Brought
to you by Coles
Every second year, we play host to our
family on Christmas Eve. It’s a big shindig, with pressies, and champagne and way
too much food ... you know the whole hog so to speak!
I put so much planning into this one event.
I
know I know, it’s just one night of
the year and who really needs the added stress at an already stressful time of
the year yada yada.
But I like
to do it.
In fact I am one of those completely insane
people who actually loves doing it
all.
To me, Christmas Eve is a celebration of the fact that we made it through the year, together and in one piece.
It’s a night where we talk about our
favourite memories of the year; declare our highlights and our wishes for the New
Year coming. It’s a night where we laugh and drink and eat and soak up every last
bit of that special Christmas magic that comes to a peak on Christmas Eve.
And so I plan everything, and I mean everything.
From the table setting to the menu, the little
individual table gifts and even the music.
Hell yeah, I have a playlist of festive
tunes with a special guest appearance by Michael Buble.
OK he doesn’t actually grace us with his presence, but you know, he is there in
spirit for sure!
Planning it all ahead of time means no
stress on the day and more time to actually enjoy the occasion and be a part of
the memories… not just the one in the kitchen preparing them.
OK, so we have established that I want this
night to be perfect.
What can I say?
I am a complete sucker for traditions and
anything Christmassy and I’m beyond thrilled that Christmas Eve dinner is ranked
at the top of my kid’s list of all time favourite things about Christmas.
Booyah
Take that Santa!
As we all know, I’m by no means the world’s
greatest chef. Not even close.
In fact not even sure that I am technically
qualified to use the chef word at all.
Whatever.
But despite this fact, I’ve been giving it
a good old go lately when it comes to trying new recipes and I am totally game
to try anything… except on Christmas Eve.
Yeah Christmas Eve isn’t really when I want
to be attempting to cook something I’ve never tried before because, well… let’s
face it - if I stuff it up, I’ll
probably fall to pieces.
YES I am THAT obsessed with pulling off the
ultimate Christmas do for my family.
And so every year when it is our turn to
host Christmas, I try out the planned menu and recipes on a group of friends
first.
I serve up all the very same things that I
plan on serving up on Christmas Eve. Call it a trial run if you will…. I call
it a damn good excuse to invite some friends around and let our hair down.
Rule number 1 in this game is that the food
needs to be easy.
Not too much effort and not too much
cooking, because hello… it’s December and it’s typically hot and humid. The
last thing I want to be doing on Christmas Eve is playing the role of Sweaty
Betty in the kitchen.
Nope, I aint got time for that!
This year given my collaboration with
Coles, I decided to try out some recipes from their December Christmas magazine.
All the recipes can also be found on the All the recipes can also be found on
the Coles & Taste
websites.
They have recipes for everything including
traditional hot Christmas dinners and the seafood and salad feasts that my family
prefers.
Christmas is all about sharing great food
right? So it makes perfect sense to savour the season with festive Christmas
recipes, indulgent desserts and light summer meals, and I’m telling you – the
Christmas Issue of Coles Magazine has it ALL.
There’s even a fabulous menu planner in
this Christmas issue for us control freaks, so we can cherry pick from all the
recipes inside the magazine to pull together the perfect Christmas spread based
on ingredients that we know our
family will love.
Taste also has aChristmas Menu planner on their website that you can use to plan your
ultimate Christmas feast and there are over 80 menu plans to choose from.
We are seafood hogs in our house, so of
course I chose seafood as our main theme and since all those luscious berries
are in season, they featured heavily too.
Here’s what our Christmas menu this year
looks like.
The raspberry cocktails were an absolute
hit on the test run night.
Honest to God you guys HAVE to get the
Coles Magazine for the Raspberry Cordial recipe alone.
In the magazine it is referred to as the
Raspberry & Lemonade Cordial… but at our house, it was called a Berry
Christmas Raspberry, mineral water and Vodka cocktail.
I served these babies up over ice in cute
little mason jars and the kids had their own Orange and Lime mocktail mix.
The Smoked Salmon and Dill Pikelets took
next to no time to put together and made for the perfect starter to have with
the cocktails.
They are little bite size pieces that are easy to eat with one
hand, leaving the other to hold your glass of bubbly or wave manically through
the air in an animated conversation.

Dessert was the Piece de Résistance.
OK so my White Chocolate Crackle trees I
made for the kids didn’t exactly look like the ones in the Coles Magazine… it
turns out that trying to stick on mini M&Ms with chocolate was far too
fussy for me.
But the Lemon cream, Berry and Macadamia
Tart was literally THE EASIEST dessert I have EVER made and it was scoffed down
in record time by the troops.
What are your plans for Christmas
this year?
Are you hosting it or are you heading
somewhere else?
Do you do anything special on
Christmas Eve?
Don't forget to enter to win a $1000 Cole Voucher
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