(Family Features) From the hors d’oeuvres to the main course and all the way through dessert, creating a full holiday menu doesn’t have to be hard.
The key to a successful feast is focusing on dishes that can please loved ones of all ages and palates, such as a festive salad before the turkey or ham main dish, which can be accompanied by complementary sides like au gratin potatoes. Finally, top off the celebration with a divine dessert featuring classic cranberry flavor.
To find more holiday recipe inspiration, visit Culinary.net.
Start Holiday Celebrations with a Salad
With a bed of tender, leafy green spinach and pops of red cranberries, a salad lends itself perfectly to the colors and flavors of the holiday season. Plus, as a lighter bite ahead of the big meal, it makes for a delicious introduction to festive dinner parties, family gatherings and get-togethers.
This Spinach Christmas Tree Salad offers a fresh, festive option that adds a seasonal presentation to the table while inviting guests to take a bite. Harvested at the peak of flavor, tender Fresh Express Baby Spinach has a mild and delicate taste that makes it an ideal addition to recipes throughout the holidays.
Find more ways to freshen up your holiday menu at FreshExpress.com.
1 large apple, thinly sliced, cut into star shapes
Dressing:
1 cup whole berry cranberry sauce
3 tablespoons cranberry juice
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
In large bowl, toss baby spinach with 1/4 cup dried cranberries, 1/6 cup pistachios and 1/4 cup feta cheese. Transfer to Christmas tree cake mold. Neatly arrange spinach leaves to create smooth surface.
Arrange red pepper strips, trimming as needed, to create garland. Arrange remaining dried cranberries, remaining pistachios and remaining feta cheese as “ornaments” on top of spinach. Create tree topper with one apple star; place remaining apple stars around “tree.”
To make dressing: In blender, process cranberry sauce, cranberry juice, balsamic vinegar, honey, olive oil, brown sugar and salt until smooth.
A Hearty Holiday Side Dish
From appetizers and snacks to the main course, sides and sweets, almost everyone has a favorite holiday dish. However, it’s the pairings and complementary dishes that make festive get-togethers special.
This Creamy Au Gratin Potatoes with Kale and Gruyere is an ideal example of a savory side that goes well with a variety of holiday meals, making it a perfect option for families seeking a versatile recipe to serve with dinner. Rosy-skinned and white-fleshed, Wisconsin Round Red potatoes have a firm, smooth and moist texture, making them well-suited for roasting in this hearty dish.
4 large kale leaves, finely chopped (discard stems)
2 pounds red potatoes, sliced 1/8 inch
2 ounces gruyere cheese, grated
1 ounce Parmesan cheese, grated
Heat oven to 325 F.
In small saucepan over medium heat, combine cream, salt, black pepper, garlic and thyme; stir constantly, until cream starts to bubble, 4-6 minutes. When bubbling, remove from heat and stir until slightly cooled. Let cream sit.
Heat large (12-inch) oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat. Add butter. When butter melts, add shallots and kale leaves. Saute until kale is tender and bright green, about 4 minutes. Turn off burner.
Add sliced potatoes to skillet, fanning over top of kale.
Use slotted spoon to remove garlic and thyme from heavy cream. Pour heavy cream over potatoes.
Cover skillet tightly with foil and bake until potatoes are tender, 75-85 minutes.
Remove skillet from oven and turn on broiler. Discard foil.
Sprinkle gruyere and Parmesan cheeses over potatoes, tucking some cheese between potato slices.
Return skillet to oven and broil until top is golden brown, 5-6 minutes.
Dish Up a Divine Holiday Dessert
Give your holiday gatherings a new twist this year with a creamy cranberry delight that’s a cause for celebration all on its own. Smooth, divine taste at the dessert table can be the memorable moment your family craves year after year.
This rich, festive Cranberry Cheesecake combines classic flavor with a homemade cranberry compote-infused layer above a crust sweetly made using C&H Light Brown Sugar and graham crackers. Top it all off with fresh and sugared cranberries, rosemary springs and whipped cream for a tempting treat that tastes as good as it looks.
