- Hi guys, today I'm gonna show you how to make you beautiful
Christmas dinner menu for six. that is easy, delicious and affordable. And the best part is, it
will not take you all week in the kitchen, I promise. And at the end of the
episode, I'm also gonna give you my game plan for
how to tackle the prep. First up, let's talk about the appetizers. I wanted to give you two ideas, depending on how you were feeling. One that's super simple and
comes together in a snap and the other that takes
a little bit of time but you can make it ahead of time, and looks super beautiful and elegant. So now for the easy one, the first thing you're gonna do, is get some ciabatta bread. So if you're only making
a dinner for six people, you may not wanna go out and
get a full loaf of ciabatta. I would just actually get two of the ciabatta sandwich rolls. You can buy them by the piece
and it's much more affordable. So what you wanna do
is slice your ciabatta just into thin slices, about
a quarter of an inch thick. And for six people, I think two
rolls really does the trick. And you don't want people
filling up too much on the appetizers, when
you see what's coming. Then you just wanna place
them on a baking sheet and brush each one with a
little bit of olive oil. Pop these under the broiler,
just until they're nice and toasted and golden brown. Then you're gonna take a
large log of goat cheese. Then here's the real easy part. You're gonna go out and get
a jar of sun dried tomatoes in oil, that have already been sliced. And then you are just going to drizzle the sun dried tomatoes,
all over the goat cheese. And don't worry if it drips
down the side of the log, that's actually part of its charm. And the other thing I like to do is add a little bit of fresh thyme. It's a great flavor combination against the sun dried
tomatoes and the goat cheese. Then all you have to do is add the toast and not only is this delicious, but it also looks so Christmassy too. Now when it comes Christmas, I love to incorporate a little bit of smoked salmon into the menu because I think it's so festive. And there's just something
about a little bite of smoked salmon, to
set the party off right. So you're first gonna
begin by adding 12 ounces of softened cream cheese into a mixer. And then you're also gonna
add one cup of heavy cream. This is to lighten the cream cheese. If you've ever made cream cheese frosting, that's the texture we're going for. Then we're also gonna add two
thirds cup of diced salmon do make sure that you've cut the salmon into small little dice pieces, because we're ultimately
going to pipe this out in a star tip and you wanna make sure that the salmon can
actually fit through it. Then for a little bite and crunch, we're going to add one
tablespoon of diced shallots. Then you want to add two
teaspoons of diced capers. Again, making sure that you've
chopped them up really well so they fit through our piping bag and then a tablespoon of fresh dill. And then we're also
gonna add two teaspoons of fresh lemon zest. There, and then we can just
whip this all up until combined. (whizzing) Then the next thing you wanna do is fit a pastry bag with a star tip. So use one that's a little
bit on the wider side, meaning the opening is a little bit wider, that will allow all of the mix-ins that we put into our
mousse, to fit through. Then we're gonna work
with a English cucumber. I liked the English cucumbers since they don't have a
lot of seeds inside them. They also don't have that waxy finish that we put on the regular
cucumbers to preserve them. So they have two things going for them. And then we are just gonna slice them into about a quarter inch slices. And then you can go ahead
and pipe your mousse. I think a healthy dollop per
cucumber is the way to go. There you have it. (upbeat music) Now for the main course. Now I know for many of us, beef can be traditional
for Christmas dinner but a few weeks back, I did
a poll on my community tab and 36% of you guys wanted a
budget-friendly chicken dinner. So we're gonna be making a
traditional bouchée a la reine, which is a fantastic French dish that's normally made with
chicken and mushrooms. A couple of years ago though, I did a twist on this recipe with lobster. So if you were someone
who voted for seafood and you haven't seen that
recipe, I'll link to it below because this would be
fantastic with lobster too. So we're gonna be working with bone on, skin on chicken breasts. So go ahead and put it on a sheet pan. And we are gonna roast this chicken at 375 degrees Fahrenheit
