Well I had big plans to keep my blog up to date with all my festive cooking, it's now 29th December and I am wondering now where to start! Christmas is my favourite time of year in the kitchen so here are my top Christmas cooking highs (in no particular order).
Making own soup from what was lying about in the kitchen
I was adamant this year that with ten people for dinner I was ditching the soup course and just sticking to a starter, main and desert. On Christmas Eve I could see P was disappointed so at the last minute I conjured up a butternut squash and ginger soup (totally random), threw in a few ingredients, still didn't taste quite right so took the plunge with a can of coconut milk. It was perfect and everyone commented it on Christmas day. Not bad for a squash and a few storecupboard ingredients!
Mummy's Little Christmas Cook
On Christmas Eve morning when everyone was enjoying a lie-in we were in the kitchen making a yummy chocolate cake. Faye loves cooking and was very lucky to get her own cooking utensils from Santa. These have been well used already!
Setting the Table
Setting the table is one of my favourite things on Christmas Eve. I love getting out the crisp white table cover and shiny cutlery. We even made a floral decoration for the centre (Nan was very impressed!).
Oatcakes!
Now this was a bit of low and high point. My starter this year was homemade chicken liver and wild mushroom pate (never made pate before and it was so easy!), spiced cranberry and pear relish and to top it off homemade oatcakes. I have made oatcakes before but didn't like the strong taste of bicarb so opted for a new recipe. As it was 11o'clock on Christmas Eve I wanted something quick and went for Hugh's easy oatcakes which I rustled up in no time and popped in the oven. Unfortunately they came out all crumbly and unusable so I went to sleep a tad unhappy!
On Christmas day I had two choices; admit defeat and phone my Mum (she always has the likes of oatcakes in her biscuit tin) or start again. For those that know me will agree it was a no brainer; I started again! This time I used the recipe on the packet of oatmeal and made them traditionally on the griddle.
To be fair to Hugh I don't think I used enough water with his recipe (It was late and I was very tired!).
The result was perfect and my starter went down a treat.
Christmas Dinner
Sitting down with family and seeing them enjoy a meal I have prepared with love and attention to detail, for me, is the best feeling in the world. My Dad rated each course and overall I got a 9.95 (he likes the idea of always having room for improvement). As you can see the chocolate cake desert was very rich and not good for your teeth ;-)
Another wonderful Christmas.
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