In order for a successful Christmas to occur, certain items must be present.

Good food (starters, mains and desserts) are of obvious importance, relatives of some sort must attend (even if it is your sixth cousin – 4 times removed), decorations must be placed EVERYWHERE and Christmas carols, that everyone is sick of hearing, must play.

I, for one, would say my family definitely achieved a ‘successful’ Christmas.

(If you don’t wanna read my babble, feel free to just look at all that fooood!)

This year, our gift-giving was interesting – to say the least. The Grimbly’s have never been good at organising gifts and so I suggested that we do ‘secret santa’ amongst the five of us. We each pulled a name out of a Christmas hat and after 3 rounds, we managed to get it right. ‘Right’ meaning, no one knew who their ‘secret santa’ was and no one had themselves.

We landed up filling 5 black bags with a towel so that no one could work out what shape and size the gidt was or what wrapping paper was used to wrap it – clearly we took this secret keeping very seriously.

My ‘Santa’ landed up being my mum. She got me an earring that I wanted reeeaaalllyyyy badly – but couldn’t buy because I have promised myself I am not buying anything until February of 2018. (I originally said March but I feel that’s just being ridiculous… I will definitely need roll-on and soap…) She wrapped the gift in multiple layers which meant the unwrapping process started with me thinking I was getting something about the size of a shoe box and ended with something smaller than my pinkie finger.

I couldn’t have gotten a better Secret Santa gift!

The fact that this dish was made in my house deserves praise of it’s own – this was a potato cake, topped with a fancy cream cheese, salmon, rocket and crushed pink pepper corn.

This chicken had an orange in it – and it was terrifically juicy!

Beef fillet with home-made anchovy butter on a bed of leaves and caramelised onions.

Just look at this spread!

What is Christmas without roast potatoes?

We decided to make our lives a little easier this year by ordering our Christmas lunch through UCOOK.

How it works:

They deliver the raw ingredients (for the dishes of your choice) in the correct quantities (you specify how many people will need to be served) with recipes and pictures of how to plate it.

You then follow the recipe and use all of the ingredients.

This means: no wastage, delicious and interesting food and no hassles of food shopping!

It was the most relaxed Christmas yet!

Literally a ‘Cheese Cake!’

Dessert was my baby! I was baking from 4pm until 1:30am… that means I was busy in the kitchen for 9 and a half hours!

It definitely didn’t feel that long as I was distracted by the music playing and all the spoons I had to lick… (it’s no wonder I still feel super full – if Christmas food dares to enters my line of vision – it makes me feel extremely nauseous…)

I baked a total of 5 desserts: Chocolate tartlets, Lemon Meringue Pie, Baked Cheesecake, Berry Pavlova and Chocolate Chip Cookies. There was also Christmas pudding, ice cream (2 flavours), custard, a Cheese Cake and a gingerbread house.

Boy oh Boy – there were options for days! Everyone had something to tingle their tastebuds and and left with their top buttons undone.

What I enjoyed most about this years Christmas, was how relaxed everyone was – no fighting and no stress. I don’t know how my sister and I could possibly top this years Christmas Lunch.

Love,
Cass xx

 

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