for 40 to 45 minutes, just until the chicken is cooked through. Okay, then the next thing you wanna do is get our mushrooms going. So in a large skillet, you wanna heat some butter in the pan. Then once your butter is nice and foamy, then you can go ahead and add a third of a cup of minced shallots. Then we're also gonna add
eight ounces of mushrooms, in they go, and then you just wanna cook the mushrooms down
until they're nice and wilted and they begin to release their juice. Then you can season with a little bit of salt and pepper to taste. And then we're also going
to add two teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce. And you can see we have
all of this delicious, brown bit in the pan here, that is full of all kinds of flavor. And we just wanna de glaze our pan with a quarter cup of a dry white wine. And now we also wanna
add just two teaspoons of freshly minced thyme. And then continue to cook the mushrooms until this sauce has been
reduced by about a third. Then the next step is to
create our Béchamel sauce. So in a deeper skillet because we're gonna be adding the mushrooms
back in and the chicken, we wanna add three tablespoons of butter. Then once the butter is nice
and foamy, you can go ahead and add two tablespoons
of all purpose flour and then give it a whisk and allow it to cook for a minute or two, just to cook off the taste of the flour. And then we're also going to add two cups of just whole milk, in it goes and then you wanna keep this on a medium flame and allow it to simmer. And as it simmers, that
flour will start to activate and the whole thing will start to thicken. I actually make sure I
don't thicken it too much because I usually make this the day ahead. And so if you're making this a day ahead and it sits in the fridge,
it will thicken up. You can always thin it when you reheat it with a little bit of
milk or chicken broth. Okay, now, time to add our garlic. Three quarters teaspoon of salt and some freshly cracked pepper. (crackling) And then at this stage, you wanna add back in the mushrooms,
this looks so delicious. Then we're going to add
in our shredded chicken, that you can just shred off
the bone with two forks. There and now our sauce is
pretty much ready to go. Allow it to cool down and then you can transfer it to a container and pop in the fridge. (slow music) Okay, now for the puff pastry. So you wanna roll out two sheets like this on a floured surface
and then using something that's probably about four inches in size, I'm just using a ramekin,
this is a one cup ramekin, you wanna create little circles. Now this does work better
if your puff pastry is a little bit, almost in
between frozen and chilled. Not totally frozen because
it'll crack, but not too soft. It'll just make it easier
to cut out the circles. Then we're gonna use the scraps to cut out a little decorative ornament. I'm using a Christmas tree,
but you could also use a star, a little mitten, the
stocking, whatever you have, then you wanna put a little
egg wash on each one. I would even lift up the
tree and make sure you get underneath it, just so that it'll stick. The only thing that I would not do, is get too close to the edge, because if you get too close to the edge of the puff pastry, it will
prevent it from puffing up. So it's important to just
stay on the top and the tree. And then we're gonna put these in a 400 degree Fahrenheit
oven, just until they're risen and golden brown and beautifully puffed. Then to serve with the bouchée a la reine, I really love to do a
Provencal style tomato because they work really well with the richness of the cream sauce. And then in addition to that, another super easy side dish,
is some roasted asparagus, and we're gonna get to that in a minute. Make sure you get just
a medium size tomato. You don't want anything
too big or too small and you can go ahead and save these tops. They're great inside of a
tomato sauce or I pop them in my slow cooker when I'm
making my slow cooker tacos, which is a good recipe too. Then we also wanna core the tomato. So I use a melon baller because I think it is
the easiest way to go. And really just one turn of the melon baller is all you need. Then we can just place these
on a little mini sheet pan. I like to use the quarter sheet pan because that way we can
get two pans in together, which is what we're gonna need when we actually go to
roast our asparagus. Then the breadcrumb
mixture is really easy. You're just gonna take three tablespoons of Panko bread crumb. I like the Pakco because I find that they just have a
little bit better texture but you could also use regular breadcrumbs or mix the two if you had both. Then I'm also gonna add a
