As Christmas approaches, I have been remembering this time fondly. You might like to try something similar yourself.
I posted this to a different blog in 2018, and have edited it slightly today. Sadly, some of the photos lost quality in the transfer.
I challenged myself to cook as many new recipes as I could during the Christmas-New Year holiday period 2018, without going shopping…or at least, with minimal shopping!
To be honest, this wasn’t a huge challenge because I’d stocked my fridge, freezer and pantry ahead of time, so I started with 3 dozen eggs, 1.5kg of butter, about 6kg of flour, all the sugars and spices etc. I even had extra fresh vegetables, fruit and herbs, and two hams. We did run out of milk & salad greens.
Part of the reason for this challenge is that I collect recipes all year, but am often too rushed/busy with other priorities to get around to making something new and unfamiliar. I love to eat good food, and I love preparing it, so this was a labour of love.
Another part of the reason for this challenge is that I hate waste, and using up every possible thing is good! I like to save money, and in the current world situation it’s good to be responsible with resources.
The recipes were ones I’d ripped from free magazines (at home), plus some from cookbooks and ones I looked up online. Some were because I was interested in making it/ it seemed yummy, and some were to use up leftovers.
Also, we’ll be moving house soon, so using up some of my stockpiles and getting rid of recipes not worth keeping is part of my preparation.
We’ve been eating like kings! (Or, like I imagine rich people may eat.)
I also made some regular favourites like potato salad, cheesy garlic bread, and similarly unremarkable things. Other things I made up “on the fly” and didn’t bother recording. Like this morning’s croissant with smoked salmon cream-cheese spread. (I did mention that I’d stocked up!)
It only occurred to me today to blog about it, so not everything is included, and I don’t have photos of everything. It goes without saying that we ate leftovers too!
Here are some of the things I came up with:
I made shortbread, cut it out with a flower cutter and stamped the centres with a “Merry Christmas” stamp, making them look like daisies. If I do it again, I might use a more robust biscuit mixture (like “kiss biscuits”), as shortbread is a bit fragile for so much rolling and cutting. Sadly, I have no photos for you.
Baked Glazed Ham
On Christmas Day I’d baked a glazed ham for lunch. Yum!
My ham glaze is homemade orange marmalade, brown sugar, curry powder, ground ginger & lime juice, plus a few cloves inserted into the scored ham. (Last time, I used too many cloves, going for “well-presented”, this year I got the flavour right!) There are lots of other recipes on the internet, including instructions on how to prepare the ham to glaze. Here’s one.
There was some ham glaze (and melted fat) left in the bottom of the pan. I added some water to this, and added chopped pumpkin and sweet potato. I baked these at about 160C for an hour or so that afternoon, and we had them for dinner. I’m wishing I’d thrown in some ordinary potatoes too, but probably these were a better pairing with the sweetness & cloves anyway.
I put the rest of the peeled, chopped sweet potato and pumpkin into a plastic container of water with a lid, and refrigerated it for later.
Sweet Potato Fries
Remember that sweet potato sitting in water in the fridge? A few days later I turned it into sweet potato fries, admittedly smaller than the recipe, so I watched the cooking time. I dried the sweet potato between paper towel before tossing in olive oil. I made the spice mix in a spare shaker I have, and made a double mix, so I have some for later/next time.
Salads
My potato salad dressing is pretty standard: half mayonnaise, half Greek yoghurt, plus a dash of lemon juice, a sprinkle of ground black pepper and a handful of chopped mint. Toss this through some chopped cooked new potatoes and you’re part-way to a meal.
My green salads are similarly basic: I often buy the premixed bags of leaves from the supermarket. With the potato salad, I often don’t dress the green salad, but if I’m serving it alone (maybe with some sliced cucumber and tomato, maybe olives) I might add an “Italian Dressing”/ Vinaigrette of: half a cup each of olive oil & vinegar, dash of salt and pepper, oregano, basil & a spoon of crushed/minced garlic, all shaken together in a jar. (With the lid on, it keeps well in the fridge. You might need to heat it if the oil solidifies in the cold.)
These salads go well with any meat you want to BBQ, or any leftover ham, turkey, chicken etc.
If you like, add some pinenuts or slivered almonds, snow peas etc. if you want more crunch.
Smoked Salmon Wraps
I buy the “pieces for cooking” which are cheaper, and no-one in my household is going to look at how prettily it’s sliced. Spread a wrap/tortilla/flatbread with cream cheese (or mayonnaise or Greek yoghurt), add a few salmon pieces and salad greens/ whatever vegetables you prefer, and roll it up. Depending on who you’re serving it to, you might cut each one in half. Lunch is served!
On to the more interesting recipes!
Black Forest Cake
I’d cooked a Black Forest Cake earlier, using the Australian Women’s Weekly recipe, but since it’s such a HUGE cake, had frozen half of it unfilled. I sliced it into 3 layers with a bread knife while still frozen, and filled it with homemade cherry syrup (juice from a jar of cherries plus sugar, boiled to a syrup) instead of Kirsch, whipped cream and cherries from a jar.
