Holiday Meal Planning – The Easy Version

Holiday get-togethers don’t need to be fancy or stressful. Whether it’s just the two of you or your entire big family, there are plenty of simple but delicious options for a festive meal. Plus, your co-op can help you with organic ingredients, or heat-and-eat holiday meals, side dishes, and baked goodies. Here are a few ideas to get you started!

Fresh Beginnings

• A selection of roasted nuts from our bulk section: pistachios, peanuts, tamari almonds, etc.
• Artisanal cheese tray of local cheeses with flatbread crackers
• Crispy raw vegetables and a selection of dips, such as our spinach artichoke dip, smoked gouda dip, and famous hummus
• Baked brie wheel with preserves on top, served with crackers. Here is a recipe for cranberry brie.
• Gourmet olives from our olive bar

Food, Delicious Food, and More Food!

• Cranberry sauce is very easy to make, even a week ahead of time. Here is the easiest recipe from our collection. Or purchase our homemade cranberry relish and sauce.
• Vegetables always taste fabulous basted with good quality butter and sprinkled with sea salt, so go ahead and just steam those veggies, including Brussels sprouts, green beans, carrots, zucchini, etc.
• Sweet potato casserole is a Thanksgiving tradition, but you really can’t go wrong with piping hot plain, roasted sweet potatoes, just out of the oven. Easy peasy. But if you really want to make something a tad fancier, we offer this recipe for Butter Pecan Sweet Potatoes.
• Turkey is often the star of holiday meals, but if roasting a whole turkey feels overwhelming, you can roast turkey breasts instead. We will have fresh local turkey breasts from Duerksen.
• Vegan holiday entrees are available in our freezer case. We have Veggie and Ham-style Tofurky, Field Roast roasts, and Quorn Meatless Roast.
• Mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy…you can purchase these at Oryana! Made in-house by our own talented kitchen staff. (Here is a recipe for easy, basic mashed potatoes.)
• We’ll also have other heat-and-eat side dishes…

Sweet Endings

• Fruit crisp is so much easier to make than pie. Here is a great fruit crisp recipe.
• Chocolate truffles are easy too and you can make them ahead.
• If you want a homemade pumpkin pie but don’t feel like bothering with a crust, make this pumpkin custard.
• We will have our usual selection of made-from-scratch pies and cake rolls including, of course, pumpkin, apple, and pecan. Also check out the freezer section for more pies.