Mistletoe and Wine?

Well Christmas is almost upon us, the presents are bought and wrapped and all was well until I realised this morning I had completely forgotten about what sides, desserts and starters I was going to do for xmas and boxing day dinners (am doing both!) Cue a little panic and a trip to local greengrocers and butchers and all is well again!

For Christmas lunch I have bought from tescos a Turkey breast joint wrapped in parma ham and stuffed with lemon and thyme sausagemeat which looks delish, doing roast potatoes, honeyed parsnips and carrot and swede mash (seperate in the end as dear brother protested against the poor swede!), yorkies and bacon & cheese rolls ... have not decided on starter or dessert though!! I think my mum said she had a spare xmas pudding so will be snagging that (turns out was from 2002 but risked it anyway and are fine!!) (have since bought some vodka and cranberry cream to go with it! - never used) but really stuck on starter... I would love to go down the fishy route but one of our guests does not like seafood :( am doing soup boxing day so would rather not do that... help!! ...okay have a plan now, am intending to do slices of herby ciabatta, topped with roasted plum tomatoes and some special rosemary infused proscuitio I picked up this afternoon... *can recomend the starter, went down very well and would do again!*

Moving on to Boxing day lunch, current plan is my Cauliflower, bacon and parmesan soup http://anneskitchen1.blogspot.com/2007/05/cauliflower-parmesan-and-bacon-soup.html to start then for the main event have bought a small leg of lamb which is going to be marinaded as per my Fragrant roast lamb recipe http://anneskitchen1.blogspot.com/2007/05/fragrant-roast-lamb.html, also doing more roast potatoes, carrots, sprouts, parsnips and 'pigs in blankets' (for some reason I dont like them but they have been specifically requested!!) Dessert will be my choc orange panna cotta http://anneskitchen1.blogspot.com/2007/08/chocolate-orange-panna-cotta.html as they are so easy to make but delicious!

Wishing all the foodies out there a very Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and all the best for 2008!


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Christmas and Boxing days all went to plan, the xmas starter was really good, mainly becuase of the lovely herby ciabatta from Lidls!

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