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To find more sweet eats to celebrate the holidays, visit chsugar.com.
3 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, at room temperature
2 cups C&H Organic Raw Cane Sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream, at room temperature
1/2 cup cranberry compote
fresh cranberries
sugared cranberries
rosemary sprigs
whipped cream
To make cranberry compote: In medium saucepan, bring cranberries, brown sugar, orange juice and orange zest to boil. Lower heat and simmer 10-15 minutes, or until most cranberries burst. Remove from heat. Cool completely at room temperature then transfer to bowl; refrigerate.
To make crust: Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter 8-inch springform pan and line bottom with parchment paper. Set aside.
In medium bowl, mix cracker crumbs, butter, brown sugar and salt. Press crumb mixture into bottom of prepared pan. Bake 15 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside. Reduce oven temperature to 325 F.
To make cheesecake: In bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat cream cheese at medium speed until smooth. Add cane sugar and beat 2-3 minutes. Scrape sides of bowl as needed. Add flour, vanilla and salt. Beat 1 minute until incorporated.
Add one egg at a time, mixing until incorporated. Add sour cream and mix 1 minute. Scrape sides of bowl as needed. In medium bowl, mix half of cheesecake batter with 1/2 cup cranberry compote.
Wrap springform pan with aluminum foil and place in large roasting pan. Pour cream cheese and cranberry mixture into prepared pan. Top with remaining cream cheese batter. Place roasting pan in oven and add hot water to 1-inch of springform pan. Bake 1 hour, 15 minutes, or until cake looks set in center. Remove from oven and rest 1 hour. Refrigerate in pan overnight.
Decorate cake with fresh and sugared cranberries, rosemary springs and whipped cream.
Visit our Food & Drink section to get the latest on Foodie News and recipes, offering a delightful blend of culinary inspiration and gastronomic trends to elevate your dining experience.
Rebecca Jo is a mother of four and is a creative soul from Phoenix, Arizona, who also enjoys new adventures. Rebecca Jo has a passion for the outdoors and indulges in activities like camping, fishing, hunting and riding roller coasters. She is married to Rod Washington View all posts
Rebecca Jo is a mother of four and is a creative soul from Phoenix, Arizona, who also enjoys new adventures. Rebecca Jo has a passion for the outdoors and indulges in activities like camping, fishing, hunting and riding roller coasters. She is married to Rod Washington
Chef Swap at the Beach Christmas Special Hits Cooking Channel Dec. 20 — and You Can Taste It in Myrtle Beach
Chef Swap at the Beach returns with a Christmas Special on Dec. 20 on Cooking Channel. Plus, Myrtle Beach’s new Chef Swap Chef’s Table Pass lets visitors dine at featured restaurants across the Grand Strand.
A “Chef Swap at The Beach” Christmas Special will air December 20 on the Cooking Channel. The cast includes L-R: Jamie Daskalis, Jason Trinh, Johanna Wilson Jones, Mason Zeglen, Dylan Foster, Jess Sagun, Gabriel Hernandez. The holiday-themed episode was filmed at the International Culinary Institute of Myrtle Beach. In addition, the new Chef Swap Chef’s Table Pass dining trail allows fans to engage with the featured restaurants and chefs when in Myrtle Beach. Credit: Visit Myrtle Beach
Chef Swap at the Beach Christmas Special Hits Cooking Channel Dec. 20 — and You Can Taste It in Myrtle Beach
If you’ve ever watched a cooking competition and thought, I need to eat that, Myrtle Beach is making it easy to turn screen-time cravings into real-life reservations. On Dec. 20, the Cooking Channel will air a festive new episode of “Chef Swap at The Beach” — a Christmas Special that brings back familiar chefs from past seasons for a holiday-themed cooking competition. And for anyone planning a trip (or looking for a reason to), the show’s newest extension makes the experience even more tangible: the Chef Swap Chef’s Table Pass, a free digital dining trail that connects fans directly to the restaurants featured across the series.
