Back when I was a kid roast chicken was the highlight of our Christmas lunch. Unlike now we rarely had chicken, as they didn’t come prepared and packaged ready to cook and eat – Mum had to do that. The idea of turkey for Christmas lunch came along a deal later and I think the first one I cooked was probably in the late 70s and like this one had a forcemeat stuffing.
If your family groans at the idea of heavy plum pudding after a large Christmas lunch, this might work for you. It’s easy to prepare, you can use any fruit that you like, you can make it alcoholic or non-alcoholic and prepare it in advance. Served with ice cream, custard or cream it’s a great alternative.
How Christmas puddings have changed over the years. Mum always made her pudding, in a ceramic bowl at least two months before Christmas, soaking the fruit and using suet. Yesterday I made mine, barely three weeks before and to make it gluten free used gluten free breadcrumbs. But there’s also nothing nicer, on a hot Australian Christmas Day than a ice cream pudding. The added bonus is that it’s gluten free and if as suggested in this recipe you use chocolate ice cream it even looks like the old traditional version.
You might have to go to a specialty pasta store to get these large shells, I don’t think they’re readily available at my local supermarket, but it would probably be worth the trouble. Smaller noodles would work, but the large ones look terrific and set the dish above the average pasta bake.
Plain omelettes, cheese omelettes, ham omelettes, Spanish omelettes, the list goes on, but this is the first time I’ve seen a recipe for a pea omelette and a pea souffle omelette at that. Very fancy and perhaps good enough to serve up as a lunch dish or even an entree.
I’ve never been very good at making toffee, but thankfully this peanut brittle looks a little easier, especially if you have a candy thermometer. I can remember dropping lots of trial drops of toffee onto a saucer of cold water, just hoping that it was finally done. A thermometer would be sooooo much easier.
I had coconut prawns at a restaurant recently and it reminded me just how good they are. That sent me looking to see if I had a recipe in my collection and unsurprisingly I found this 1990s version, which even comes with a tangy mango sauce. So now I have no excuse not to make them myself.
There’s nothing very complicated about this salad, but the combination of sundried tomatoes, spinach, pasta and pine nuts works really well. It looks good and tastes even better.
These are great, either served as a biscuit with coffee or as an addition to a dessert like chocolate mousse.
I love scallops, but cooking them can be a bit tricky. If you’re pan frying them you need to cook them just before eating and you need to make sure they’re not overcooked. Not everyone will like this recipe as between the marinade and the bacon the scallop flavour is altered, but it does make cooking them easier and appealing to serve with drinks.
Beb's Recipe Drawer 