your traditional fancy meal. And what about the desserts! Then there are the beverages. Typically, an evening meal will have wine or other expensive drinks. It’s hard to trim the expense from a traditional fancy dinner.

For families who are struggling trying to enjoy Christmas while sticking to a budget, a brunch may be just what they need. If travel plans and sharing meals at more than one household are a problem, a brunch may solve that problem, too. Take a look at some simple, yet delicious, ways that you can plan a meal that would suit such a festive occasion.

Brunch Casserole – Probably one of the most familiar and popular dishes for brunch, there are countless recipes from which to choose. Most begin with some sort of potato like hash browns, or bread. To that you add your layers of anything like sausage, ham, green pepper, cheese, and egg. This assemblage is refrigerated overnight, then baked in the morning and served hot. You can make this as simple or as complicated as you choose.

Skillet Dish – If you’ve ever had a Frittata then you know what a skillet meal is like. For brunch, you want to make the Frittata using a variety of breakfast-like foods. Starting with some hash browns or rice, you would fry that up with whatever sausage or ham you like, maybe some vegetables, then pour the egg over and let it set up. Cover it with some shredded cheddar cheese and you have a complete meal in a skillet.

Muffin Tin Meal – Picture mini pot pies full of your favorite breakfast foods. You can start with some simple biscuits in a tube, roll them out flat, and line the muffin tin just like a pie pan. Then fill with sausage, a little hash browns, and crack an egg on top. Sprinkle some shredded cheese on top and pop them in the oven until they are nice and golden brown and the egg is done. Or you can make up a batch of muffin mix and throw in some ham bits, or bacon, and cheese and turn a regular muffin into a whole meal.

Omelets – I hesitate to mention omelets only because they require a lot of work while your guests are there. You can’t make omelets ahead of time. You can, however, prepare all the filling ingredients, you know, the mushrooms, green pepper, ham, onions, or anything else that you like inside your omelet. The deciding factor should be whether or not you want to be cooking while you have guests. If you have a kitchen dining room combination where you can visit with your guests while you’re in the kitchen, that may work out for you. However, if you are going to be isolated from everyone while you’re whipping up omelets, you may want to consider a different menu.

A wide variety of food should be planned for your brunch in order for your guests to walk around and sample a little bit here, a little bit there. Brunches are meant to be casual with a lot of mingling and mixing. Don’t forget to get the coffee started early. Have a choice of coffee and tea, as well as nice pitchers filled with milk, juice, and water on the table. You can forget about the fancy desserts, but a few cookies would certainly be nice.

With just a few ideas for a simple brunch menu, you can put together a nice meal for Christmas. It’s all about spending time with the people you love and not spending your hard earned money on a big fancy dinner. Enjoy your brunch!

Trying to stick with some easy Christmas meals this year? This Christmas, start with a visit to FreeQuickRecipes.com and get your planning underway.