Garlic, Rosemary and Parmesan Biscuits
(NB In Australia a biscuit is a “cookie” not a scone)
These are what’s left so far:
I just squashed the balls of mixture with my hand, and made them all fit on a large baking tray, but they could have been rolled flatter, maybe even rolled out and cut with a cutter, and baked in batches for a thinner, crisper biscuit.
These biscuits have a creamy texture, like a savoury shortbread, so you’ll need a drink of water, or whatever you prefer, to go with them. Although they contain Parmesan cheese already, they’re nice with a slice of cheese on top. They’re great with an antipasto platter.
I made 2 ready-rolled pastry sheets of this Vegetable Galette for dinner, and all that’s left is one slice!
I forgot the onion – oops! I also left off the stock powder, used pureed tinned tomatoes for the passata, added fresh chilli & rosemary, & dried basil. I’m unclear if that makes it an adaptation or a whole new recipe, but it was delicious!
One of my children refuses to eat sweet potato, but I guess they couldn’t tell that’s what was on it!
Choc-Cherry Blondie
This looks fabulous, but was kind of meh, unfortunately. My kids loved it, but it just seemed a bit non-descript to me, considering the huge quantity of chocolate it contains. It was, however, a great way to use fresh cherries, besides just eating them!
I can’t find where I got the recipe from, very likely a supermarket magazine or free local magazine, so I can’t link it, but here’s the pasted copy. There are similar recipes online.
Something I wanted to make to use up leftover ham was “Ham and Cheese Tatties” (rissoles of potato, ham and cheese, maybe like rosti?), but I lost the recipe! I eventually found Jamie Oliver’s version of Tatties.
I adapted it to include the ham I wanted to use up, and cheese, just because it goes with ham 🙂
My version of Ham and Cheese Tatties:
3 potatoes (approx 250g)
approx 25g butter plus more for frying
50g plain flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1-2 tablespoons milk
3/4 cup finely diced ham
3/4 cup grated cheese
pinch of salt & shake of pepper
I boiled the potatoes and mashed them with butter, then added a tablespoon or so of milk, a dash of pepper and a pinch of salt, mixed it all together with the flour and baking powder to form a dough, and mixed through the ham and cheese. I divided the dough into two balls, flattened each one on a cutting board and sliced it like pizza. I shallow-fried these pieces in butter, et voila!
The mixture made 12 wedges of what is similar to hash browns or bubble & squeak.
Delicious! I served them with salad (after a quick trip to the shops, but I’m counting that as allowed), including tomato to offset the butter.
Fresh Berries and Icecream
Dessert was simple shop-bought vanilla icecream with fresh berries, cherries and mint.
(Yes, I probably SHOULD pay more attention to presentation/styling, but I’m on holidays!)
Cheap Vanilla Custard
A while ago, I bought an instant pudding mix out of curiosity. As it happened, I had about 2L of milk about to expire, and was thinking of ways to use it up. I spotted this in the cupboard. In the sweltering heat we’ve been having (Summer, with 30C+ days and evenings) , this was great: no cooking = not increasing the temperature in the house!
It’s obviously not as nice as a homemade baked custard or panne cotta etc, but it’s set vanilla custard for about $1, and it used up 750mL of milk.
In what some may call a “God moment”, serendipitous, or just a nice coincidence, on my quick trip to the supermarket I spotted cannoli shells on special. Two birds, one stone! Vanilla custard-filled Cannoli. A nice improvement on the plain pudding.
Mango Cheesecake
It took a while for me to decide which Mango Cheesecake recipe to use, but I eventually went with this one.
If I make it again, I might make an edge of cheesecake all the way up to keep the mango contained, as it’s a bit oozy with the top layer of cheesecake pressing the mango out the sides.
It’s delicious though!
(Update: the second day it actually tastes even better. On the first day it tasted like fresh mango served with creamy cheesecake. On the second day the flavours have blended for a more subtle mango flavour and a richer cheesecake flavour. Perfect!)
It’s also relatively low in sugar, with only half a cup of white sugar in it, no sweetened, condensed milk or chocolate, which other recipes have.
Mango and Ginger Ale Icy Poles
I found some recipes for icy-poles/ popsicles, and adapted one, making these from just mango pulp & dry ginger ale. The result tastes like slightly less intense mango.
On a side note: I think it’s been about 10 years since I used this icy-pole mould. I nearly threw it out several times. I’m glad I didn’t!
There’s a couple of days left of my cooking adventure. I’m planning to make a pumpkin pie (leftover pumpkin). I’m still deciding on which recipe to use though, as there are so many variations!
I’ll update the post when I’ve made it. (Sadly, it looks like I forgot to do this.)
Feel free to comment recipes for other things you think I should cook. Perhaps I’ll make a future post of recipes that were recommended?
Thanks for sharing my adventure! I’d love to see what you’ve made during these or other holidays, too 🙂
musingsofamiddleagedmother 