Christmas in July

'Twas the night before Christmas (in July), when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse...

Except for a crazy onslaught of food bloggers and friends who were kindly invited by Billy and The Pom to join them in celebrating Christmas in July! Thanks for letting us invade your kitchen and your house for the night :) 

Of course Christmas just isn't Christmas without being able to gorge yourself on all kinds of food. And indeed we had a great big feast in store that went on well into the night.

We kicked off the night with some snacks and a cheese platter brought by Shez including her yummy home-made labne.

Then the table was set, the Christmas music started playing, a picture of a crackling fireplace appeared on the tv screen and dinner was served! We all marvelled at Billy's beautiful bread wreath which he served with some delicious truffle butter.

Maggie Beer's Country Chicken and Mushroom Pie

Today is the first birthday of Penguin says Feed Me and we're celebrating with a new banner and PIE! It really does not feel like it's been a year since I started this humble blog of my eating adventures, and I still remember starting up this blog and writing up the very first post thinking that no one was going to read it anyway. I never in my dreams thought that anyone would even read my blog, let alone meeting new people through it, but probably one of the best parts about blogging is meeting and forging friendships with the other awesome Sydney food bloggers (I love you guys!).

I'd like to think that I've come a long way since that first post. Reading other blogs and marvelling at their photographs or cooking prowess has inspired me to improve my own photography and challenged me to further my cooking and baking skills. I've gone from simple apple crumbles to rainbow layered buttercakes, and although there's been a few disasters along the way, I think this blog is what gets me to push the limit of my abilities. Hopefully one day I will master the art of baking as I keep trying new things (why oh why did I choose to take on macarons?!)

One new thing that I've learnt to do is make pastry from scratch. When I first started this blog, making pastry from scratch seemed like the most daunting task - I mean, isn't pastry something you buy from the freezer aisle in the supermarket? But once you get the hang of it, it's not difficult at all, and it is truly satisfying when you can proudly present a pie or a tart and say that you made it all by yourself (or in this case, with the help of Sir D).

Since seeing Maggie Beer's pheasant pie on Masterchef, I've been wanting to make her sour cream pastry and it is so easy to work with and very forgiving. I didn't know where to get a pheasant from so I used another of Maggie Beer's recipes and made her Country Chicken and Mushroom pies with the same flaky and buttery pastry. It was so nice to be able to take a beautiful golden pie out of the oven and very satisfying to eat it, knowing that I had made it from scratch. This is what keeps me cooking and blogging :)

EDIT: Just realised this is also my 100th post!