This Christmas I asked my husband to take pictures of all the food so I can make a round up of what I cooked. The only two things I had no pictures of where the soup, panna cotta that hubby made and shop-bought Christmas pudding.

I wanted to finish all the preparations fast and set up a 4 hours limit. I went over and finished the prep in 4 hours and a half, but I made the soup that wasn’t planned.

I made creamy leeks, a recipe I made before which I like a lot.

Roasted peppers were another one of my starters.

I prefer homemade bread, so I baked a couple of loafs for Christmas. I used 60% white and 40% wholemeal and I don’t have the recipe for this one, but it’s pretty much the same as this bread recipe.

I love marinated olives and I often make them at home. I used big green olives and Kalamata olives and infused them with herbs, garlic and oil.

This is roasted aubergine salad, a starter I had for Christmas since I was little.

I love cheese and this year I bought lots of different flavours of cheese, some from supermarket and some from a Christmas fair I’ve been to last month. The cheese is flavoured with, from top left, smoked, Stilton, plum chutney and on the second row is Irish Whiskey, walnuts, Stout and Red Wine. All of them were delicious.

Onion jam, also called Confit D’Oignon. Goes beautifully with cheese.

Cavolo nero pie with herb oil and beetroot puree.

The main was supposed to be a nut roast, but I didn’t look at the recipe carefully and while I’m sure it tastes good, it didn’t have the texture I was looking for. I’ve added too much wet ingredients. So instead I made some Quorn I had in the freezer and the rest of the ingredients were exactly as I wanted them to be.
The veggies were: roasted baby potatoes with herbs, roasted carrots with cayenne pepper, roasted Brussel sprouts with pepper. I also made a onion jus. It took a long time to make the jus, but it was worth it, just a few drops on the plate and I could feel the sweetness. I also added a few cubes of grapefruit jelly and a pea salad with roasted sunflower seeds and soy sauce.

My fruit cake was delicious, same recipe as the Victorian fruit cake I’ve made for GBBO, but only smaller. I had some issues with the marzipan, so it doesn’t look that tidy, maybe because I used some rum instead of date nectar as last time.

I was tired and I wanted to finish faster, so my mince pies are huge. I made the pastry with cinnamon and it didn’t modify the texture at all. For the mincemeat I used dried mango with fresh apples and mandarins. It was delicious. I served it with an apple and cinnamon sauce.

These are made by hubby, dark chocolate shells with a rum and chocolate ganache. They were delicious.