A holiday episode built on community (and a little friendly pressure)
The Christmas Special follows the established “Chef Swap” format: chefs step outside their own kitchens and comfort zones, then race to create themed dishes under tight time constraints. The twist is the season. Filmed at the International Culinary Institute of Myrtle Beach, the special leans into holiday energy with seasonal elements and a charitable component — while still spotlighting what the series does best: collaboration, creativity, and the relationships that make the Myrtle Beach food scene feel like a community. As Stuart Butler, President of Visit Myrtle Beach, put it, the series has become “a meaningful way to showcase the talent of the Myrtle Beach area’s culinary community to a national audience,” reflecting “the relationships and sense of community that exist across the Grand Strand.”
Why the International Culinary Institute matters
The setting isn’t just a backdrop. The International Culinary Institute of Myrtle Beach plays a real role in the region’s dining identity — serving as a training ground for aspiring chefs and hospitality pros, and helping feed the local restaurant ecosystem with new talent. In other words: Myrtle Beach’s culinary growth isn’t accidental. It’s being built, taught, and refined — and this special gives viewers a look at that foundation.
The Chef Swap Chef’s Table Pass: from TV episode to dining itinerary
Here’s the part that makes this more than a one-night watch. Restaurants featured throughout multiple seasons of “Chef Swap at The Beach” are now included in the Chef Swap Chef’s Table Pass, a self-guided dining trail that visitors can use while exploring the Grand Strand. When you sign up for the free digital pass, you unlock a mobile “passport” to participating restaurants, including:
Special offers
Insights into the show’s signature dishes
A curated way to experience restaurants from every season, year-round
It’s a smart move for food lovers who want structure without feeling boxed in — and a fun way to build a Myrtle Beach trip around meals you’ll actually remember. For details on the pass and participating restaurants, visit ChefSwap.com.
Myrtle Beach: more than 60 miles of oceanfront
Yes, Myrtle Beach has 60 miles of beautiful oceanfront — but the story Visit Myrtle Beach is telling here is bigger than sand and surf. Known as the Grand Strand, Myrtle Beach is made up of 14 unique communities along South Carolina’s northeast coast. Visitors come for the classic vacation staples — entertainment, family attractions, shopping, and world-class golf — but increasingly, they’re also coming hungry. Fresh coastal Carolina cuisine isn’t a side note anymore. It’s part of the main event.
Mark your calendar (and maybe your restaurant list)
If you’re looking for a holiday watch that’s equal parts competition and community, set a reminder for Dec. 20 on the Cooking Channel. And if you want to take it one step further, the Chef Swap Chef’s Table Pass gives you a ready-made reason to plan a winter escape — one plate at a time. Learn more about Myrtle Beach tourism:visitmyrtlebeach.comExplore the Chef’s Table Pass:ChefSwap.com
How Pecans Became a Holiday Staple: 8,000 Years of American Pecan History
Pecan History? Discover the 8,000-year history of pecans—America’s only native major nut crop. Learn how pecans evolved from wild, overlooked trees to a beloved holiday staple found in pies, pralines, and more.
How Pecans Became a Holiday Staple: 8,000 Years of American Pecan History
Shelley Mitchell, Oklahoma State University Pecans have a storied history in the United States. Today, American trees produce hundreds of million of pounds of pecans – 80% of the world’s pecan crop. Most of that crop stays here. Pecans are used to produce pecan milk, butter and oil, but many of the nuts end up in pecan pies. Throughout history, pecans have been overlooked, poached, cultivated and improved. As they have spread throughout the United States, they have been eaten raw and in recipes. Pecans have grown more popular over the decades, and you will probably encounter them in some form this holiday season. I’m an extension specialist in Oklahoma, a state consistently ranked fifth in pecan production, behind Georgia, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. I’ll admit that I am not a fan of the taste of pecans, which leaves more for the squirrels, crows and enthusiastic pecan lovers.
