Saturday, December 26, 2015

Christmas meals 2015 2: Christmas Day

The table set for Christmas Day


Kir royale cocktail, foie gras with peaches, caprese salad, bread

Foie gras with peaches and nectarines and fig and peach preserve


Roast fillet of beef and jostaberry sauce, with vegs from our garden: Kipfler potatoes, peas, golden baubles
Home-made chocolate icecream Christmas log with whipped cream and home made marzipan decorations

Friday, December 25, 2015

Christmas meals 2015: Christmas Eve

Preparing prawn and mango salad(with homemade mayonnaise)

Entree: prawn and mango salad with mango daiquiri

Main course: Rainbow trout sauteed in olive oil and lime, with purslane and garlic chives

Dessert: Blackberry trifle and mango icecream

before the meal: making marzipan shapes to decorate the Christmas log cakes


Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Cinderella's mini pumpkin coach accompanied by silvery fish with golden baubles



We had a delicious and unusual dinner the other day whose elements made me think of fairytale: a stuffed mini pumpkin which is is our own serendipitous cross: a cross between Queensland Blue and Golden Nugget pumpkins, with a most pleasing Cinderella-coach look, beautiful deep orange flesh and golden skin that you can actually eat if you steam, grill, or roast it; accompanied by black and silver-skinned barramundi, fried whole, and served with onions and 'golden baubles'--actually the immature version of the same mini Cinderella coach-pumpkin, but a lovely yellow outside and creamy yellow inside, and a really delicious taste!
Everything was very simple to prepare as well:
I hollowed out the pumpkin, chopped the flesh up and tossed it in butter with lots of chopped herbs and garlic, with a bit of the Basque piment d'espelette sprinkled on top for extra flavour and colour(you can use hot paprika as a substitute). Then I put everything back into the pumpkin, popped the little top back on, and cooked it in a pan with the lid on--first of all in a little olive oil, then adding some water and letting it cook with the lid on till the pumpkin was cooked through, including the skin.
Meanwhile, I fried the whole small barramundi, crisping the skin, and adding chopped onions and chopped 'baubles'. A sprinkling of herbs, salt and pepper, and there: a fairytale dinner before you!