31 December 2010

Christmas Eats!


A belated merry christmas to everyone out there! I hope you all had lots of food and stuffed yourselves silly, because that's exactly what I did :)


Christmas isn't complete without a ham, and this year JC and I made one with a honey mustard glaze which turned out great! An extra sprinkling of brown sugar towards the end of the baking period gave us a nicely caramelised crust on the exterior.



Christmas also means gingerbread for me - the one time in the year that the ground ginger comes out from the pantry to play. This year I made some gingerbread men and Christmas trees as gifts, as well as a mini gingerbread house using the recipe from raspberri cupcakes. The chimney is pure genius - thanks Steph for the brilliant idea!


I decided to cook dinner for my family on Christmas Eve which started off with a Christmas bread wreath from A Table For Two. I was worried it wasn't going to turn out but it was surprisingly easy and I was so pleased that people knew it looked like a wreath! The bread was a nice texture as well with a crunchy outside and soft fluffy innards.


I made three courses and I was pretty nervous since I don't usually cook dinner food but thankfully nothing tragic happened and the food was well-received! The first course I made seared scallops with sweetcorn puree...


and the second course was braised pork belly with cauliflower puree, caramelised onions and apple syrup.


I put my old-but-new ice cream machine (thanks Phuoc!) to good use and made vanilla ice cream sandwiches for dessert with salted peanut caramel and chocolate sauce. I'm loving my ice cream machine at the moment, the weather is perfect for churning up ice creams and sorbets and eating it straight out of the tub! Yes, that's my guilty pleasure this summer :)


I hope everyone had a wonderful food-filled Christmas and best wishes for the new year! See you all on the other side! ♥ Jacq


9 comments:

  1. What a feast! Everything looks so delicious and I like the sound of those scallops! Your wreath bread turned out perfect too!

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  2. eeee ice cream sandwich!!! everything looks delish dude! happy new year!

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  3. Merry Christmas again! And mmmm, ice-cream sandwiches just don't make enough appearances these days =p

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  4. That bread just looks absolutely beautiful! I would've used it as a table centre piece!

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  5. I think you have done a great job JAcq! Everything looked so delicious! Happy New Year to you and hope more ice cream comes your way! :)

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  6. Wow! That is a seriously impressive dinner Jacq! Heehee and u made the mini- gingerbread house again, it's so cute! Happy new year!!

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  7. Jacq what an amazing feast for Christmas. I really like your idea of adding that extra brown sugar to the ham near the end - very clever. Happy New Year.

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  8. What a great feast you had! Happy New Year, Jacq!

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  9. Hi Helen - Hehe it seems we think alike since we both made scallops and the wreath bread lol! Hope you had a lovely Christmas and new year!

    Hi chocolatesuze - Happy new year to you too!

    Hi mademoiselle delicieuse - Just very recently, I've seen quite a few ice cream sandwiches around (are they the new macaron??)

    - Hm edible centrepiece, I like the idea!

    Hi billy - Thanks, I learned from the best =D Happy new year to you too Billy!

    Hi Stephcookie - haha I have to have my gingerbread fix every year and your mini house means I don't have stacks of it leftover - it's perfect!

    Hi sara - Thanks! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and new year!

    Hi Ellie - Happy new year Ellie!

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