Christmas On The Lighter Side

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

A mere four weeks after preparing what is usually the biggest meal of the year, Thanksgiving dinner, we are expected to do it all over again. Fortunately for most Americans, Christmas tends to be a smaller gathering and the expectations for the food that will be served vary widely. For some, Christmas day is the big meal and the spread might include a standing rib roast or it might veer more in the direction of a Thanksgiving redux with a turkey or ham. For others it is Christmas Eve that offers the biggest meal of the holiday whether it is with a lavish French Reveille or the Italian tradition of the feast of the seven fishes.

With Thanksgiving such a recent memory and at least one big meal happening over the Christmas holiday, at some point there is potential for big meal fatigue. If you are the cook of the house, you might just be looking for a break to spend some time with the family outside of the kitchen. Even if you never touch so much as a wooden spoon during the holidays, just the eating of so many heavy meals with traditional flavors can lead to palate fatigue not to mention just plain being full.

As much as I love the opportunity to whip up and chow down on a decadent holiday feast, at least one meal, Christmas Day or Eve, needs to be vastly different in flavor, easy to prepare, and preferably lighter in taste than the main event. Growing up in a large Mexican and Native American community, the simple solution to this lighter meal was buying tamales from some of the local experts. Christmas Eve would come around and the family would sit down to just steamed tamales and carrots braised in honey and orange juice before heading to midnight mass. Whatever we ended up eating on Christmas Day was guaranteed to be a world away from our Mexican feast of the night before.

If you're looking for an answer to the lighter meal of the holiday, a quick cooking piece of lean meat like pork or turkey tenderloin is a great solution. Tenderloins offer great potential for a quick roast that will feed a family of 4-6 after only about a half hour in the kitchen, a near perfect quick holiday meal. Tenderloins can be browned first or go straight to the oven. They take well to marinades or can be cooked simply and then doctored up with a richly flavored sauce. To keep it festive without adding too much to the prep, cut the tenderloin lengthwise without cutting all the way through then open it up like a book. Stuff the tenderloin with vegetables like sautéed kale and roasted red peppers or a quick stuffing made with store-bought cornbread and dried cranberries. Tie up the stuffed tenderloin and roast until cooked through. The cooked slices of stuffed tenderloin look dramatic but couldn’t be simpler.

With so many heavy flavors in the typical holiday meal redolent with cloves, cinnamon, and allspice, the lighter meal necessitates polar opposite flavors than the traditional holiday fare. Tamales are an easy gateway to Mexican cuisine. A pot of New Orleans gumbo features bold flavors in one satisfying dish that can be made in advance and heated whenever the family and guests are ready. If the winter chill has really set in and there is no Caribbean vacation in my near future, I like to bring in a bit of the tropics. A lively salsa of tropical fruits like papaya and pineapple are a sweet and spicy pairing for everything from tacos to that roast pork tenderloin.

There are plenty of opportunities during the holiday season to over-indulge but sometimes you just need a good something with big flavors in a simple dish that can be prepared in a hurry. Bold flavors and lighter fare give the palate a chance to recover and the cook a chance to relax, a real present for any holiday host.

Serves/Makes: 4

• 2 pounds pork tenderloin
• 6 ounces bacon
• salt and pepper
• 2 cups pineapple, in a small dice
• 1 cup papaya in a small dice
• 1/2 red onion
• 1 jalapeno pepper
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
• 2 limes, juiced