The following is a brief of the full story. For the full version see Tuesday's print edition of the Boonville Daily News.

When you think about a traditional Christmas dinner, foods such as turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, green beans and many others may come to mind. For guests present at a cooking demonstration held at the Isle of Capri Casino Monday night, new holiday fare was suggested by Executive Chef Jason Martin.

The audience of more than 70 guests was introduced to three not-so-traditional foods last night, which included an appetizer of roasted butternut squash soup, a main course of rack of lamb with mustard rosemary pan sauce and mashed root vegetables and a  spiced cranberry bread pudding for dessert. Preparations for each dish was demonstrated by Martin, who used a system that projected his cooking presentation onto a screen for easy viewing by the audience.

The chef started out with the roasted butternut squash soup. Martin informed the audience of different items they could use while cooking this dish and discussed the consistency of the items he added. He also suggested baking the squash seeds – a process similar to baking pumpkin seeds from Halloween jack-o-lanterns.

Moving on to the main dish, Martin listed off the ingredients and preparation for the rack of lamb, pan sauce and vegetables. Each food for the main dish consisted of separate preparation techniques.