Christmas Food

[Sundae]

We now have a Boxing Day tradition of having salmon en croute and a prawn ring. Because my SIL really loves it and they usually come over on Boxing Day. Boxing Day always did have a bit of a fishy theme (I was cajoled into making salmon & cheese flan every year from 15 until I left) but it's a definite tradition now.

Not that I'm complaining, I love it too.
Although it's Boxing Day lunch I like best - jacket potatoes, sliced turkey, baked beans and pickles. There's something so simple and yet so wholesome about it.

I forgot to mention sweets on my Christmas food list. Again, it was the only tim we were allowed to eat them almost totally at will. Even at Easter we were monitored - especially after the year my brother went to bed with a headache and sicked chocolate up all over his duvet.

We always had pick n mix in a big Roses tin. Which was of course cheaper than buying Roses, but Dad always sneaked some in anyway. They came from Woolworth's, which had a great selection in those days, catering mostly for old ladies. They still do apparently, but the real money is in the kid's section, where you're charged an arm and a leg for things your parents bought as penny sweets. Still, I suppose they've gone up in line with house prices in the last 20 years!

We never made our own sweets (too messy, too expensive according to Mum) but we did make shortbread and mince pies.

BTW I don't know if sausage rolls are proper Christmas food outside our house. It's just that they're quick, easy and self contained. I'll take a photo of them this Christmas to prove it

[DanaC]

Sundae, did you get the chocolate bar selections ?

6 or so assorted chocolate bars (and an inexplicable packet of rowntrees fruit pastilles) laid out in a plastic tray in the shape of a stocking and sold at an exhorbitant price! yey. For me, they epitomise Christmas sweetie excess...ahhh glorious. You've hit the nail on the head Sundae: all that food, not just there, (by there, I mean everywhere) but there to be eaten at will. Wow.

[Pie]

SG, I had to google "prawn ring" -- I was imagining some sort of shrimp-fritter-doughnut thing!

[wolf]

Originally Posted by Pie

SG, I had to google "prawn ring" -- I was imagining some sort of shrimp-fritter-doughnut thing!

I assumed it was the same as our shrimp ring ... couple dozen shrimps arranged on a black plastic ring with a tub of cocktail sauce in the middle that you buy during the holidays and hope that it thaws by the time that you get it to your friend's party, a friend, incidentally, that you like very much, but one for whom you weren't willing or able to cook something better yourself.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by wolf

I assumed it was the same as our shrimp ring ... couple dozen shrimps arranged on a black plastic ring with a tub of cocktail sauce in the middle

Quite right. I've heard before that what we call prawns, you call shrimp.

UG, I cooked shortcrust pasrty for years - NEVER liked it, although other people didn't complain (I admit this may just have been courtesy). I'm not a huge fan of other people's either, I admit. It had to be present in very small quantities - compared to filling - for me to enjoy.

Flavoured pastries are the exception though (tomato, cheese, olive etc) so maybe I'd go for cider pastry. I assume it would have to be scrumpy though, to be flat?

Pastry with sugar sounds like crumble. Now that I could handle - haven't had a crumble for years! Damn, wish I'd thought about this when the blackberries were out. Apparently you can buy them frozen now, but it's not the same - part of the pleasure was that we were eating nature's bounty. Blackberries from The Field (now built on) and apples from Mrs Fox (now dead). Time is fleeting.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

maybe I'd go for cider pastry. I assume it would have to be scrumpy though, to be flat?

Cider here is neither fizzy nor alcoholic



click pic for more info

[glatt]

Originally Posted by monster

Cider here is neither fizzy nor alcoholic

Depends.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Brianna

The more I hear of other people and their families, the more I know my family is whack.

last year for Christmas we had tacos! My 17 year old son said, "when you guys said you were having tacos for Christmas I thought you were kidding!"

That's my family. They're desperate to reject anything that smacks of mainstream tradition. We often have Mexican food, and on several years we've had a soup potluck, where everyone brings a different kind of soup. When I hosted last year, I made a damn ham.

[Trilby]

We're just mavericky, Clod. Mavericky.

[Sundae]

Dana - yes!
We got a selection pack from someone every year.
And bearing in mind that a bar of chocolate was a treat after Mass every Sunday, to have six to be consumed at will was riches beyond compare!

Every now and then I'll buy my sister one for Christmas. I tell her Christmas isn't Christmas if you don't get a selection pack! But really I'm saying, remember what it was like when we shared our lives and you still liked me?

I think my subtext is too subtle.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Brianna

We're just mavericky, Clod. Mavericky.

Hell, I'm such a conformer, I chose not to rock the boat with my mainstream defiance, and still put some tamales and other random things out alongside my traditional fare just to be safe.

[Aliantha]

I had home made sushi as an horsdeavre two years ago. It was pretty funny watching my step mother get wasabi up her nose...even after she was told to go easy on it. The second time she did it was even funnier.

[Radar]

I got a fruitcake once. It was so heavy, I think it could kill a man if dropped on his head. I did not taste it. I made that mistake once.

[Sundae]

I'm A Celebrity... is sponsored by Iceland (cheap frozen food store, not the country) so after watching no tv for months I'm now watching two hours every night with 16 Iceland ads served up in between. I have found myself craving all their Christmassy buffet food, to the extent that if I had received my payment from EEA today I know I would have ended up going shopping, despite having the staples in the house.

The staples just don't include jalapeno poppers, mini Cornish Pasties, chicken goujons, mini cheesecakes etc etc etc though. Nom nom nom.

I will go and have beans on toast and feel virtuous, even though it's not by choice.

[limey]

Not just sausage rolls, but SMALL sausage rolls so that you could have lots of them!