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Links to my Christmas recipes!
Quite out of character for me, I didn’t take photos of ANY of my christmas food!
My official menu for Orphan Christmas 2010 was:
Entrée
Crab and Avocado Salad with sourdough garlic croutons
Antipasto platter
Main
BBQed turkey legs
Cider roast Pork
Gingerbread stuffing
Various vegetable side dishes
Gravy (two kinds!)
Dessert
Mini Cherry Cheesecakes with Oreo base
The no photo thing came from the intention to relax and enjoy the food (which I SO did) but after the fact I realised I wanted to share these recipes with the world.
The greatest hits for me was the stuffing and cheesecake and apparently the roast pork was awesome (even though I couldn’t test it. OK I stole a bit of crackling but who can resist).
Below are links to the recipes I used, I don’t want to be a copy paste faker so you can see the original and also any edits I made!
What would Christmas be with a Nigella Lawson recipe. She does it so well, I relish her Christmas specials every year. I stayed quite true to her recipe only omitting the rind and being fairly lax about the measurements. I also baked my own gingerbread, see recipe below.
I followed this recipe properly (except icing of course) but found I had to bake it for almost 1 hour 15 minutes. It was not burnt so it may have been my oven but something to watch out for.
My long suffering boyfriend goes without pork a lot for my benefit (bless) so this year I was determined to do turkey and pork to be special for everyone. This recipe is incredibly easy and ever so tasty, I hear. I blasted it at 220C again at the end for about 10 minutes to really crackle the crackling. And of course used all the amazing cider juice to make gravy!
Mini Cherry Cheesecakes with Oreo Base
I went a little off book on this one as I really felt the need for some cherry goodness. The actual recipe is raspberry swirls but you could go any fruit here I think. I pitted and mashed them down as well as I could then put them through the strainer. I would recommend using 3 – 4 more Oreos as the base only made enough for 12 and I had left over filling! So instead of 10 biscuits to 40g butter I would go 14 biscuits to 50g butter and it will be swell.
Promise I will post properly with pictures soon. Merry New Year all!
Inside out Chocolate Strawberries
Don’t be alarmed. Despite being inside out (which to me, always sounds complicated) trust me … these are the yummiest strawberries you will ever have. EVER!
Basically it is like yummy cream cheese chocolate inside cold delicious strawberries. Uhhhh, amazing much!
Ignore the chocolate carnage in the background!
What you need:
2 x punnets of strawberries (3 if the strawberries are small)
250g chocolate (I use milk but feel free to use dark if you are so inclined)
2 tablespoons of heavy cream
125g philadelphia cream cheese
1/4 cup icing sugar
What to do:
- Wash you berries, cut off the stalks then hollow out leaving a reasonably thick case of strawberries (4 – 5 mm). I use a melon baller for this. If you don’t have one I would suggest cutting out a circle with the point of a knife. EDIT – All of the strawberry balling was facilitated by my fwiend Tankie.
Strawberry Soldiers!
- In a double boiler, melt chocolate and take off heat.
- Add cream, cream cheese and icing sugar and mix well.
Yummiest chocolate!
- Let cool slightly then spoon into a piping or ziplock bag.
- Cut a small hole in one corner, then pipe the chocolate into each strawberry.
- Standing each strawberry on its tip, arrange in a bowl (preferably one with a high edge to stack the strawberries against).
- Once all your strawberries are filled, place in the fridge for 1 – 2 hours until chocolate is set.
- These will last around 24 hours.
NB – the chocolate in my picture is a bit melty cause it was a super hot day but these will actually hold their chocolate shape quite well.
Apple and Sour Cherry Crumble
Crumble is a super tasty, SUPER simple dessert that always takes me back to my child hood. I have no memory if I actually ate crumble but it makes me feel homey and comforted so that still counts.
Not happy with just apple, I combined Apple and Sour Cherry to give a great sweet/sour baked deliciousness. You could also substitute any other fruit you want into a crumble. Raspberries and Pears. Blueberries and Peach. Apricot and more apricot! Crumble works with ALOT of fruits. Just avoid anything citrus or very watery (i.e. pineapple, watermelon) and you will be fine.
Crumbleicious
Fee and TJ cooking adventures part trois, dessert!
What you need:
800g tin of pie apple
500g Morello Cherries
2 tsp caster sugar
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
200g butter at room temperature
What to do:
- Preheat your oven to 180C and have a large baking dish ready (porcelain/ceramic/glass work better here).
- In that dish, place half the tin of apples and spoon out around half the cherries. Add the rest of the apple and as many cherries as you want. Morello cherries usually come in jars of around 700g, you could definitely use them all (plus I splashed in a little of the juice).
- Sprinkle caster sugar across the top of the fruits.
Just what your fruit needs, some sugar!
- In a bowl combine flour, brown sugar and cinnamon.
- Place the butter in the bowl and WITH YOUR FINGERS you need to mix it into the flour/sugar mix. Basically cover the butter with the flour and pinch it together until all the flour is buttery. You do not want this to be a fine flour, it should be quite rubbley. Crumbley even ….
Doesn't look like much but this is the best bit!
- Pour this mix on top of the fruit and spread over so there is an even covering.
- Place the dish in the oven for 25 minutes.
Baked to perfection
- Serve hot with vanilla ice cream or custard!
I have to share a secret now, the first photo is a lie. Below was my actual serving…
I'm a well fed fibber
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