Christmas day snapshots

Things have been crazy busy - in a good way. So here's a few snapshots of our Christmas day. Unfortunately I was a little too distracted to remember to take many photos (well, that's not so true; I took lots of family photos, just not many bloggy photos).


I made these hors d'oeuvres call Ma Hor, which means 'galloping horses' in Thai. The recipe is from David Thompson's recipe book, "thai food" and is actually very easy, as long as you have access to an Asian supermarket (we are lucky enough to be close to many). It is basically a minced pork, chicken and prawn paste served on pineapple and mandarin (although I only did pineapple as mandarins are not in season here at the moment). The aim of these is to stimulate and tease the palate, in readiness for the meal to follow (can you tell I took that straight from the book? he he). If anyone would like the recipe just let me know and I will post it.


My brother-in-law (the fantastic chef I have previously talked about) did, among many things, an organic turkey baked in a salt crust. It was fantastic!


It took a while to crack into though...


And there it is - I know it looks a little strange sitting there in the bottom of its crust, but boy was it yum (sorry to any vegetarians out there - hope I haven't grossed anyone out!)


By the time I took this picture of my plate I'd had a few glasses of wine.....hence the lack of presentation....but here we have turkey, ham, wagyu beef (courtesy of Kym, again), bbq'd prawns, roast veggies, and three types of salad!!! This was followed by a Christmas pudding made by mum, and an eggnog creme brulee tart, made by my sister.


After lying about for a bit, trying to digest such a huge meal, we then went out for some exercise and had some fun kite flying.


This kite looked very impressive...


...but really didn't fly so well.

All in all a wonderful Christmas, and I feel a little overwhelmed at just how much fun, food and good cheer was had. We had sixteen people (all extended family) here for the whole day, and it was just so enjoyable.

Looking forward now to the new year. Here's to good health, good food, good company, and of course, gratefulness.