As a young girl I can remember the hustle and bustle of the Holidays. It is always my favorite time of year.  It started with Thanksgiving and culminated with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I vividly remember all the cooking that took place first at my Nana Rina’s, then at my mothers and ultimately at my home. Love for the birth of Christ and the love of food were always front and center.

Coming from a large Italian family means that I grew up around the kitchen during Christmas time. There were always a variety of different foods being made from appetizers to entrees to desserts, and wine was always close at hand for the cooks and guests alike.

An Italian Christmas Eve was  is filled with lots of fish and delicious dessert. A few of my favorites include Fish Salad, Poached Salmon with Cucumber Dill Sauce and for the couple of people who do not eat fish Beef Tenderloin with Mushroom Sauce!

Christmas Day always started with the Homemade Eggnog, Baked Brie with Marina’s Cranberry Chutney and always Homemade Manicotti. All of us get together with family and everyone always ends up in the kitchen and Christmas is not different.

What to Make for an Italian Christmas Dinner

There are a ton of Circle B recipes for you to use – no matter what holiday you choose to celebrate! Below, I’ve listed some of the most popular for each portion of your holiday cooking:

Small Bites:

Cheese Ball Bites: You can’t go wrong with any recipe that contains cream cheese!

Pork Pot Stickers: Who says you can’t combine different types of recipes for Christmas?

Stuffed Mushrooms with Italian Sausage and Parmesan: Everybody likes Italian sausage, and it makes this appetizer the perfect thing to kick off a big dinner!

Pasta Dish:

Bolognese Pasta: This recipe is surprisingly easy and would make a great addition to your Christmas dish lineup.

Pasta Crudaiola with Ricotta: If you’re looking for something to break up the heaviness of some of your other holiday dishes, I would highly recommend this one! Very light and refreshing!

Marina’s Manicotti: So light and delicious and the one pasta dish I make every year.

Meat Focused Entrée:

Bourbon Apricot Glazed Ham: Ham is a classic main holiday dish – check out this recipe for a delicious take!

Pork Cassoulet with Italian Sausage: It might sound like a daunting recipe, but it’s actually all made in one pot!

Pork Francaise: These pork cutlets make the best main focus for your Christmas dinner and pair well with many different sides!

Sweet Tooth:

Marina’s Cranberry Chutney Trifles: A delicious, unique, and extremely easy recipe that can be whipped up in a snap!

Crackly Almond Pear Cake: Try out a new dessert this holiday season with this fantastic almond pear cake.

Berry Crisp: For a dessert on the lighter side (something you’ll want after filling up on so many other delicious dishes beforehand!), check out this amazing berry crisp!

I’m a huge fan of trying out new recipes (and using my family as guinea pigs), even during the holidays. If your family isn’t quite as adventurous, feel free to take a look at our blog: https://www.circlebranchpork.com/blog

There are hundreds of recipes to look through perfect for a variety of tastes!

What to Stock Up on For an Italian Holiday

No one likes rushing to the grocery store during the holidays – especially when they end up being out of everything you need. There are a lot of benefits to shopping with Circle B Ranch Pork: All of our products are natural, clean, and sustainable, you can find all the essentials right on our website, and you’ll be supporting a small, family-owned business!

We’d love to be a part of your holidays in any way we can. Many of you will probably be looking to stock up on some of these ingredients for your recipes:

• Holiday Ham Bundle
• Pork Loin
• Ground Pork
• Hot Italian Sausage
• Hickory Smoked Boneless Ham
• Pork Tenderloin
• Hickory Smoked Bacon
• Gluten-free Bloody Mary Mix
• Fresh Fruit Chutneys

We recommend ordering your Circle B Ranch products soon so we can get them to you before the holidays.

How to Make This Christmas Special Even During a Pandemic

Although this holiday season isn’t quite what any of us wanted, we can still find ways to make it fun and exciting for our families. Whether you choose to host an in-person or virtual holiday, we’ve got some fun ideas on how you can spice up your 2020 holidays:

• Decorate like crazy. Not only will this give you a Christmas cheer boost, but it can make your family and neighbors excited for the holidays as well! Break out the tree from the basement, unscramble all the tangled lights from last year, and hang up those stockings.
• Send Christmas cards. This is definitely not the year to skimp on Christmas cards when many people are staying home for the holidays! Take some fun photos in front of your Christmas tree or even simply sitting on the couch with a goofy pose to send to your favorite people.
• Find some games to play (in-person, and virtually). Since we’ve all been stuck at home, there are a lot of games that have popped up online for people to play wherever they are! A quick Google search will help you find Christmas-themed BINGO, Never Have I Ever, Trivia, and Icebreaker games.
• Create the perfect Christmas playlist. Whether you use Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, or even YouTube for your music selection, pick out a holiday-themed soundtrack to play all day (or week) long!
• Host a virtual baking competition. Send out a basic recipe for sugar cookies (or any other easily-decorative dessert) to everyone that wants to participate so that they can get all the necessary ingredients. On Christmas day, have a competition on who can create the prettiest (or funniest) cookies in an hour!
• Donate to a charity. Donating and volunteering (even if it’s virtually) is incredibly rewarding and really brings holiday cheer to those in need. Pick your favorite charity or non-profit this Christmas to help out!

No matter how you decide to celebrate the holidays this year, we hope you all stay safe and have a wonderful Christmas!