A-Fooding-We-Will-Go

What a week! I spent 3 days over last weekend,  in the South of Western Australia – staying in Albany and Pemberton. The motel in Albany was AWFUL – built in the 60s and hasn’t been touched since. On the other hand, the Forest Lodge in Pemberton was lovely, very relaxing and quiet, with parrots everywhere and a couple of kangaroos visiting us in the early morning.

I don’t really have to say much about the lovely meals we enjoyed – the pics tell it all!  The best was lunch at the Denmark Tavern – $21.95 for a 2 course lunch, and it was not your usual “roast of the day”, “fish of the day” type choices but proper gourmet options. Such great value, when you think that the main courses were from $24-$34 each. I had spring rolls but tried someone else’s squid with lemon aoli – divine. All three of us had the prawn & smoked salmon salad, and it was simply stunning, both to look at and to eat.

 

It’s a hectic time! After being away there has been a ball on Monday night and a luncheon on Wednesday, more last minute Christmas shopping yesterday with visitors, and I worked today. We’re all ready for Christmas Day, and tomorrow I will be cookign the turkey and pork, making the stuffing, getting the table ready, doing a last minute cleanup, and making the Christmas pudding, which I do in the microwave. I will send others out to pick up the fresh prawns, booze and any last minute ingredients that I am pretty sure I already have but find out tomorrow I’ve forgotten!

Generally it’s going to be pretty relaxing on Christmas Day itself, as I plan to get most things done tomorrow, and there will only be 8 of us at the dinner table, which we will set up outside but in the shade (31C expected).

And we’re starting off with a champagne brekky with friends at the beach – fresh strawberries, cherries and cheeses to start the day – can’t get more relaxed than that.

I hope you all have a wonderful and very special day, full of lots of Happy Christmas Fooding!

Weird But Wonderful….

YES the ingredients in this “dip” sound bizarre! But believe me it is totally delicious and is always a huge hit. The 3 things in this sound very strange when you contemplate putting them together, but they just work! You need a knife with this and the idea is to cut a wedge of the cheese and kind of scoop it up onto a cracker with some of the strawberries and sauce.

Today I am making a Christmas cake – the easiest one in the world, and I’m a bit dubious about whether it is going to work out or not. Making fruit cakes is not really something I’ve mastered, so most years I just buy one (after all, we’re all too stuffed full of turkey and ham to eat much dessert anyway, right?). But then I came across a recipe my mum emailed to me in 2006, and it’s so unbelievably simple that I figured even I couldn’t muck it up – so stay tuned!

Cheese & Strawberry Thing (it doesn’t really have a name!)

1 whole camembert or brie cheese, softened at room temperature for a while

250 gm punnet strawberries, washed and roughly chopped

about 1 1/2 cups sweet chilli sauce

Place cheese in centre of plate. Top with strawberries then pour sweet chilli sauce over the top.

Serve with water crackers or dry biscuits of your choice.

Happy Unusual Fooding!