Christmas Time Again….

Christmas Cake

I’m not hosting Christmas this year, in fact I have a very relaxed and slack time planned, which is good as my social life is currently over the top and full on! It is nice to leave the planning and organising and most of the cooking, to others for once, although I will be contributing by probably making a dip or some other nibbles. The weather is stinking hot where I live, but right now freezing and horrible where I’ll be on Christmas Day – I hope that changes as we always like to have our Christmas dinners outside.

The only specific Christmas baking I’ve done this year is my dairy-free, low-fat (no fat in fact!) Christmas cake – sooooooo simple. Only 3 ingredients, although I did then liberally pour brandy over the top to soak in afterwards, but you don’t have to do that!

Here is the cake recipe, and below are a few other Christmas recipes in case you’re in need of some last minute inspiration:

Christmas Pudding (microwave)

Christmas Truffles

Christmas Turkey (crockpot)

Stuffing

Gingerbread

My little tree!

Happy Christmas Fooding!

 

Not For The Calory Counters Amongst You……

Lots of rich, dark chocolate!

Rich. Decadent. Fattening. Very Fattening. But…..to balance that….CHRISTMAS!

You can be forgiven for many foodie indulgences at this time of year, so I make no apologies for leading you astray with this bewitching balls recipe!

Anything with six, yes SIX, Cherry Ripe bars in it has to be a great thing, right? Damn straight. Chuck them all in the food processor along with cocoa and a packet of Nice biscuits (ouch, more sugar), blend to a pile of powdery goodness then mix through a can of condensed milk. OMG. This is so full of yum-ness that you just have to rush out buy Cherry Ripes right now and make this! I made them for a Christmas party (also made my yummy Teriyaki Chicken Bites, perfect for taking a plate of nibbles to a function at any time of year, and always popular), but really you don’t need an excuse, at this time of year, to spoil yourself with something so sweet and delicious.

The full recipe can be found here……and whilst it can be quite an expensive recipe to make, with all of those chocolate bars, I was lucky enough to get them on special for half price this week, yay.

Apparently Cherry Ripes are now Australia’s oldest chocolate bar, having been around since 1924. I didn’t know that until today, although I knew they were my very favourite 🙂

Happy Christmas Fooding!

Turkey Talk

I do love Christmas. Yes, I know it’s only September…..but David Jones‘ Christmas Shop opened in the last week of August, and for me that’s the “Christmas time is here” green light! And yes, I’ve done some present shopping already, but that’s cos’ I am a super nerd and do it all year round, with a permanent gift ideas list on my computer.

I spent last Christmas in Melbourne with family, but at the last minute before I flew East, I picked up a Coles brand frozen turkey breast roll on special, thinking it might be good if I have the opportunity to host a late Christmas dinner (or Christmas in July even). Said dinner never eventuated, and this week I have been trying to whittle away at what’s in my freezer, in order to give a it a darn good de-frosting.

I found the turkey and one morning this week before work, suddenly thought omg I wonder if I could cook this in the crockpot, from frozen? These breast roll things are cookable from frozen, in the oven, so I thought why not try it in the crockpot. I looked up a few websites and forums, and opinion is divided about whether you should or shouldn’t do this – but I figured I would just give it a go and if it wasn’t cooked properly I would just throw it away – I really did need to use this turkey up after so long (although the use by date is next Feb, which seems a long time to me – 14 months from date of purchase).

I removed the plastic wrapping and placed foil over the top of the turkey’s foil tray. I then placed it in the crockpot with 2 cups of water in the bottom. The turkey was a 1kg sized one (not huge but remember it’s all meat, no bone or waste, so does actually go a long way) and I cooked it on LOW for 9 hours. When I came home from work, I took it out and let it rest for 20 minutes, and it was perfect! Possibly it was even overcooked a bit, but because of the way it was cooked, it was not dry at all and really was melt-in-your-mouth stuff.

I am really glad I now know this works well, as it is always good to have lots of alternative cooking options at Christmas when everyone is sooooo busy, and the oven is often in use for other things.

Happy Early Christmas Fooding!

Smashing Summer Salad!

Bright, vibrant and fresh, this salad was made by my daughter on Christmas Day – it is in fact a recipe her friend made up. There aren’t proper quantities for the salad part – just toss it in until it looks good!

I’ve listed the dressing ingredients as it was made; however, I found this amount of sesame oil to be too overpowering. Next time I will only use a few drops.

