The [15] Posts of Christmas: Christmas cooking

Oh the food!  The glorious food!

This past Saturday I cooked Christmas dinner for my side of the family.  We do a fairly traditional feast with the roasted beast and all the fixings. 

We also enjoyed some Christmas baking. 

In our home, there are some traditions around the foods that we eat at Christmas. 

Our menu on Saturday included:

- turkey
- stuffing
- whipped potatoes
- mashed carrots and rutabaga

Don't plan on trying to lose weight if you want to eat my Christmas cooking.  My secret:  butter!  And lots of it! 

Everyone seems to have their own take on stuffing.  Ours is probably similar to most, but we add dried cranberries and apples to ours.  I also like to add some rubbed sage in addition to the ground sage.  (and lots of butter).

My turkey, gets rubbed down in butter before going into the oven also.  Then sprinkled with salt, pepper, parsley and rubbed sage.

One Christmas we were watching a Jamie Oliver special where he added star anise to his stock to make the "perfect gravy".  We roast the turkey in the pan with rough chopped onions, celery, carrots (usually garlic too, but I forgot this year) and a couple of star anise.  It truly does make the gravy yummy!

Christmas baking is another area where certain things must be made.  These include gingerbread cookies, shortbreads and brownies.  My hubby's favourite is rum truffles. 

But most importantly is the Christmas pudding.  I plan to make mine tomorrow.  Hopefully I don't run out of time.  This is a tradition that we have continued from my hubby's side of the family.  This year, I'll be making myself some non-rum sauce as it wouldn't be good for the baby or for Lu! 

Enjoy your feasts this year.  Remember, there's always the new year for dieting!  :)