Anonymous wrote:Yep, honey baked ham is the way to go. Lasagna is good for the night before because you can make it in advance and reheat. With 16 people, you can do 2 or 3 of them -- one meat, one spinach, and if you're really up for it a third with spicy sausage. It's not hard to learn and you have plenty of time to hunt recipes and practice. (Or you can buy them to go--try Vace, the Italian Store, or your favorite Italian restaurant.) If lasagna's too intimidating, baked ziti is also a good way to go.

For each meal, add a spinach salad. Sure you can do a basic tossed one but spinach is just as easy and seems a little fancier. Use the triple-washed baby spinach you can buy in a tub (I wash it again and spin it dry), then add something red (just one thing -- sliced strawberries, or dried cranberries), goat cheese, one thing that's crunchy (walnuts, or sunflower seeds, or pepitas (pumpkin seeds)), and a balsamic vinaigrette, which you can buy in a bottle. If you want to get fancy with the nuts, you can toast them first, which you do by putting them in a dry nonstick skillet over low-to-medium heat for just a few minutes, tossing them to keep them from burning. When they've just started to turn brown and give off a little nutty aroma, they're done. It's a nice flavor for salads. People will like the red-and-green look of the spinach and strawberries (or cranberries).

For the Christmas Eve meal, add garlic bread and you're done.

For the Christmas Day meal, add scalloped potatoes (I think you can buy these as a side at Honey Baked), dinner rolls, and some green beans. Here's an easy way to do green beans: Wash them and break off the ends. Get a big bowl of ice water ready, some pre-sliced almonds, half a lemon, and salt. Either steam or boil the green beans just until they get really bright green, about 3-4 minutes. Taste one--when it's lost the "raw" flavor, but still has a bit of crunch, it's done. Immediately put them in the ice water and let them cool. That keeps the crunch and stops them from getting soggy. Drain them and set aside. You can do the steps up to this part in advance.

Right before you're going to serve them, pre-heat a large skillet or wok over medium-high (not all the way high). Swirl some olive oil in the pan, then stir-fry the green beans enough to get hot and coated in oil. Then add the sliced almonds, and squeeze the lemon all over. (Fancy cooks will use cheesecloth or their fingers to keep the seeds from falling in, but I don't worry about it -- no one ever died of a lemon seed, or even complained about it.) Salt, remove from heat, and into the serving bowl--serve hot.