Hello!! Long time no see. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.
Dessert
Christmas pudding
Christmas cake
Chocolate yule log
Finally, one thing that was missing from our Aussie Christmas lunch was a seafood selection which normally plays a big feature. We decided to leave that off the Christmas Day menu because we had a seafood dinner on Christmas Eve instead.
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I've had an unintentional weeks break from blogging, taking the time to enjoy Christmas festivities with my family. We had a mammoth few days of celebrations on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my immediate family and then Boxing Day with the extended family.
Having two homes (Australia and UK) is mostly a wonderful thing. Theres two lots of warm welcoming homes, two lots of families, two lots of traditions, two lots of cultures, opposite seasons meaning at any one time I can escape winter and welcome summer, double the love for Baby Girl. It also means that while I am enjoying one home, part of my heart will always be missing my other home. It was strange to be Skyping my UK family on Christmas Day rather than the other way around and I did miss them.
There's many similarities on Christmas Day between both of my families and they're the things that matter the most. A day full of love, laughter, sibling banter, competitive game playing and really good food!
The big differences are: The weather, Christmas in the UK is cosy inside with fires raging, whereas in Australia meals are outside soaking up the suns rays. Common after lunch activities in Australia include swimming if you're lucky enough to have a backyard pool or other backyard sports like cricket, AFL or soccer (the Aussie name for football). Those little family traditions that subtly get embedded over the years becoming just something that everybody knows as the norm during the festive period. Christmas Eve in Australia is one big sleepover with all the siblings camping over at mum's house even though all of us have flown the nest. This means Christmas day starts as soon as we wake up often resulting in the champagne being popped before midday. In the UK we always enjoy some hot mulled wine before lunch. There is also a lot more grazing throughout the day in Australia leading up to and after Christmas lunch. Christmas lunch is very different between both countries. This is very much a cultural thing. In the UK we enjoy a traditional roast of turkey and all the trimmings whereas in Australia we enjoy a buffet of different selections which to hubbies surprise includes salads. He was flabbergasted that we would serve salad on Christmas Day.
I am going to keep the finer details of how we spent our very special Christmas Day in my memory bank but I thought I would share the details of our delicious Christmas lunch with you. I am salivating just looking at these photos again! Most of this creation was by the best chef in the world - my mum. She did have a little bit of help from her apprentices, my sister in law and I.
Christmas Lunch
Honey roasted ham
Cranberry sauce
Roasted Chicken with a rice and apricot stuffing
Gravy
Salmon en croute with cream, white wine and chive sauce
Roasted potatoes and pumpkin
Honey roasted parsnips
Steamed carrots and broccoli
Sautéed brussel sprouts with almonds
Vegetable roulade with ricotta and roasted peppers (capsicum in Australian translation) - this doesn't appear in the above photo
Cauliflower cheese
Asian wombok and noodle salad
Spinach, courgette (zucchini in Australian translation), couscous and sun dried tomato salad
Yorkshire puddings (requested by hubby but it's not something Aussies every have with their roast)
Fresh bread rolls
Dessert
Christmas pudding
Christmas cake
Chocolate yule log
This puddling was made by my mummy with love and patience. She boiled it for 5 hours!
Since living in England I've discovered chocolate yule log at Christmas which I really love, so I decided to bake one for my Aussie family. They had never seen or tried one before and they loved it. Let me know if you would like me to post a recipe.
Finally, one thing that was missing from our Aussie Christmas lunch was a seafood selection which normally plays a big feature. We decided to leave that off the Christmas Day menu because we had a seafood dinner on Christmas Eve instead.
What was on your Christmas Day menu?
Kat x
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You ate so many goodies- yum yum! Happy new year!
ReplyDeleteLiquid Grain
Happy New Year to you too! x
DeleteGosh it all looks delicious!
ReplyDeleteI have a similar thing in that part of my family live in Madrid, the other part lives in Gibraltar and I live in London. This year I celebrated Christmas in Madrid and it was a bit similar to your Christmas lunch in that it's also a buffet, with each of my aunts and uncles bringing a few bits!
Your Christmas lunch sounds wonderful. It's great that you got to spend the day with your fam x
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