half a teaspoon of olive oil, a little bit of salt and pepper and then a good pinch
of herbs de Provence. If you don't have herbs de Provence, you could also use dried
basil, dried thyme. Then we're just gonna give that a mix and that's all there is to it. And then you're just gonna
fill each of the tomatoes with the breadcrumb mixture, about a teaspoon or so does
the trick, here you go. Then they're gonna go in the
oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 to 20 minutes,
just until they're nice and soft and tender and the breadcrumbs look nice and golden brown on top. So to prep the asparagus,
after you give them a rinse, make sure that you dry
them off with a dish towel because we want them to kind
of roast and not steam up. You'll get better sort of coloring and texture if they're dry. And then the only other thing you wanna do to the asparagus, is
just cut off the ends. You see that real like woodsy part, that isn't the best texture to eat. So you just wanna slice that off, about a half an inch or so. There, then we can transfer
our asparagus to a sheet pan. You can go ahead and just drizzle it with a little bit of olive oil and then season with a little
salt and pepper to taste and that's all you have to do. And then you can just give them a shake to get all that olive oil
and salt and pepper combined and it'll save you a bowl to clean. Then you wanna place these in the oven at the last 10 minutes of
cooking time for the tomatoes, and that's all it takes. Then, to split the puff
pastry in two pieces, the best thing to do is
actually use your hands. You can find where the
actual natural cracks are and just pull it apart. You'll get a much cleaner cut that way, than if you try to use a
knife, this looks so delicious. Look at that, you've got the
mushrooms, we have the chicken and you can put the little puff pastry with your Christmas tree, on top. How delicious does that look. (slow music) Now for dessert, I think we
end up spending a lot of time, when thinking about holiday
menus, planning the flavors and making sure that everything
is balanced, which is good. But I think equally important
is planning the prep. So kind of balancing out the
amount of work you have to do. So we just spent a good amount of work putting our main course together. So dessert really should be a breeze. Now the best part about this idea, is that you will be able to serve sophisticated, delicious ice creams, that will feel like they're
homemade but really, we're gonna use store-bought
ice cream and mix in instead. So for our Christmas menu, I thought it would be fun
to do two different flavors. A fun and festive eggnog
flavor and then a rich and decadent, chocolate
hazelnut crunch ice cream. And the two of them together
is just so fantastic. Now I'm gonna be using
my KitchenAid mixer, just because it's easy but if you do not have an electric mixer, not a problem. You can do this with
just a bowl and a spoon. So I have some very softened
vanilla ice cream here. I'm using a one and a half quarts, So I think that's good
for about six people. Now very important, do not throw away the container or the lid, we
are gonna use this in a minute. Okay and then to create our eggnog flavor, we're going to add a half a teaspoon of freshly ground nutmeg and
a teaspoon of rum extract. Now I really love the rum extract because I find you get a lot more flavor of the rum without kind
of that boozy after taste. And then you're just gonna beat it up. (whizzing) Just want it smooth, you
don't wanna take it too far where it starts to liquefy. So store bought ice cream has
a lot of air whipped into it. So we don't wanna lose that volume, we just wanna combine the flavors. There, then all we have to do is transfer the ice cream
back into the container. So we don't need any
fancy ice cream container, we can just put it right back in. And you do wanna freeze this for at least 24 hours before serving it. But that's great, 'cause that means you get your dessert done way in advance. Okay, then for our chocolate
hazelnut crunch ice cream, we're gonna get some
help from some chocolate. So for the hazelnut crunch,
you're just going to go out and get a four ounce bar of milk chocolate that has hazelnuts in it. It's so much easier because
there's no hazelnuts to roast, no hazelnuts to peel. It's already in the chocolate
and pretty much chopped up. So we're gonna chop that
and then who can resist a Toblerone chocolate bar, right? I don't know why, but there's something about almond nougat, that just
