Merry Christmas Munchies

You've got Andy Williams on the turntable and one or the other treatments of A Christmas Carol on the flatscreen. What are you going to eat and drink?
Friday list-day again and after a week of music and then movies, it's time we got to the munchies.

Let's be honest food is a pretty serious component of our holidays. From your Thanksgiving harvest feast to the Christmas Roast Beast, we love our main dishes, festive sides, sweet desserts and the snacky things. Here are our lists of good Christmas food sure to get the visions of sugar plumbs dancing in your heads.

Sugar-coated Sue because she's so sweet!

2. Potica: What? Pronounced (paw-tee'-tzah), it's a Slovenian pastry - a bread-like nut roll stuffed with walnut filling, and really, really yummy with coffee. My late grandma T used to bake them at Christmastime. Delicious!

3. Christmas cookies: Sugar cut-outs with sprinkles, chocolate chip, nut crescents, oatmeal, magic cookie bars, mini pecan cups, peanut butter with a chocolate kiss on top, thumbprint cookies with jam, and so on. I like them all. Every year since I was a child, we've baked dozens and dozens of cookies for snacking, gifting, and leaving out for Santa along with a glass of milk and some carrots for the reindeer.

1. Eggnog: Unless you're Martha Stewart, most likely you simply pick up some nog at the store. The best around these parts is from Oberweis Dairy. Even better with a little nutmeg sprinkled on top, and a little something-something added for the grown-ups ;)

Brined Brian (it sounds the same when some of my relatives say it)

2) Caramel Corn - I don't know why I associate this with Christmas, but I do. Pop the corn, make the caramel, pour, stir, bake, stir... mmmm so good! If you're not into making it yourself, I highly recommend getting it from Nuts on Clark.
(ahem, Sue here, the top caramel corn in Chicago is from Garrett's just like the best pizza in the windy city is from Pizzeria Uno downtown, silly Brian!)

3) Gingerbread - but not just any gingerbread man or house. This is Nigella Lawson's Sticky Gingerbread. So good - that's a link to the recipe.

1) TURDUCKIN - this is the holy grail of feasting. You stuff a chicken into a duck and stuff that into a turkey. Roast/Bake and carve it up. WOW!
(Sue again, putting in my two cents - meat stuffed in meat stuffed in meat. BLECH! You kind sir, can have your funky chicken and my portion, too. In my cookbook, that ranks right up there with fruitcake (which T loves to eat), and figgy pudding. What the heck is that anyway? But to each his own)



So what tastes good to you?