AJs Salad

cucumbers (we used the small Lebanese ones – sliced thinly)
cherry tomatoes (chopped in half)
fresh coriander (chopped)
snow peas (blanched in microwave for 1 minute first)
sweet potato (we used 2 – peeled, diced, and roasted with olive oil for about 15-20 minutes – be careful they don’t burn)
pine nuts

Dressing

1 part balsamic vinegar
1 part sesame oil
1 part extra-virgin olive oil
pinch of sugar
sesame seeds, to taste

Mix all ingredients together, toss well and refrigerate until serving. Toss again just before serving.

Happy Summer Fooding!

Delectable Desserts, Christmas Style

Lindy’s ice cream pudding

No recipes for these (although I can put in a request from my mum for the cheesecake one if you want it, but I think the ice cream plum pudding is a family secret of my step-mum’s!), but I just wanted to share these pictures of some of the sweet goodies we enjoyed on Christmas Day.

I don’t usually eat sweet stuff much, but I could not resist the ice cream pudding, and boy was it amazing!

Hedgehog (above, on the same plate as the Christmas cake) is a staple sweet thing in my family – my mum is famous for hers. I thought I’d shared that recipe with you but I can’t find it, so I must not have…yet. And the Christmas cake is the dead easy low-fat one you can make at the last minute (we did pour some booze over it a few days before!).

Fruit salad is….well….fruit salad! And of course we had chocolates, chocolates and more chocolates. We totally forgot to get out the mince pies (bought ones, cos’ sometimes you just have to be lazy about things) and I don’t think we even had any shortbread this year. There’s always plenty to go around though, no one ever goes hungry on Christmas Day!!!

Happy Post-Christmas Fooding!

Delicious Dumplings!

Still haven’t been cooking much here, apart from a last minute Christmas cake. Instead, I have been doing a lot of Christmas shopping (and I mean a LOT – 10.5 hours at Chadstone shopping centre on Thursday!!!), and quite a bit of just slobbing around!

At Chadstone, 4 of us had the most wonderful dumpling lunch at the Oriental Teahouse. Lots of small serves of dumplings that just melted in your mouth. I had chilli prawn dumplings, chill vegetable dumplings and chilli pork dumplings (yes there is a recurring theme there….). The pictures tell it all really. Scrumptious.

Today, we are in a flurry of Christmas Eve activity – last bit of shopping (there is always something you’ve forgotten, isn’t there), roasting two boneless turkey breasts and a piece of pork, preparing the stuffing, making a cheesecake, making some mountain bread rollups, the list goes on…..busy day, but it means tomorrow will be nice and relaxed, with strawberries and champagne flowing from very early on!

Mum’s Christmas Tree

May all of your Christmas wishes come true, with lots of food, family (and of course presents!), involved in your day tomorrow.

Happy Christmas Fooding!

Pre-Christmas High Jinks!

I’m in Melbourne now, for Christmas with the family, and am more in party mode than cooking mode! Lots of socialising and catching up with people going on this week. I have cooked one meal for my mum and son, my delicious and sooooooo easy Beef Rendang, but apart from that I’ve been eating out or having a sandwich.

I’ve had a lovely lunch at Red Fire Lounge (see pic below of yummy calamari stirfry with hokkien noodles – the calamari was ultra-tender and it was a HUGE serving, no way could I eat it all), and a wonderful brunch in the sun at Barmah Park Winery, complete with champagne at 10.00 in the morning!! It is Christmas, after all, and I’m on holidays. In fact, my friend and I spent 3 hours there yackety-yacking, and the waitress asked if we’d then like to order lunch as well lol. I’ve eaten there before but never ordered from the breakfast menu, and it was divine. Sitting outside on the verandah, looking out at the vineyard – supremely relaxing and fun.

Mum and I have written our grocery shopping list for this weekend, and we’re pretty well organised, so it should be fairly stress-free. We will do most of our cooking and a lot of other preparation on Christmas Eve, so that on Christmas Day it’s all just a matter of throwing a few easy things together and slicing things up. Chilled out and relaxed, is the aim.

The Christmas ham is all ready to be hacked into, and I’m sure that will happen in the next day or so – after all, it’s so huge there will be more than enough for Christmas Day (along with roast turkey, rolled/stuffed pork and a myriad of vegies and salads….not to mention nibbles and dips beforehand and LOTS of desserts later on….let’s face it, it’s just one big food-fest ALL day!!).

So…whilst I might not be doing too much actual cooking this week, I’m certainly doing some fabulous eating!

Happy Christmas Fooding!

Christmas Truffles

What a busy time! I can’t wait for tomorrow, when I break up from work at lunchtime (and we have an afternoon Christmas bbq at the beautiful Kings Park) for a two week break. I’m off to Melbourne next week for Christmas with my family – haven’t seen my kids since March so am really looking forward to it.

