This Christmas, we are pairing back with simple beauty, taste, and style. We picked flowers from the garden, painted our vases, and used gingerbread for the plate decoration. And while our Grande Mat is usually the picnic mat, here we have used it as our table cloth - bringing a depth to our setting, softened by four Sage Piccolo Mats as placemats. The food was delicious, but even better, the clean-up was easy.
Roast Pork with Caramelised Onions
Ingredients:
1 x Boneless Pork Leg (approximately 2kgs)
4 x Onions, thickly sliced
Sea Salt
Olive Oil
Method:
- Place the pork in a baking tray and generously drizzle with olive oil.
- Sprinkle the sea salt on top of the olive oil and massage it into the rind of the pork.
- Place in the fridge for a minimum of one hour (longer is fine) - preheat the oven to 220C while the pork rests in the refrigerator.
- Cook the pork on high heat (220C) for 30-40 mins until the rind starts to crackle.
- After 30-40 mins, reduce the oven temperature to 180C and add the onions to the pan juice.
- Allow the pork to continue to cook for 30-40 mins per kilo - approximately another 90 mins.
- Once the pork is cooked through, remove it from the oven and allow it to rest.
- Stir the onions through the pan juice to finish caramelizing. Slice your pork evenly and pour the onion on top to serve.
Herbed Potato Bake
Ingredients:
10 Washed potatoes
300ml Thickened cream
1 Cup of grated cheese
1 Tsp garlic powder
1 Tsp salt
Bunch of thyme
Bunch of parsley
Method:
- Preheat your oven to 210C.
- Slice the potatoes and place in boiling water on the stove for 15-20 mins (until just cooked).
- While the potatoes are cooking combine your cream mixture.
- Pour 300ml of cream into a large bowl, add 1/4grated cheese, garlic powder, salt and 3/4 of each herb and mix together.
- Drain your cooked potatoes and add to the bowl, gently stirring through the cream mixture.
- Gently transfer your potatoes to a baking dish and sprinkle the remaining cheese and herbs over the top.
- Cook on a high heat until golden and crispy for 20-30 mins. Allow to rest before serving.
- Serve and enjoy!
Roast Pumpkin with Yoghurt Dressing
Ingredients:
1/4 Kent Pumpkin
1 Tsp of cummin
1/2 Cup of Greek yoghurt
1/4 Cup of pine-nuts
Bunch of parsley
Squeeze of citrus
Salt
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 200C and drizzle a baking tray with olive oil.
- Cut the pumpkin into 8 pieces and place on the oiled tray, turning them around in the oil.
- Sprinkle generously with cumin and salt.
- Bake for 40 mins or until pumpkin has softened and started to caramelise.
- While your pumpkin is cooking, slowly toast the pine nuts in a touch of olive oil on a fry pan.
- Place on a plate the serve and spoon the yoghurt on top, sprinkle pine nuts and parsley generously over the top and a touch of salt.
- Squeeze your choice of citrus, we used grapefruit, over the top and serve.
Apple, Dill and Goats Cheese Salad
Ingredients:
1/4 Grapefruit
1 Apple, thinly sliced
110g Jar of capers
1/2 Red onion, sliced
Small bunch of dill
1/4 Cup of goats cheese
1 Cos Lettuce
Olive oil
Method:
- Prepare all your ingredients seperately, rinse your lettuce and break apart and slice your apples and onions.
- Layer your salad starting with the lettuce and followed by each ingredient, adding your goats cheese last.
- When all your ingredients have been placed in the bowl, drizzle with olive oil and grapefruit juice.
Classic Mini Pavlova with Passionfruit Cream
Ingredients:
4 Egg whites at room temperature
Pinch of salt
1 Cup of caster sugar
1 Tbspn of vanilla essence
1 Tbspn of cornflour
300ml of thickened cream
5 Passionfruits
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 120C
- Place your eggs whites and pinch of salt into a mix master and whisk on high until medium soft peaks start to form.
- Once soft peaks have started to form slowly add a tablespoon of sugar at a time - over the period of 10 mins approximately.
- Add the cornflour and continue to whisk, making sure it's stirred through well.
- And finally add your vanilla essence, maturing through just to combine.
- Line a large baking tray with baking paper and evenly create 8 mini pavlovas.
- Place the lava into the oven and immediately drop the heat to 110C, and bake for 40 minutes.
- While the pavs cook you can whip your cream until lovely soft peaks appear, stir through 3 Passionfruit fillings and set aside in the fridge.
- Once they are cooked turn the oven off and allow the pavs to cook for at least 1 hour with the oven door slightly ajar.
- Remove the pavs from the oven and allow to sit, when ready transfer to a wire tray so they can cool completely.
- Place the remaining Passionfruit filling in a small bowl.
- When the pavlovas are completely cool spoon the cream on top and follow with a drizzle of fresh passionafruit.
- Serve and enjoy.
Classic Gingerbread by Women's Weekly (slightly varied by us!)
Ingredients:
2 Cups of plain flour
1 Cup of castor sigar
1/2 Tsp of bicarbonate soda
2 Tsp of cinnamon
Pinch of salt
4 Tsp of ground ginger
125g butter, softened
1 small egg
1 Tsp of maple syrup
1 Tbsp of vanilla essence
Method:
-
Sift all dry ingredients together and add softened butter.
-
With your hand mix the butter through the spice flour mixture.
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Beat egg and maple syrup together and add to the biscuit crumb.
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With your hands work into a firm dough and place in the fridge for 30 mins to allow the cookie dough to set.
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Preheat the oven to 180C.
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Remove your dough from the fridge and rollout to approximately 7mm thick - using your cookie cutters Crete the shapes you are after and place on a lined baking tray.
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Place in the preheated oven for 10-15 mins or until just golden. Allow to cool before transferring to a wire rack.
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And enjoy! P.S. It’s never hurts to make a double batch of this recipe!
Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas,
Phoebe xx