It was the night before Christmas ….

I decided this year – as we were at home and not camping like we usually spend Christmas – to revive the family tradition of a “special” Christmas Eve dinner and family presents.

The best thing about this year’s dinner was that I wasn’t cooking it. I was leaving that to my friend, Les, and Miss 9.

The menu:
· Prawn and Mango Salad
· Roast Chicken and Roast Vegetables
· Meringue Nests with Cherries and Chantilly Cream

It was a HOT day, well the official temperature was only around 33degC, but it certainly felt hotter. So I did say to the chefs that they could modify the menu if it was too much. But to my delight we were served the whole delicious meal.

Here are the photos:

The Chefs


Prawn and Mango Salad



The lettuce, herbs and cherry tomatoes were from the garden. This is a very tasty salad and the recipe can be found here.

Roast Chicken and Roast Vegetables





The vegetables included Dill Roast Potatoes, as well as roasted zucchini (from a friend’s garden), garlic, onions, carrots, celery (delicious), pumpkin and cherry tomatoes (totally delicious). These were sprinkled with fresh herbs (again from the garden, as were the cherry tomatoes.

Meringue Nests with Cherries and Chantilly Cream





Due to the humidity the last couple of days, the meringue nests were purchased instead of homemade. They were filled with fresh cherries (from a local orchard) and blueberries and served with a slice of lime, Chantilly cream and a delicious cherry sauce. This sauce utilised some “cherries in cognac” that my mother had given us as a Christmas present last year. The jar contained a variety of fruit in cognac and from what I could make out the Chefs had tasted it all to make sure it was still fit for consumption :)

Over the top of the nests, Miss 9 had sprinkled crumbled peppermint chocolate (and placed a piece on the side). It really set it off nicely.

In between the courses we unwrapped the presents and chatted.



The girls playing with Miss 9's DS


It was a nice, stress free way to do Christmas.

I’m hoping that all my friends around the world have similar enjoyable and stress free Christmas celebrations with their friends and families.

Merry Christmas all – and be safe!