Christmas in down under

I'm in denial. I'm in denial that Christmas is over. I don't want to take down the Christmas tree and put away the decorations for another 12 months.

I think this Christmas has been one of the best. Last year, I was in Turkey. The year before, I was in Malaysia. This year, I'm back in Melbourne.

I stuffed myself like a turkey during my party, Christmas eve and on Christmas day. It was so much fun to listen to Christmas songs, decorate the Christmas tree, wrap presents, and everything!

Christmas eve was at Aunty Soo Suang's. We had all these small appetisers, chicken cacciatore, prawns, smoked salmon, and we also had a lot of dessert! I made Japanese cheesecake which tasted quite yummy! The only thing was, it was a bit crumbly. I have a suspicion that it is to do with  my frozen cream cheese. My mum always freezes cream cheese, because we never use all of them in time. And sometimes, I've found that, even though I let the frozen cream cheese defrost, there is a bit of a crumbly texture.

Aunty Soo Suang also made some mango pudding, double chocolate cookies and fruit cake.

On  Christmas day, my second sister was pretty much the head of cooking!


Our menu consisted of:

Turkey breast (not the whole turkey) with cranberry and I think it was chestnut stuffing?

So I forgot to take a picture before they already started cutting!

Succulent turkey! Perfect with cranberry sauce.

My famous mash potato! 

  

Roasted vegetables

I've never been a fan of zucchini or eggplant, but after I saw this cheat ratatouille recipe, I decided to try it. Roasted vegetables are just so yummy! The combination of the vegetables works SO well!

 Prawns, made by my second sister!

  4.5 kg of HAM

This was only PART of the ham we had.

 My second sister's boyfriend bought that. And it was more tasty than your average ham from the supermarket. SO, so, so tasty. It's near the bone, and the flavour gets even better when you carve the ham around the bone. 

Green tea macarons with white chocolate ganache filling. I also made some green tea ice cream with my ice cream mixer, using David Lebovitz's recipe , and oh-my-goodness! I had a GREAT turn out. Extra creamy with a punch of green tea flavour. Unfortunately, it was all devoured too quickly, I wasn't able to get a picture of it!

 And we finished off with a cake (sponsored by my first sister hehehehe) from Laurent. We ordered the Le canotier, which did not disappoint anyone! It reminded us of Ferroro rocher. It had chocolate mousse, flourless almond sponge, another sponge and feuilletine. Everyone loved the feuilletine especially, since it gave a really nice crunch to the cake.

I had a really good Christmas. It was such a great way to end the year. I am so thankful to have such a wonderful and supportive family, as well as caring friends. I'm also so thankful for how my blog has come around this year. My friends have told me how tantalising my blog looks (food) and my parents have forwarded me emails from their friends, commending me on my blog! I hope that this blog will eventually grow into something big. Hope you all had a really great Christmas. I hope the next one will be just as good. Hey, I'm hoping I'll have a white Christmas? Maybe I'll be in the northern hemisphere, who knows?