Our scrumptious Christmas Eve dinner

We had a lovely hot summery Christmas Eve here in New Zealand. Just perfect for having a cold collation of Christmas treats for dinner.

We buy our favourite foods each year. This year we added marinated mussels to our assortment of goodies. There was smoked salmon, salted herrings and roll mops as usual

Cherry size mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, green olives stuffed with feta and Guzzardi Kalamati marinated olives.

A selection of Italian cold meats.

And a cheese selection which was yummy. Dad and I enjoyed sampling the different cheeses at the delicatessen. We selected quite a range this year including fromage de meaux, fromage d'affinois (delicious!), Munster (too smelly for me but dad loved it), Mount Scott Havarti, Whitestone Lindis Pass brie, Old Rotterdam gouda (my favourite) and English stilton.

We had fresh fruit for dessert...melon, mango and cherries. Plus mince pies and homemade pfeffernusse biscuits.

It was a very enjoyable evening. I love this tradition we have.

I hope that you are enjoying your Christmas holidays as much as I am.

Love Rose x

A Boxing Day Feast

We have been eating non-stop for the past few days.

It started with a yum char lunch at the Grand Harbour restaurant in Auckland, totally delicious, and ended with a cold meal for our Boxing day dinner. A real feast for us.

I decided to experiment with ingredients for a cold salad and made this one by grilling sliced red capsicum and thinly sliced courgettes.

Then I thinly sliced a few garlic cloves and grilled them with oil for 3 minutes to make garlic chips.

I also used snow peas which I had picked fresh on Boxing Day and boiled for 5 minutes, then cooled the snow peas in cold running water to stop them from cooking further.

These were all arranged on a platter and sprinkled with the little garlic chips.

Finally I squeezed a little lemon juice over and drizzled it with Italian red wine vinegar made by Acetum (aceto di vino rosso selezione).

We had rollmops and salted herrings.

And I made a clotted cream sauce using leftover clotted cream, wholegrain mustard and a squeeze of lemon juice. I wasn't sure if this combination would work, but it was mouth-wateringly yummy, if I may say so myself, and went really well with smoked salmon.

We also had a potato salad made with new potatoes, capers, gherkins, fresh dill and chives from the garden, green olives and mayonnaise.

There was a small selection of meats, prosciutto, mortadella and Calabrese salami, which we bought from Farro, my favourite delicatessen.

Mum made a lovely olive focaccia and dad made a green salad with avocados.

And this was followed by a cheese board which included emmenthal, Old Rotherdam gouda, roquefort and Jarlsberg cheeses.

It was a very relaxing meal, made slowly over the afternoon and eaten leisurely. Bliss.

Now it is time for dinner again. Leftovers from yesterday. I will have to get out in the garden to exercise all of this feasting off.

See you soon

Hugs

Rose x

Christmas dinner at my sister's

We had another amazing Christmas feast at my sister's house this year. We started off nibbling on melon wrapped in prosciutto, pistachios and home made olives that my sister grew. Then we had smoked salmon, hot smoked salmon, garlic prawns and mussels with a garlic aioli sauce. Yum!

This was followed by a mouth-wateringly delicious roast beef and a roast ham, served with a dish of asparagus topped with sliced snow peas, leeks and chopped boiled egg. A salad of potatoes, and new green beans and a roast pepper, cherry tomato and basil salad.

For dessert we had a lovely lemon syrup cake.

Plus a yummiest limoncello trifle. Both of which my sister's friend made

After the leisurely meal we sat in the sitting room and were served mini strawberry pavlovas, panforte, mini mince pies and Lindor chocolates while we opened our Christmas presents.

It was a really relaxed and pleasant day with lots of chatter and laughter.

I wish the same for you.

Lots of love this holiday season

Rose x

Wishing you a Happy Easter!

It has been a very lazy day today. I slept in late, catching up with some well needed sleep. Then I breakfasted on toasted waffles with apple sauce.

The waffles were made last week and then put into the freezer ready for emergencies. I simply popped them into the toaster without the need for defrosting. Wonderful! And there was a bowl of stewed apples in the fridge, made from apples from our tree, which I just passed through a seive to make puree.

Then I spent a couple of hours reading and had a long luxurious bubble bath...bliss. A perfect holiday!

Mum and dad made a lovely Easter dinner tonight. We had a cold meal because the weather is still very hot here in here New Zealand, even though it is Autumn. It still feels very strange for me to have Easter in the Autumn. For me Easter means spring flowers...pots of blue hyacinths, daffodils, crocuses.

We had Kulich and Pashka for dessert. Mum made the Pashka a few days ago and the Kulich was made this morning. They are my favourite Easter desserts and a Polish tradition that we have had since as far back as I can remember.

The icing on the Kulich is a little sparse because dad doesn't like icing on Kulich and he caught mum putting it on....sigh....I love heaps of icing on Kulich, so I had a little separate bowl of icing to put on my slice when I ate it, so we were all happy :)

I hope that you have a wonderful Easter and that the Easter Bunny is very good to you.

Hugs,

Rose xxx