As promised the other day, here is the recipe for the chocolate balls I made to take to my work Christmas bbq.

These are rich, chocolately, boozey and gooey. Just the things we all love at this time of year!

Fruity Christmas Truffles

500 gms bought Christmas cake (the “dark” variety seems to give a richer flavour)

200 gms good quality dark chocolate (I liked to use Lindt 70% cocoa)

60 gms butter

2 tbsp cream

2 tbsp brandy or sherry

dessicated coconut, cocoa or chopped nuts, to coat

Crumble the Christmas cake into a bowl. Combine the chocolate, butter and cream in a separate bowl and microwave until chocolate is melted and smooth. Pour melted mixture over the cake and add the brandy.

Stir until well combined and refrigerate for about 20 minutes, until firm enough to handle.

Roll into small balls and then roll in desired topping (above as you can see I have done half with coconut and half with cocoa).

Refrigerate until firm.

Makes 40-45 (depends how big you like your balls lol!).

If you buy a Christmas cake that is a bit bigger, cos’ they vary, use it all and just slosh in a bit more cream, butter and brandy (hic!) – it will still work just fine with a bit of “fudging”.

Happy Christmas fooding!

And The Winner Is…..

Despite my lack of decoration, and concern about the lack of sweetness, all of the gingerbread I made last weekend was chomped up and pronounced quite edible. Phew!

I’ve been very busy working a lot this week, plus attending a work Christmas breakfast and library Christmas party last night. I made spinach bites and vegetarian sausage rolls to take to the party, which was a casual bbq and loads of fun. Jane, who hosted, made some fabulous salads, including things like haloumi, roasted vegies, brown rice, and 3 dishes of potato bake that disappeared very rapidly! As a couple of people there could not eat eggs, I replaced the egg with milk, in the spinach bites, and it worked just as well, so that’s good to remember. As usual, everyone was surprised to find that the sausage rolls were vegetarian, as they taste so “meaty”.

I also made a batch of Christmas truffles – very boozy and rich – which I will share with you later.

Thank you to the 14 entries in my cookie cutter giveaway! I drew 2 names out this morning, and the lucky winners are….. Chris, from here in Perth, and Lindy, from Melbourne. I will be in touch with the winners privately to arrange their cookie cutter deliveries in time for Christmas.

I felt a bit post-Christmas-party-seedy this morning lol, but I’m sure I will have recovered by the time I get home from work tonight and be ready for a glass of wine again……

Happy Christmas Fooding!

Christmas Baking & Cookie Cutter Giveaway!

The Cookie Family!

You know it’s Christmas time when you have the smells of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves wafting around the house! I ended up using my own gingerbread recipe, and didn’t decorate them. I was going to, but then I thought meh I can’t be bothered. I find it hard to get motivated to go to that much trouble when there aren’t small children around anymore. When my kids were little I would spend the first weekend in December baking up a storm, but now they don’t live in the same state as me and I only see them a couple of times a year.

One day when there are (hopefully) grandchildren in my life, I will again get really into the Christmas sweet baking, but for this week just a batch of gingerbread to take to work was enough for me.

The cookie cutters worked really well. Don’t forget to “like” this posting (or make a comment) to be in the running for a free set! I will draw the 2 winners’ names out of a hat next Sunday.

My recipe did not turn out as sweet as I thought it should – but it all got eaten at work on Monday so I guess it tasted okay! It makes quite a large batch, but can be halved easily (the photo below shows half a batch). Or use your own favourite recipe, or the one I shared from the cookie cutters the other day.

Gingerbread

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup treacle

2 eggs, beaten

4 cups plain flour, sifted

2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp bi-carbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

approx 1 cup plain flour, extra

Melt butter in a saucepan until just melted. Remove from heat and add brown sugar, treacle and eggs. Mix well and cool for a few minutes, then add flour and spices and mix well.

Turn mixture out onto a floured board (it will be quite gooey still), and knead extra flour in by hand, to make a firm dough. Set aside in fridge for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180C (160C for fan forced).

Roll dough out on a floured board (work in more extra flour if you need it) to 4-5mm thickness and cut into shapes with cookie cutters.

Place shapes on a greased or lined tray (baking paper works brilliantly) and bake for about 10 minutes depending on how hot an oven you have.

Store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Note: you can make the dough beforehand and keep in fridge, wrapped in plastic, for a few days – soften to roll out then cut and bake as above.

Happy Christmas Fooding!

I threw in a couple of stars & angels as well.