Christmas Day Feast - Part Two - Cocktails and Christmas Lunch

The main event! I've had to put it in a new post as there were starting to be too many labels!

A Passionate Affair

15ml passionfruit liqueur

10ml passionfruit in syrup

120ml chilled brut champagne

Combine passionfruit liqueur and passionfruit in a flute; top with chilled champagne.

Serve in a 150ml glass champagne flute.

Serves 1

The Australian Women's Weekly Cocktails Book

Yum - this was just the tonic to help me get Christmas lunch ready ;0)

Christmas Lunch

We're not ones for a whole roast turkey or a ham joint that lasts for days and days afterwards. And there are more than one or two fussy eaters in this family so trying to find something that suits everyone is pretty much impossible! I settled on pan fried duck breasts (remember the great Duck Hunt?) for all of us apart from Hubby. He won't eat duck so instead he had a barbie with sausages and burgers. I was going to make him the chicken with chorizo and mozzarella that I've blogged about before but the chicken we bought just two days before Christmas was already off!!! He was very happy with his barbie all the same though.

Duck with Madeira and Blueberry Sauce
4 duck breasts (skin left on)

4 garlic cloves, chopped

Grated rind and juice of 1 orange

1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Salt and pepper

Madeira and Blueberry Sauce

150g blueberries

250ml Madeira

1 tbsp redcurrant jelly

Use a sharp knife to make several shallow diagonal cuts in each duck breast. Put the duck in a glass bowl with the garlic, orange rind and juice and the parsley. Season to taste with salt and pepper and stir well. Turn the duck in the mixture until thoroughly coated. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave in the refrigerator to marinate for at least 1 hour.

Heat a dry, non stick frying pan over a medium heat. Add the duck breasts an d cook for 4 mins, then turn them over and cook for a further 4 mins, or according to taste. Remove from the heat, cover the frying pan and leave to stand for 5 mins.

Halfway through the cooking time, put the blueberries, Madeira and redcurrant jelly into a separate saucepan. Bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 mins, then remove from the heat.

Slice the duck breasts and transfer to warmed serving plates. Serve with the sauced poured over and accompanied by new potatoes and a selection of green veg.

Serves 4

Ultimate Christmas Book

This duck was amazing! I think they must have been raised by Arnold Schwarzenegger though, they were massive and ended up taking twice as long to cook them, they were lovely and moist and pink inside still, even if the skin side of the breast was a little darker [ahem: black] than I would have really liked it to be. Oh well!

Of course, being Christmas, I didn't serve it with plain old boiled potatoes and a selection of green veg!

Bill's Mini Potato Gratins

600g potatoes, peeled and very thinly sliced

185ml cream

1 garlic clove

Sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200C. Cut a piece of baking paper into 16 strips 15 x 2cm. Line 6 x 125ml muffin tins with the strips, in a criss cross pattern with strips overlapping on each side. This will create little handles to remove your gratins with.

Place all ingredients in a bowl and toss to combine. Layer the potatoes in the muffin tins and pour over any remaining liquid. Place in the oven and cook for 40 mins.

Serves 6

Bill's Open Kitchen Book

I've had this recipe ear marked to make for a long time but never got the chance to actually make it. Very yummy indeed and went really well with the duck and other veg. I must have smaller muffin pans though as I doubled the recipe and ended up getting 2 whole muffin tins out of it (that's 24 mini gratins!)

Honeyed Winter Salad

1 butternut squash, cut into thin wedges

2 red onions, halved and cut into wedges

4 parsnips, cut into wedges

3 tbsp olive oil (try garlic or basil infused)

1-2 tbsp clear honey

1 small ciabatta,roughly torn into pieces (tomato and olive ciabatta works well)

1 tbsp sunflower seeds, optional

225g bag leaf spinach

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tsp Dijon mustard

Heat oven to 220C / fan 200C. Put the vegetables into a large roasting tin, drizzle with half the olive oil and season to taste. Roast for 20 mins, turning once in a while until softened. Drizzle with the honey. Scatter torn ciabatta and sunflower seeds over the top and return to the oven for a further 5 mins or until toasted.

Put the spinach into a large bowl and tip in the vegetables and ciabatta. Whisk the vinegar, mustard and remaining oil together, season to taste and toss into the salad until the spinach wilts slightly. Serve immediately.

Serves 4

Good Food Vegetarian Christmas - Christmas 09

This salad seemed like such a good idea at the time! Although the veg was cooked it never turned an appetising 'golden' colour and the ciabatta was decidedly soggy. I would probably try this again but not on Christmas day when there a whole host of other dishes timed to be ready at the same time as this needed much longer than the stated time to cook properly. Aside from that it would have been lovely. I also added a bag of chantenay carrots.

Simple Braised Peas

50g butter

2 bunches of spring onions, trimmed and thinly sliced

900g frozen peas

125ml fresh veg stock, hot

1 bunch of fresh chives, optional (I forgot to add this!!!)

Melt the butter in a large pan over a medium - low heat. Add the spring onions and cook gently for 1 min, until soft. Increase the heat and add the peas and stock. Season, cover and cook for 4 mins. Sprinkle with the chives, if using, to serve.

Serves 8 (baby elephants! This recipe makes a lot!)

Can't remember where this one came from but it gets made quite a bit cause its so yummy and lets face it, peas need all the help they can get to be more appealing!

So now it has taken me almost the same amount of time to get these posts done I'm off to have myself another Passionate Affair (oh ah missus!), some leftovers and a leisurely afternoon reading all my new cook books that Santa bought me ;0)

Have a relaxing Boxing Day!

PS - Can't believe I forgot to add dessert to the post!!! We had raspberry and White Chocolate trifles, I blogged about them not long ago so if you would liek to see the recipe please click here.