Christmas Roundup! I've had a lot of fun over Christmas this year. I'm not religious at all, but I do love all the secular aspects of the holiday season, all the ritual and tradition: the food, the gifts, the food, the decorations, the food, the time off work, the food, spending time with family and friends... and the food! (That was shamelessly quoted from the latest episode of Miranda!)
Of course, I'll still be doing my Unblogged Files for December (I'm pretty proud of myself for keeping that up the whole year, by the way!), as well as a "2012 in Review"-type post, summarising my blog this year... but to try and keep December's Unblogged Files to a reasonable length (and because I clearly love round-up posts!) I've decided to do a little Christmas round-up post too!
The Christmas season started with a party at a friends' house, to which I brought my mince pies. I loved the spread of baked goods - super cute!
Christmas Spread |
I did get teased for requesting a cup of tea at 10pm on a Saturday night - how very Miranda of me! - but you just can't have mince pies and shortbread without tea!
That evening we were also treated to a fabulous Christmas pudding made by a friend's aunt. It was flambéed and served with a crème anglaise, made by another friend who is a professional trained chef. (Obviously this is where we got the idea to serve our own pudding with vanilla crème anglaise!)
Pretty flames! |
Pudding with custard |
As you know, my Christmas Cake this year was Nigel Slater's Christmas Cake. That's another thing I love about Christmas: dried fruit and spices galore!
Nigel Slater's Christmas Cake |
We had a fab picnic in the Botanic Gardens - it was perfect weather too! (Yay for a Southern Hemisphere Christmas!)
Botanic Gardens |
Spread |
Milk chocolate and salted peanut blondies |
One piece |
Christmas Dinner |
Gifts |
Coffee Grinder |
Christmas also means Christmas leftovers. Breakfast on Christmas day was leftover Christmas pudding, fried in butter (eep!) and served with a little quenelle of creme fraiche.
Leftover Christmas Pudding |
Sweetmeats |
T-BLAT Sandwich |
Claybowl Turkey |
Last night, we had a lobster dinner at our place - I do hope this becomes a yearly tradition! Essentially it was a rehash of last year's lobster dinner, but I improved on the lobster salad recipe (blogpost and recipe to come), and I baked my own challah for the bun. (Yes, for realsies!)
Lobster Salad in Challah (And yes I do realise how wrong that sounds!) |
Potato latkes with applesauce and creme fraiche |
Jess made fab potato latkes, and we had a go making apple latkes too. I'll blog them in more detail soon - you all need fried potato pancakes in your life! Jess does her latkes very simply: just potatoes, flour and egg. So delicious! Just quietly, I like them better than Nigella's latkes from How to Eat!
Hope you all had a great festive season and enjoyed some good food and quality time with those nearest and dearest!! What are your favourite things to do over the break?
7 comments
So much deliciousness!
ReplyDeleteOh, and I got the Smitten Kitchen cookbook too. :-) We used up a couple of zucchinis in one of the salad recipes tonight, but I'm itching to get baking.
Delicious! And I was hoping to get a little more mileage out of our turkey but alas there wasn't much leftover-must buy a bigger one next year. Eeek, am I already thinking about next year? :o Help! :P
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas, Sarah! I abhor all thinks mincemeat and fruitcake with every fibre of my being, so bring on the blondies. Peanut and chocolate YES.
ReplyDeleteAwesome stuff! You really know how to put good memories with ppl and food together so well. Exactly what I'm all about. And I love that it consists more of homecooked meal (with your awesome cooking skillz) than at restos. Happy 2012 and cheers to a better 2013!
ReplyDeleteLooks great! I definitely need to make lobster rolls this year...
ReplyDeleteWow you definitely ate well during Christmas. I'm drooling so badly now and it's 11pm. I feel so hungry now, need to raid fridge for some food.
ReplyDeleteCindy - It's such a cute book! I love her comfort recipes - I want to try the eggplant calzone and her peanut butter sandwich cookies!
ReplyDeleteLorraine - Hehe, so organised! I'm sure there's a support group for that somewhere ;)
Hannah - Omg yes, they were fabulous! Everyone deserves a treat at Christmas, even dried-fruit haters!
Winston - Aww, thank-you so much! Happy new year to you too!
Gemma - You've gotta try Smitten Kitchen's challah recipe - it's sooo good!
Thanh - Haha, one of the perils of food blogging! I'm starving too.
xox Sarah