The spread of pecans
The pecan is a nut related to the hickory. Actually, though we call them nuts, pecans are actually a type of fruit called a drupe. Drupes have pits, like the peach and cherry.Three pecan fruits, which ripen and split open to release pecan nuts, clustered on a pecan tree.IAISI/Moment via Getty Images The pecan nuts that look like little brown footballs are actually the seed that starts inside the pecan fruit – until the fruit ripens and splits open to release the pecan. They are usually the size of your thumb, and you may need a nutcracker to open them. You can eat them raw or as part of a cooked dish. The pecan derives its name from the Algonquin “pakani,” which means “a nut too hard to crack by hand.” Rich in fat and easy to transport, pecans traveled with Native Americans throughout what is now the southern United States. They were used for food, medicine and trade as early as 8,000 years ago.Pecans are native to the southern United States.Elbert L. Little Jr. of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service Pecans are native to the southern United States, and while they had previously spread along travel and trade routes, the first documented purposeful planting of a pecan tree was in New York in 1722. Three years later, George Washington’s estate, Mount Vernon, had some planted pecans. Washington loved pecans, and Revolutionary War soldiers said he was constantly eating them. Meanwhile, no one needed to plant pecans in the South, since they naturally grew along riverbanks and in groves. Pecan trees are alternate bearing: They will have a very large crop one year, followed by one or two very small crops. But because they naturally produced a harvest with no input from farmers, people did not need to actively cultivate them. Locals would harvest nuts for themselves but otherwise ignored the self-sufficient trees. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that people in the pecan’s native range realized the pecan’s potential worth for income and trade. Harvesting pecans became competitive, and young boys would climb onto precarious tree branches. One girl was lifted by a hot air balloon so she could beat on the upper branches of trees and let them fall to collectors below. Pecan poaching was a problem in natural groves on private property.
Pecan cultivation begins
Even with so obvious a demand, cultivated orchards in the South were still rare into the 1900s. Pecan trees don’t produce nuts for several years after planting, so their future quality is unknown.An orchard of pecan trees.Jon Frederick/iStock via Getty Images To guarantee quality nuts, farmers began using a technique called grafting; they’d join branches from quality trees to another pecan tree’s trunk. The first attempt at grafting pecans was in 1822, but the attempts weren’t very successful. Grafting pecans became popular after an enslaved man named Antoine who lived on a Louisiana plantation successfully produced large pecans with tender shells by grafting, around 1846. His pecans became the first widely available improved pecan variety.Grafting is a technique that involves connecting the branch of one tree to the trunk of another.Orest Lyzhechka/iStock via Getty Images The variety was named Centennial because it was introduced to the public 30 years later at the Philadelphia Centennial Expedition in 1876, alongside the telephone, Heinz ketchup and the right arm of the Statue of Liberty. This technique also sped up the production process. To keep pecan quality up and produce consistent annual harvests, today’s pecan growers shake the trees while the nuts are still growing, until about half of the pecans fall off. This reduces the number of nuts so that the tree can put more energy into fewer pecans, which leads to better quality. Shaking also evens out the yield, so that the alternate-bearing characteristic doesn’t create a boom-bust cycle.
