what’s on my Christmas menu?

I’ve had a few questions about what we will eat for Christmas Day. We’ve got a busy couple of days planned especially as I’m hosting Christmas lunch, a few visitors staying over Christmas and ‘pudding and presents’ as we’re calling it on Boxing Day with more family.

Now Christmas lunch for as long as I can remember and with the exception of when we lived in England or I have been with retro daddy’s family, is a cold lunch affair. I usually do the old chips, dip, crackers, carrot sticks, cashews (surely everyone does cashews at Christmas and you need to buy an extra bag because you eat one bag before the cashews actually make it out of the kitchen). There is also french champagne (must be french), beer, soft drinks, non alcoholic wine and that’s the drinks sorted.

 oh look! more food!

If you like a little hot starter then I really love these artichoke tartlets. You make a little case out of bread and a mixture of marinated artichokes and mayo inside, baked in the oven and voila. Recipe here.

Seafood, ham, chicken or turkey is always on the menu. And we’re all about tradition here because for as long as I can remember grandma betty brings the ham because her friend Iris was married to the butcher so we’re still getting our ham that way.

My dad organises the seafood and that used to be the job he did with my mum and he’s still doing it. I miss going to the shops early with my mum or running into them down at the mall. Now I do my Christmas Eve 6am shop at Balgowlah Stocklands because you park underneath, pop up the escalator and you have everything there including fresh seafood, flowers, butcher and supermarket. It’s fabulous and less crowded than going to a bigger shopping centre.

Ok now I shine at the vegetables and salads. That’s probably because for quite a few Christmases in my life I was vegetarian so didn’t do the ham or seafood. One of my all time combos is pumpkin, feta and spinach. This salad is a winner……recipe here.

I also love good old potato salad. I love it warm, gherkins are delicious added and so is sliced egg. I don’t make my own mayo as I’m usually pregnant at Christmas but I buy a good mayo and use generously. Another great salad is warm potatoes, mustard and olive oil which is also delicious.

Beans, avocado, cherry tomatoes and a simple dressing of olive oil, mustard, vinegar, dash of sugar, seasoned with salt and pepper. Simple and festive. Just boil the beans in boiling water then rinse in cold water to keep them green.

green bean salad with cranberry dressing

If my aunty kim is coming over then I leave the Changs noodle salad to her. She is known for that salad and it always get demolished. We love you kim and we love your noodle salad. Aunty Deb also does a delicious noodle salad too and is also known for her homemade pudding. Dessert. Let’s talk dessert.

Now each year I do something a bit different for dessert. I’ve done frozen puddings, trifle one year, pavlova a few times and this year I’m going all out with a homemade frozen pudding that I’m already getting excited about. A lovely reader even helped me track down the book that the pudding was in. It’s a Women’s Weekly recipe……Frozen Chocolate Fruit Cake Pudding. Did you get that? It’s a frozen pudding and you make the ice cream from scratch and it is worth all of the effort. You can find a copy of the recipe here online and it comes from The Australian Women’s Weekly Christmas Cooking book first published in 2004 and now available as a 2013 reprint. I picked mine up at Big W.

and then after all of that I do the tray of the goodies – fruit cake, fruit mince pies, rum balls, shortbread, handmade chocolates and rocky road. 

sweet plate

Last year this was my favourite fruit cake, a pineapple fruit cake and considering that I haven’t even thought about fruit cake yet or soaking my fruit I think this will be on the menu again this year. Recipe here.

How is your Christmas menu looking? Trying anything new? I’m too embarrassed to show you the pile of Christmas magazines full of recipes that won’t even get a look in this year as I’m still trying to get to the end of school and preschool…………………….

Comments

  1. Yum I’m definitely coming….set me a place yes please! We have lots of that plus an amazing curried rice salad with prawns and mango…mmmmmm

  2. I have just spent the morning discussing Christmas Menus with a close friend who shares my love of cooking and I’m after new side dishes. Your menu sounds delicious. I was eyeing off the noodle salad in your photo Yum! Any chance of a recipe in the future? Sounds like a big family affair at your place. Have a wonderful time.

  3. I’ve been posting some of my favourite Christmas recipes on my blog of late ( http://www.goodfoodweek.blogspot.com ) – we had a Christmas party with our friends the other day and I made your pumpkin pie recipe. We are having Christmas Day at Phillip’s parents house so we will be eating traditional Croatian food (which makes me a little sad about my tradditions but we will head to Sydney on Boxing Day for a 2nd Xmas run :)

  4. I’d love to see the recipe for the artichoke tartlets – could you please pop the link in?

  5. I live in Poland. Polish Christmas food is fried carp , beetroot soup with ravioli, pierogi with cabbage and mushrooms and potatoes puree. And for desert Poppy Seed Roll and compote of dry fruits for a drink. Regards, Ewa from Poland:)

  6. anne seery says:

    Oh I am soooooooooo going to miss seeing you this year.

  7. Hi Corrie, Wow that food looks delicious and Healthy too! We have similar but this year I made a cake called Three week spice cake. It is boiled and really delicious-even non-fruit cake eaters gave it the thumbs up. I haven’t even thought about the pudding yet but last year made the thermomix recipe and it was fantastic. It is such a busy but also happy time of the year.

  8. We normally just do a huge bbq as our family is quite big. The salads really need some love and a revamp. That pumpkin salad looks sooo good. Might have to do that this year and we always buy seafood too. I am not big on fruit cake but I said I would make a mud cake wreath cake that I saw in a magazine somewhere. I should have bought the bundt cake tin when I saw it on special at Aldi.

  9. Hi again Corrie, I was using the link to your Pumpkin, Feta and Spinach Salad and it kept taking me to the Warm Potato Salad. Is this recipe on your site somewhere? I’m hoping to serve it this Sunday when we have friends for a Christmas Dinner. Thanks!

  10. Hi Corrie! Do you have the link to that noodle salad recipe? Looks yum and my kids love noodles!!!

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