Recipes for Christmas Dinner Part 4 Potato Salad

In the final part of our recipes for Christmas dinner, we will learn how to prepare a tasty side dish; potato salad. Potato salads are not only delicious, they are easy to make and store. Kids will love this so if you have children you should be preparing for a bigger serving.

Step One - Boil the Potatoes

As with most potato cooking methods, the first step is to boil the potatoes in a pot of water. Add a little salt (your own discretion) to a pot of water and boil. Next, throw in 3-5 potatoes into the boil for about 12-15 minutes. You should boil them until your fork can pierce through slightly without applying too much force. After that, remove your potatoes from the pot and dice them into smaller pieces. Don't cut them too small or they won't taste as good.

Step Two - Boil the Eggs

The next step is to get some hard-boiled eggs. Drain away water from your pot and fill up with more. Put your eggs into the pot and cover it. Let it boil for about 10 minutes before you remove them from the pot. Proceed to peel them after that. Once done, you can dice them into smaller pieces as with the potatoes.

Step Three - Mix your Salad

You are almost ready for your salad now. The last step you need is to simply mix in the other ingredients and seasonings to give your salad flavour. Transfer your eggs and potatoes to a bowl first. Following that, add cup relish, mayonnaise, some celery cut into smaller pieces, 1 tablespoon of mustard and a tablespoon of minced garlic. Your salad is now ready for consumption! Sprinkle a little pepper and salt before serving to get the best taste!

Recipes for Christmas Dinner Part 3 Gingerbread Cookies

With a fruitcake and roasted turkey from our previous recipes for Christmas dinner, your dinner table is surely looking good. How about adding some cookies to the mix? Gingerbread cookies taste great and share the same theme of healthiness with fruitcakes so let's see how we can make these little snacks for life after your roasted turkey.

Step One - Flour mixture

For this you will need about 1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. Create a mixture of 5-6 cups multipurpose flour and 1 teaspoon of baking powder. Stir up well and throw in the nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon. Stir again until the mixture is homogeneous.

Step Two - Add in the other ingredients

Transfer your mixture to a bigger bowl. Then mix in 1 cup of molasses, liquid shortening and brown sugar and stir well before you add an egg and cup of water. Add in one teaspoon of vanilla into the mix and stir again.

Step Three - Cut your Dough

When your dough has formed in shape (it should by now, if not you have added too much water somehow), roll it flat using a roller until it is about inch thick. Be sure to do this on a board layered with flour so the dough doesn't stick. Once that is done, apply cookie cutters to get your desired shapes. Slowly put your cookies onto a sheet of baking plate laid with a thin layer of baking paper. Space the cookies out a little.

Step Four - Bake it

Baking is simple here. Just put the tray into the oven at 350 Fahrenheit for about 15 min and they are done. Take care in transferring them from the tray to the cooling rack. Once they are cooled completely, you can enjoy your fresh gingerbread cookies!

Recipes for Christmas Dinner Part 2 Baking a Fruitcake

In part 1 of recipes for a Christmas dinner, we learnt how to roast a simple turkey. This time round, we are going to bake a fruitcake which is equally beginner friendly yet value-added to the table. A fruitcake is chosen here as it is the healthiest and most suitable cake for both your granny and kids. So without further ado let's take a look on how this is done:

Step One - Mash and grind different fruits

Mash and grind 2.5 cups worth of mixed fruits. The choice of fruits is entirely up to you. I like a good mix of different berries and kiwi. After this, mix it in with the usual baking staple: teaspoon baking soda, 1 cup of milk, cup of sugar and a cup of butter. You can also choose to add cup of almonds, walnuts or cashew nuts depending on your preference. Boil the mixture and leave it to cool for 10 min.

Step Two - Flour and Eggs

When your mixture has cooled, throw in 2 cups of self rising flour and 2 eggs. Stir it well and add the final mixture to a standard baking pan. Secure the outside pan surface with a layer of brown paper.

Step Three - Bake it

Place the pan into an oven and set the temperature to 350 Fahrenheit for 40 minutes of baking. Once you hear the timer sound, drop the temperature to about 280 Fahrenheit (don't over open the oven!) and leave it in the oven for another 1 hour and 40 min.

Step Four - Cool it

Remove the pan from the oven when it's done and leave it to quick cool for 5 min. After that, slowly transfer the cake using a knife from your pan to your cooling rack and let it cool fully.

Step Five - Eat it

You are now ready to enjoy your new fruitcake for Christmas!

Recipes for Christmas Dinner Part 1 Cooking a Turkey

If you are looking at recipes for a Christmas dinner, start from turkeys. The staple for any Christmas dinner is a big nice turkey stuffed with your favourite fillings (or mine!). No matter where you hail from, turkeys should be available at least during the Christmas season so it'll be a great idea for you to learn how to cook one for the coming holidays. In the first part of this series of recipes, we will learn how to roast a turkey for Christmas.

Step One - Thaw the turkey

All you need to do here is to place the turkey into the fridge for a few hours depending on its weight. For most turkeys of around 12 to 15 lbs, thaw for 2 days in the fridge. If you got a really big one weighing 20-24 lbs, you need at least 4 days.

Step Two - Wash the turkey with cold water

Make sure you thoroughly clean it with cold water after taking it out of the fridge. Once done, clean out the insides of the turkey and remove any giblets from it.

Step Three - Add flavours and seasonings

First use a brush and gently apply oil or liquid butter over the skin of the turkey. From here on, you can decide for yourself what seasonings you want to add. I generally like to sprinkle basil flavoured seasonings generously but you may enjoy a combination of Majoram and thyme instead.

Step Four - Roast your turkey

Insert a thermometer into the thigh area of your turkey where it's thickest, and then preheat to 350 Fahrenheit on a heating pan. Gauge the preheating carefully and then keep it in the oven or grill rotisserie for about 3.5 hours for a smaller turkey. Bigger ones of 20-24 lbs should take 4.5 hours.

And that's it! You now have a sumptuous turkey on your dinner table!