Christmas Day eats

Hello hello! Wow, I have not been keeping up with my blogging lately. I was feeling overwhelmed like I was falling way behind when I remembered that actually I do not have to meet any targets with blogging, it is something I do for fun and to share with my beloved little blogging community, and I can do it whenever and however I want. Which may sound obvious, but when you have a brain like mine sometimes you get fixated on imagined goals. Anyway, I have been working a lot and constantly tired and sore, but I have also been having some nice times playing some fun computer games and seeing Six the musical twice (with a third time already booked!). How have you all been?

Today I am going to share the food I ate on Christmas day. There will be another post when I feel so moved about other Christmas type foods I ate around Christmas, but this is for the day itself. I got some lovely presents, mostly a lot of books! Hurrah!

For breakfast I wanted something festive and satisfying enough to last me until it was late Christmas lunch time, without being too much. I settled on these lovely Gingerbread Overnight Oats from Life Made Sweeter. I downsized to one third of the recipe. This was incredible, it hit the exact flavour notes of gingerbread. So good! I used So Good Vanilla Soy Yoghurt instead of natural yoghurt, so I didn't add the vanilla extract. And I served it with pepitas, more yoghurt, St Dalfour's Black Cherry Jam, and fresh blueberries.
Rating: :D



Onto lunch proper, and I had planned for a very simple menu. For the centerpiece, I tried the new Coles Ham-Style Roast. It comes with a maple glaze for basting during baking. I was very suspicious when I took it out of the packet, it was so oily and seemed almost gelatinous in places? You need to score it in a diamond patter before basting and baking, and it just had a very strange texture.



Once it was baked, I was still suspicious of it. It seemed soft and far too shiny.



It was hard to cut into nice, neat slices, so I ended up just lopping off big thick ones. It had a pinkish centre, I guess because of being a ham-style roast. The flavour I can say was good, but I just didn't enjoy cooking it from a tactile standpoint, so next year I will stick the their traditional roast.



You can also see on the platter some potatoes, which are our traditional Potato Squashers from Eat, Drink, Be Vegan by Dreena Burton. Which brings me to a few other recipes I had made in the past (and already blogged about) and decided to add in here.

Frozen cranberries are almost never available here, so when they are I stock up and then carefully ration them out. So with my dwindling supply from a couple of years ago I made Cinnamon Citrus Cranberry Sauce from Keep It Vegan by Aine Carlin. This is my absolute favourite cranberry sauce recipe. You need to make it a couple of days ahead so the flavours can mingle and mellow, but that means it is ready to hit the table when it comes to the actual day.



Last minute I decided I wanted more green, and thankfully had all the things to quickly put together Cucumber Salad with Wa-Fu Dressing from Japanese Cooking by Miyoko Schinner. This is a very simple dish of tangy and sweet cucumber slices, which was a nice addition.



Of course I had to make a couple of new to me recipes!

Sweet Potato and Almond Couscous Salad from Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen by Chloe Coscarelli: This salad has pearl couscous (which I just love), roasted sweet potatoes, cranberries, and almonds, which sounded like a perfect Christmas kind of salad. I halved the recipe, and I added the almonds just before serving to keep the crunch.
Rating: :)



Green Beans with Yuzu Vinaigrette from Just One Cookbook: This was super easy to make, crispy just cooked green beans with a lovely tangy dressing of yuzu and mustard. I was using bottled yuzu juice, so I just skipped adding the zest.
Rating: :)



All laid out for serving.



And plated up.



To drink with lunch I tried this new to me Ginger Beer kefir, which was lovely.



Dessert was a little mini Coles Matured Pudding (they happen to be vegan) and some Alpro custard. Served with some grapes and cherries. I like a very high custard to pudding ratio.



So that was Christmas day! But I know what you are really here for...

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Mirabelle is very headshy, so putting a santa hat on her was never going to be an option. Posing it with her was the best we were going to get!