Christmas Day 2011!

Our day began at home with some gift opening....

Shadow managed to destroy her toy in about 2 minutes....

Monty was slightly interested in the tree



And Jaspa had a ball playing in the paper!

And then we headed off to Pam & Sid's for breakfast....



We began with some delicious fruit salad!


Sid cooked up some ham, tomatoes, hash browns, mushrooms and toast on the bbq

and Pam made some scrambled eggs. This was my plate!

oh, and there were also croissants! A great way to start the day!!

then we headed off to my parents place for lunch....


 


sparkly bon-bons made by my cousin! These bon-bons gave us all a sparkle for the rest of the day!



Prawns for entree


this sesame seaweed was amazing!


instead of prawns, I had this quinoa salad with walnuts and cranberries

and then we filled the table with an amazing array of food!

A crunchy noodle salad made by Jill -


 I made this Cous Cous and sprouted Chick Pea salad.  I saw how to sprout the chick peas on Scandie Foodie's blog.  TO the cous cous and chick peas, I simply added some roasted pumpkin, sweet corn (from our garden) and tossed through a dressing made from lemon juice, garlic, chilli, olive oil and a splash of soy sauce.

I made this potato salad - for the dressing I mixed equal parts of Birch & Waite Aioli Garlic Mayo and EasyYo Greek yoghurt. Then I just mixed in some chives and some cooked bacon (I also set aside some without bacon for me!)


there was also roasted chicken

ham

this magnificent, and massive green salad

and a tomato salad!


Were we full yet? possibly, but there is always room for pudding!

fruit mince pies!


Berries! The berries are my highlight of the Christmas lunch for me! Its not Christmas until I have had a lovely bowl of juicy berries!

There was also a Christmas pudding, but it was chopped up and dispersed to plates before I had a chance to take a photo! believe me, it was yummy!!


MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Christmas Creations

I have been making a few different things in the lead up to Christmas.....




Easy Christmas Cupcakes - I made my stand-by vanilla cupcake recipe, and iced them in green and red icing, topped with stars I made by colouring some fondant icing, and cutting with cookie cutters





Iced Christmas Cake - I made the cake as per the recipe here at the 120 dollar food challenge blog and had my first go at icing a Christmas Cake.  We are yet to crack the cake open, but I was quite impressed with how it looks! (I did not use brandy or rum - I only had vodka)





Chilli Jam -  I used up some of the chillis that are growing quite prolifically in my garden and had my first attempt at bottling something! I used the recipe from Nigella Christmas, the only change I made was that I added some garlic to the recipe.

Brisbane Foodie Bus Tour 2011

You may recall that last Christmas I went on a bus tour Well, I was lucky enough to be able to be a part of this years tour!!!The theme this year was International Christmas......and I will mainly let the pictures do the talking.

First stop was Samios Foods (36 Annerley Rd Wooloongabba)



inside this unassuming building is a treasure trove of goodies!








we sampled several different cheeses (cheese for breakfast? yes please!!)



and tried some dolmades, and also some greek coffee


so many different ingredients - will have to come back here again to take it all in properly!



next stop - Pennisi Cuisine (17 Balaclava St Wooloongabba)





here we tried some more cheese, and some other delicious morsels, and browsed the shelves that are filled with a multitude of tempting ingredients!


then it was on to Ruski Way Deli (shop 12A Tottenham St Wooloongabba)

We had some tea.....(I say we, but no tea for me of course as I don't actually drink tea or coffee or anything hot)...from this ornate tea pot!

and sampled a variety of Russian delicacies - I highly recommend the eggplant relish (there is now some in my fridge!)





we were generouslyeach given one of these to hang round our necks! a bread necklace of sorts!!

The dumplings looked quite interesting - I'd like to try these one day

and then it was back to taste trekkers head quarters for some lunch because we hadn't quite eaten enough (haha)






We also had a wine tasting, led by Renae from Clovely Estate Which is a Qld winery.



Sally made us a delicious lunch!








We even had a beer tasting from Matt, who spoke about beer in a way that made me really want to like it. 



and of course, everyone has a seperate stomach for dessert, so we all managed to squeeze in some plum cake, some sticky rice and mango! YUM!

Thanks to Natascha  and Sally for organising, and to everyone who came along for a great day!!