US pecan consumption
The French brought praline dessert with them when they immigrated to Louisiana in the early 1700s. A praline is a flat, creamy candy made with nuts, sugar, butter and cream. Their original recipe used almonds, but at the time, the only nut available in America was the pecan, so pecan pralines were born.Pralines were originally a French dessert, but Americans began making them with pecans.Jupiterimages/The Image Bank via Getty Images During the Civil War and world wars, Americans consumed pecans in large quantities because they were a protein-packed alternative when meat was expensive and scarce. One cup of pecan halves has about 9 grams of protein. After the wars, pecan demand declined, resulting in millions of excess pounds at harvest. One effort to increase demand was a national pecan recipe contest in 1924. Over 21,000 submissions came from over 5,000 cooks, with 800 of them published in a book. Pecan consumption went up with the inclusion of pecans in commercially prepared foods and the start of the mail-order industry in the 1870s, as pecans can be shipped and stored at room temperature. That characteristic also put them on some Apollo missions. Small amounts of pecans contain many vitamins and minerals. They became commonplace in cereals, which touted their health benefits. In 1938, the federal government published the pamphlet Nuts and How to Use Them, which touted pecans’ nutritional value and came with recipes. Food writers suggested using pecans as shortening because they are composed mostly of fat. The government even put a price ceiling on pecans to encourage consumption, but consumers weren’t buying them. The government ended up buying the surplus pecans and integrating them into the National School Lunch Program.Today, pecan producers use machines called tree shakers to shake pecans out of the trees.Christine_Kohler/iStock via Getty Images While you are sitting around the Thanksgiving table this year, you can discuss one of the biggest controversies in the pecan industry: Are they PEE-cans or puh-KAHNS? Editor’s note: This article was updated to include the amount of protein in a cup of pecans.Shelley Mitchell, Senior Extension Specialist in Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Oklahoma State University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Unwrap the Holidays: Whataburger Launches 12 Days of Whatacheer With Daily App Deals
Celebrate the holidays with Whataburger’s 12 Days of Whatacheer! Discover daily in-app deals, exclusive to Rewards members, from December 12–23. Unwrap new menu favorites, BOGO offers, and festive savings—only on the Whataburger App.
As the holiday lights go up and the year winds down, Whataburger is serving up more than just its signature burgers—it’s delivering a sleigh-full of savings and cheer to its loyal fans. For Rewards members, the season just got a whole lot tastier.
12 Days of Whatacheer: Festive Deals for Rewards Members
From December 12 through December 23, Whataburger is rolling out a new holiday tradition: the 12 Days of Whatacheer. Each day, Rewards members can unlock a fresh, exclusive deal in the Whataburger App—think crave-worthy classics, “buy one, get one” surprises, and complimentary add-ons that make every meal feel like a celebration.
Whether you’re craving a hot Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit to start your morning, a classic Whataburger for lunch, or a sweet Strawberry Shake to cap off your evening, there’s a daily treat waiting to be unwrapped. Just sign in to your Rewards account, check the app, and claim your deal to add a little extra joy to your holiday routine.
How It Works
Who: Whataburger Rewards members (sign up in the app if you’re not already!)
When: December 12–23, with a new offer every day
How: Open the Whataburger App, claim the day’s deal, and enjoy with your next order
A new reward pops up each morning—so there’s always a reason to check in, tap, and treat yourself. According to Scott Hudler, Whataburger’s Chief Marketing Officer, “12 Days of Whatacheer is Whataburger’s way of celebrating the season with a bit of holiday magic and special savings just for our Rewards members.”
Holiday-themed graphic reading ‘12 Days of WhataCheer’ on a red background with white dots. Below the text are images of Whataburger menu items: a Cinnamon Roll, Onion Rings, a Whataburger, a Whatafresher, a Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit, and a Strawberry Shake.
Why Join the Whataburger Rewards Fun?
It’s not just about the deals (though those are pretty great). It’s about celebrating the season with a brand that’s been a community favorite for 76 years. With over 1,100 locations across 17 states, Whataburger’s family members serve up more than just food—they deliver hospitality and hometown spirit.
Plus, the Whataburger App makes it easy to order, customize, and save—right from your phone. If you haven’t joined the Rewards program yet, now’s the perfect time to start.
Get Started
Ready to add some Whatacheer to your holiday countdown? Download the Whataburger App on iOS or Android, create your Rewards account, and get set to unwrap a new deal every day. For more details, visit Whataburger.com.
Wishing you a season of flavor, fun, and festive deals—see you in the drive-thru!
