We always have some Italian dishes during our holidays. Whether it is Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve or Easter, there is always ravioli on our table as a first dish. We would set up an assembly line with all of us pitching in to make hundreds of them before Thanksgiving so that we could have them for Christmas also. They freeze very well, but don’t ever defrost them before cooking them, just put them into a large amount of salted boiling water directly from the freezer.

http://turosdolci.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/ricotta-ravioli-from-“the-old-country”/

I'm a newbie breadophile and I've been baking nonstop for about three months.  Most stuff I make is good, with the occasional clunked.  This came out so good I wanted to share.  We had a large family gathering on Christmas Eve so I wanted to make a special bread.  I found this recipe on Food Network's site...

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/three-tiered-braided-christmas-bread-recipe/index.html

It's essentially three separately flavored bread loaves braided into one big un, the flavors being olive, sun dried tomoato and pesto.  The only thing I changed in the recipe was instead of making the three pastes to flavor the bread I bought 8-ounce containers of pre-made from Whole Foods.  At $4 a pop it was cheaper in the long run and saved some time on an already hectic morning or party prep.  The picture below shows the pre-baked loaf before the final rise:

Here's the finished product:

It was a jaw dropper once it was on the table, people were blown away.  It's relatively simple to make except my wife had to explain how to make a braid.  The crust was great, the bread itself was super moist and tasty.  I didn't take a picture of the crumb because I didn't want to dig into it before the guests arrived and when they did I was too busy playing host to snap a shot.

Overall a highly recommended project for a special occasion.

I'm keen to see what everyone else is baking for the holidays this year.

My wife figures my bread is now good enough that we can have it on Christmas.  Her family is Swiss and usually buys quite an assortment of breads for breakfast on Christmas morning.  Attached is a photo of day one's baking ... 2 pain au levan, 2 pecan & cherry pain au levain, and a batch of Mark's Portuguse Sweet Rolls.  Day two (tomorrow) is a whole wheat sourdough, rye and challah.

origin:  siena toscane.  you can make it 2-3 weeks beforehand.

good company for the coffee with wiskey or cognac after the christmas dinner

this is the peppered version I made last year:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9191909@N07/2123050882/

preheat oven at 175°C

-500 g mixed nuts: almond, hazelnut, walnut. chopped coarsely and roasted lightbrown in oven.
-2 tablespoons mixed spices: cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg, ginger
-1 teaspoon white pepper
-500 g mixed fruit: dried fig, dried apricot, candied orange peel, candied lemon peel chopped coarsely.
-½ cup AP flour

mix all ingredients

--------------------

-1 cup sugar
-½ cup honey
-75 gr  noir de noir chocolate
-and a bit water

 in a thick walled pan. heat very very slow, don't burn the chocolate!
 stirr till the sugar becomes a bit stiff ( but not caramelized!!!)
------------------------
from the fire, now stirr in the nut- and fruit-mix.

put the mass in a baking tray (20 cm) with bakingpaper and smooth the surface with a wet spoon or knife.

20-30 minutes in oven at 175°C.

the panpepato is brown already and further browning is no good. so cover with alu-foil if necessary.

notes:
-don't use too much nutmeg
-make your own candied peels the day before. they taste better.
-don't burn the chocolate!!! or add it after cooking the sugar and before mixing in the nut- & fruitmix.
-the mixed spices and the pepper fine grounded (powder) not coarse.

-panpepato is normally decorated with powdered sugar (but I don't like the ugly taste of raw sugar)

A late entry. For Christmas I made stollen with a recipe that looked like it would produce something close to what I know from The Netherlands.

Dutch Regale's Almond/Rum Stollen

At least in my family, cookies are more of a holiday tradition than breads are. Here are three I am baking this year:

Cranberry-Orange Oatmeal Drops
Magic Squares

I made these for the first time this year. They are excellent!

The has been a family holiday favorite since I was around 10 years old. I believe it was a recipe off the side of a graham cracker box, but we got it from a family friend.

Magic Squares

1 stick of butter
1 package graham crackers (1/2 box of crackers)
1/2 bag chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 bag shredded cocoanut

At last it looks properly like December outside my door (a foot of snow overnight.)

A little bit ago Annie related a sweet little story about her siblings and her mother's Christmas puddings. It made me wonder if anyone else would like to share memories of Christmas past. If Christmas is not your tradition, anything that is seasonal or meaningful to you would be a pleasure to hear.