reminds me of Christmas time. So you just wanna chop the chocolate until it's in little tiny shards. It's really hard not to do this. And then we are gonna mix this into just a plain chocolate ice cream base and then add the chocolate. Go ahead and beat it up
just until it's combined. (whizzing) Don't take it too far because again, we don't want it to deflate and we don't wanna crush
the chocolate too much. Then you can transfer your new ice cream into its original container. Look at that, it is so delicious. And then you can pop this
one in the freezer overnight. Now to serve your ice cream, you have a couple of ways you could go. I think it's really fun and
festive to serve ice cream in a footed glass that
you can see through. It just makes everything all
the more festive and fancy. My personal favorite
is a nice martini glass or you could also do a
goblet, that would be nice, or a margarita glass works as well. Or another favorite of mine would be a little vintage champagne coupe. And because we're putting
these in dainty glasses, I usually do one scoop. (laughing) You can always offer seconds. Then of course our delicious
chocolate hazelnut crunch. Yum, if you wanna add a
little extra flourish, you can grate some bittersweet chocolate with a potato peeler and it'll make these
really beautiful shards. And then for the little star cookies, you can use my sugar
cookie recipe that I shared with you last weekend and
just use a star cookie cutter or you absolutely could
use a store bought cookie. Okay, if you would like to make my Christmas menu here's your game plan. Three days before, you
can prep your dessert. So make your ice creams, put them back into the
containers and freeze. That way they're all ready to go when it comes time to serve. You can also make the cookie dough for the sugar cookie star, two days before you can make your puff pastry rounds. Cut out your little
ornaments and pop on top. Cover the whole thing with aluminum foil and pop in the fridge or freezer. But don't brush on the egg wash just yet, you're gonna do that
right before you bake. Then the day before, you can
roast your chicken breast. While that's roasting, you
can prepare your mushrooms, make the Béchamel sauce
sauce, add your chicken in, allow the sauce to cool
and then transfer it to a container and pop it in your fridge. You can also prepare the
tomatoes and the asparagus, put them on their mini trays
and pop them in the fridge. If you're going the route
of the salmon mousse you can prepare that a day ahead. Transfer it to a pastry bag
and refrigerate overnight. Then the day of, after
you've opened up presents, had your brunch and
there's kind of that low between Christmas morning
and Christmas dinner, you can bake the sugar cookies. And then once they're cool,
transfer to a container and allow them to sit
out at room temperature. Okay, two hours before
you're ready to serve dinner, you can brush those puff pastry
rounds with your egg wash, place them in the oven
at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 18 to 20 minutes. Once they're done, allow them to sit out on your cooktop until they
cool and then place them in a safe place uncovered,
until ready to serve. You don't wanna cover them
because condensation can build up and turn your crispy puff pastry into soggy, chewy, puff
pastry, not a good look. An hour and a half before
you're ready to serve dinner, You can prep your appetizers, can pipe out your little salmon bites if you're making the
mousse, and then 30 minutes before you plan to serve dinner, preheat your oven to
400 degrees Fahrenheit, place the tomatoes in, set
the timer for 10 minutes. When the timer goes off,
put in the asparagus and set it for another 10 minutes. Start to reheat your sauce
and put it on a nice simmer and then enlist a family member to help you start to split
apart the puff pastry. You can plate vegetables and
then all there's left to do is to spoon in that delicious sauce into each of your little
puff pastry mounts. Then sit down to a
lovely Christmas dinner. Rest assured that dessert
is all ready to go and all you have to do is serve it. I love that feeling, that is the best. Then scoop out the ice cream
and add the cookie on top. And there you have it, a
fantastic Christmas menu that I know that everybody is gonna love. I hope you guys give this one a try and let me know what you think. Share your photos with me on Instagram. I always love to see your successes. All right you guys, and I'll
see you back here next week. When we're gonna tackle
a really delicious, tasty treat for Christmas
morning, I'll see you then.
