Just in time for Christmas, the NZ Listener served up a dose of food guilt and You Must Diet and food is not for fun and LOSE WEIGHT NOW! To be fair to The Listener, the article avoids saying that fat people are unhealthy (if you are sceptical about this claim, check this story about the non-link between fat and health in the New York Times). However, The Listener story does have an underlying theme of making people feel bad about food, and it tacitly claims that losing weight is just a matter of sufficient willpower. This is despite the magazine having previously run stories on the myths of weight loss (see my summary of the story here), and willpower (long story short – it can be done, but only with huge effort, unless there are structural supports around you).
Whatever. And what a way to cast a pall of nagging tut-tut-tut over a celebration.
So in the spirit of simply enjoying good food and good company, I offer you our Christmas Day menu.
We started the day with Bucks Fizz – champagne version for the adults, lemonade version for the children, although those children who wanted to do so were invited to try some of the former.
Bucks Fizz
For breakfast, we had warmed croissants stuffed with our butcher’s secret recipe homecured bacon, and lightly stewed peaches, still warm from the pan, all drizzled with maple syrup.
Bacon, croissants, peaches and maple syrup
I made a superb bacon quiche for lunch. I would show you a picture, but we ate it all before I thought about taking a photo. Likewise with the pre-dinner nibbles, alas. Or perhaps not so alas, because the homemade pate, blue cheese, chippies, and homemade hummus were delicious.
This was the main part of dinner.
Brown paper parcel
It’s a whole leg of lamb, studded with cloves of garlic, then rubbed with lemon juice and olive oil, then placed on a bed of freshly cut oregano, and wrapped in baking paper and brown paper. I cooked it long and slow, for about three hours, and I rested it for half an hour before serving it. It was meltingly tender, and flavoursome. The recipe comes from Ruth Pretty.
I accompanied the lamb with asparagus drizzled with lemon infused olive oil, a medley of green beans, broad beans and peas with melted mint butter, and herby Jersey Benny potatoes (best potatoes ever).
Lamb, potatoes, asparagus, legume medley
Yummy yummy yummy.
And then there was dessert.
Dessert table
From left to right, fresh cherries, a berry medley, marscapone apricot tart, whipped cream, yoghurt, a strawberry pavlova, and lemon semi-freddo. The pavlova was excellent, crisp on the outside, and soft marshmallow without a hint of chewiness in the middle. The lemon semi-freddo was good too, creamy and tart, and not at all icy. I was very pleased with the way it turned out.
Just in case anyone was still hungry, we finished off with Christmas cake. Lurid Christmas cake.
Bright star cake
I hope that you ate some wonderful food over the festive season too. Feel free to share.
“best potatoes ever” – I”m beginning to think Red Kings are even better.
Super like. I had a vege pizza for Xmas but I was somewhere spectacular
Yum!
Our party for Christmas dinner is made up of vegetarians, vegans and one unfortunate who is allergic to chocolate. Despite these seeming restrictions no one has ever risen from our table unsatisfied. Our friends make the main course and we take dessert.
This year we had a savoury onion tart, walnut rissoles (with plum sauce), “sausage” rolls, little mushroom pastries, new potatoes, lettuce and grapefruit salad, peas and carrots. I decided to make an all pie dessert, one pumpkin, one lemon and one cranberry, apricot and pecan. And a fruit salad