Hi.

It's been a little quiet here the past few months, and whilst I may be a couple of days early, I thought I'd start a thread on your favourite recipes for xmas and the holiday period.

My Xmas menu tends to be 2 Roast Chickens, one which I do on the Weber Charcoal Grill Rotisserie and one in the oven. Home Made KFC Bean Salad, Potato Salad, a nice green salad, Ham (which we buy since I am not really into cooking that type of thing). We also find some small new potatoes and boil them with mint and serve with melted minted butter.

I'll post the recipes for the dishes that need one, a little later.

Feel free to share any you really like.

Definitely a hot lunch - French roast chicken; roast pork with crackle, all the roast veggies; steamed greens and proper gravy (no packet stuff), my homemade pud and trifle made our family way i.e. absolutely no jelly! Oh and a sleep after all that of course!

What about dessert type? like chocolate cupcakes? I personally like chocolate cupcakes so much especially during christmas, it is a must recipe that has to be prepared and served to all friends and relatives. It has to be prepared with Plain flour, powdered sugar, butter, eggs, cocoa powder, baking powder and milk as the ingredients. So, mix all these and keep this in owen for 20- to 25 minutes and enjoy the Chocolate cup cakes.

A healthy foodie - [www.awesomechef.in]

One thing I always try to make for Christmas is a smoked salmon pate, made of cream cheese, smoked salmon pieces, lemon pepper, horseradish, lemon zest, chopped fresh dill and red caviar or salmon roe folded through at the end and topped as a garnish with some dill. With it I cut Xmas tree shapes out of both brown and white sandwich bread, spray with olive oil spray, sprinkled with lemon pepper seasoning and baked until crisp and golden. This was a recipe in Cuisine M. probably 12 years ago and I've been making it ever since. Its lovely on Christmas Eve with drinks or as a start to lunch or dinner on the day. its a bit Kitsch but everyone loves it

Danube, the salmon pate sounds delicious. I used to subscribe to Cuisine magazine but I have only kept select copies. I went into 'Googleland' and found this. Would you mind checking and see if it is the same or very similar to the Cuisine one, please?

[www.bite.co.nz]

I love the way you serve it, too.

I am salivating while reading through this topic. Heather, if jelly was on the menu and my husband was there he would have to be watched to see he didn't eat the entire contents sof the bowl. Our Christmas day will be spent with other family members, about 19 of us. We are each given a dish or item/s to bring. I don't know yet what I will be taking.

Instead of individual gifts we decided a year or so ago to do the Secret Santa theme. Each child will be given the name of another child (computer generated), for whom they, possibly with parental help, will buy and gift wrap something. There is usually much consultation behind the scenes as to wishes. The adults will each provide one wrapped gift that will go into a pile. Everyone buys one gift and receives one gift. With the adults there will be a lot of laughter as swapping goes on. There is a specified value, for both the children and the adults. The older teens are given the option of whether they want to be a kid or an adult on the day.

Hi Marnie, I have heaps of Cuisines dating back to the mid 90's but I stopped a few years ago when there were more ad's than copy. The one this is in is November 1996, issue 59 and it has some great Christmas menus in it. This recipe was by Jo Seagar as part of a menu called A Traditional Christmas Dinner, actually the whole menu appealed.

PM me if you can't download or open and can send the recipe and photo to you. I just tried it an I can see them in downloads. (It is in the form of a photo I have just taken of the magazine and recipe). Just reading the recipe I notice the original uses parsley not dill (either are nice) and I forgot there are little tiny cooked shrimps through it, I try and get the smallest frozen ones I can and cut them in half if they're a bit big, at a pinch I think you can get tinned ones but I think frozen have a better flavour, its a lovely luxurious chunky pate. Salmon roe are not mentioned on the original either but I had to use them one year when there was no pink lumpfish available, the black doesn't work as well because it bleeds into the mixture.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2018 08:22AM by Danube.

Mission accomplished. Thank you so much, Danube.

Surprising for me its roast turkey.

Its not a tradition we have done for ever but in the last few years we have and I get great pleasure stuffing, cooking and presenting a dinosaur like bird to guests!
The last couple of years we have opted for a pre rolled and stuffed bird(s) and they are equally delicious and take up less room in the oven.

Its some thing I only have at Christmas time and really look forward to it.

I also look forward to a pavlova, once again I only really have it at Christmas. My partner and mum LOVE fruitcake, I cant stand it, have never made it but can see why they crave the fruity cake for weeks, maybe only days after Christmas with a cuppa.

One last thing - a really good truckle of stilton. Or a good stinky blue cheese to have with a port or dessert wine, crackers and a paste/jelly. Perfect.

Vanessa