Christmas Dinner 2025 - what are you planning?


 
Man this looks tasty
It’s really easy, my niece used to live in Simpsonville S. C. And there is a barbecue place called Bucky’s which she adored. This is about as close to their recipe as I’ve found. Enjoy! The apricots make people do a double take it’s more fun for me than anything else!
 
We used to do prime rib, but it’s not my wife’s or my daughter’s favorite. Now I do a tenderloin roast instead—it’s simpler, quicker, and if you serve it with Béarnaise sauce, you’ve basically got chateaubriand. Then I have sides of asparagus and roasted potatoes. Simple, yet elegant.

Oh, and I absolutely throw the roast on the WSM, to giving a kiss of mesquite as I raise it to 115f. Then sear it to get it to 135f.
 
Filets which my daughter the nurse actually prefers over ribeyes and she has Christmas off this year so heading to Costco tomorrow. Wife making the green beans wrapped in bacon as my daughter loves them but to be honest I am kinda over them and she wants mashed potatoes with gravy so that is the menu.

A few deserts or whatever all I need to do is cook the steaks. :)
 
Always do beef tenderloin for Christmas and we had the family today as our kids will go to their in-laws next week. No cut pic but was nice good pink centers. Broccoli salad, potato casserole and butter beans with rolls for sides.
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Mike, you should've skewered the tenderloins and served them churrascaria style!

Reserved a prime grade Double R Ranch 4 bone in prime rib roast.
I hope you specified a nice thick fat cap! I waited too long to order one from my favorite purveyor and settled for a supermarket roast, which thankfully wasn't completely scalped.

Nothing!

We have the family over for breakfast. To hard to juggle 4 kids with 2 places to be.
Presents after breakfast then everyone’s free to go do what the want the rest of the day.
That's what we've been doing for the past few Christmases, but this year the daughters and their husbands don't have to be anywhere else that day so we're pushing things back to lunch. Today I picked up a 3-bone, 7-1/2 lb. rib roast and we'll have it with mashed potatoes (made the night before), acorn squash, corn or maybe peas, and crescent rolls. The weather looks promising so I'm hoping to kettle-rotisserie the beef and catch the drippings in a pan of beef broth.

Christmas Eve will be just the wife and I, so I think there'll be a little hanky panky involved.;)
 
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We never buy prime rib roasts because they are usually too expensive.
In fact we have only served it once 30 some odd years ago when my stepdad gave us one.
I never knew what I was missing until a few days ago when we had some at my wife’s office party dinner.
Dang that was good.

So today when the wife and I were getting the last few items for our wonderful turkey Christmas dinner, I looked at the rib roasts at QFC and they looked great at 14.99 per pound. I saw them a few weeks ago for about $29. at Costco so I snagged a 6.5 pounder thinking that I scored big time for getting one half off the usual price.

As I was unloading the groceries at home I see a Safeway digital coupon add for rib roast @ $6.97 per pound (with a $50 purchase) so I look at the wife and say should I go grab one of them too and she told me to go for it.
This one was 6.7 lbs. It cost $46.69 and it looks beautiful. The receipt says I saved $80 on it which was very cool even though I had to spend $50 on other items too.

I went from never buy a rib roast ever to buying 2 on the same day.
I still have to eat that darn Turkey dinner on Christmas Eve though 🫤.

The sun sets at about 4:20 on New Years Eve here, so the plan is to have a few friends over for a nice early dinner and shoot off a few fireworks.
 
I always buy a sub primal at Costco (or Sam's if pricing is competitive) and then I cut it up as I desire. Usually into very nice ribeye steaks as I don't always have need of a roast and they're harder to pack and store. Oddly this year I'd just bought one maybe 3 weeks ago and have only consumed one steak from it. When I was pressed into service for the Christmas Day roast. I will have quite an abundance of ribeye steak in a short while (my chamber vac sealer will be quite "busy")
 
I went from never buy a rib roast ever to buying 2 on the same day.
{snip}
The sun sets at about 4:20 on New Years Eve here, so the plan is to have a few friends over for a nice early dinner and shoot off a few fireworks.
What's your plans for the two roasts? BBQ? Rotisserie?? Other???
NYE sounds like it'll be fun & tasty at Andy's place
 
Chuck, I am kinda wondering about how I will cook one of those too.
I don’t even remember cooking the one I did 30 years ago so this will be more or less a first for me.

I think a Summit Kamado would be the best choice but I don’t have one of those.
I vacuum sealed them and will save one for a later date.

I am kinda leaning towards my kettle with the snake method and go somewhat low and slow.
The rotisserie sounds like a good idea too though and will probably be the choice after I do some research on it.
I briefly considered using my Slow n Sear on the kettle but I don’t think that is the best option.
I do know that I’d rather not use my oven.

What would you do with only a kettle and a wsm at hand?

One thing I do have in my favor is that plenty of you guys are going rib roast for Christmas so I can cherry pick the best ideas for my NYE dinner, well other than using a kamado 🫤.
 
15 lb. turkey on the Summit Charcoal, ham on the Spirit E-310, 2 small rump roasts (in the oven), 4 bone prime rib roast, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, home made cranberry sauce, some cajun spiced corn kernels, brown sugar roasted carrots, and lots and lots of rolls, buns, and multiple pies. Having about 20 people over this year.
 
We are gonna deep fry a rib roast in the turkey fryer for new years.
I stumbled across that being done one time back when my late friend and I were fishing on the Madison Chain of Lakes. We'd just pulled into The Green Lantern for a bite of lunch and and I could not believe my eyes when I saw them pulling a prime rib out of an outdoor fryer. I said something about it to my friend who'd not really seen because he was docking his boat. He'd been an executive chef for a large portion of his life and he said it's a perfect way to cook them. Here I thought like "smoked" Old Fashioneds it was a Wisconsin thing.
 

 

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