Holiday Meals at Home: Pancetta-Wrapped Roast Turkey Breast and Seafood Cioppino

For Christmas Eve, we make crab cioppino with fresh cracked Dungeness crab from JP Seafood, using a recipe handed down to Laura and Jennifer from their mother:  saute onions and garlic in olive oil, add parsley, then two large cans of hand-crushed San Marzano tomatoes, two cans of tomato sauce, one can of tomato paste, a cup of red wine, two bottles of clam broth, and some Italian seasoning.  Add the crab and cook 1/2 hour or so until it is all ready.

Crab cioppino

Christmas Day, we make enough food for the day and for fabulous leftovers over the next week!  This year, we stray away from the traditional whole turkey that we have prepared for many years and try a new recipe:  pancetta-wrapped roast turkey breast (turketta).

Pancetta-wrapped roast turkey breast

We butterfly the turkey breast, unroll it in a long strip, and cover it with smoked mozzarella and a compound of butter, sage, garlic, and fennel.  We then tightly roll the meat, layer it with pancetta slices and tie it tightly with kitchen twine.  After roasting about an hour and a half, it's ready.

 Ready to roast, ready to carve

To accompany the roast turkey, we add a collection of some our favorite vegetable dishes:  chunky chipotle mashed potatoes (with scallions, chipotle peppers, and adobe sauce), basalmic-roasted brussels sprouts (with pancetta, lemon, and pomegranate seeds), and two different turkey stuffing recipes (one gluten free).

 Chipotle mashed potatoes, basalmic-roasted brussels sprouts

Two stuffings, before baking

We set the table for the holiday and serve all this fabulous food to share the festivities with family.

Table set for the holiday

We save some of the sauce from our crab cioppino on Christmas Eve and, for New Year's Eve, we make a seafood cioppino with more fresh crab, this time picked by the chef so we just feature the crab meat (no shells), complemented by shrimp, clams, and mussels.  We add all the seafood to the sauce, simmer 1/2 hour or so and, and are ready to dine (with a little grated Parmesan cheese, bread, and red wine to round out this great meal)!

Seafood cioppino

We've had a relaxing, well-fed holiday season and it's now time to start out on the adventures of the new year.