Christmas Food

I love this time of year because there is so much food that I associate with it.  A lot of that food is the kind that I don't eat all year round, things like mince pies I only eat around Christmas or the run up to it.  I don't save everything for Christmas itself because if I did it would be far too much to eat at once.  This time of year is filled with sweets, treats, and tradition.  So here's a list of some of the things I love to eat at this time of the year.

Ever since I was a child I had a love of cooking.  That has ranged from baking bread and pastries and tarts, through to roast dinners, savoury dishes, stir fry, and all sorts of things.  Christmas is a time of year however where a few dishes have become a tradition for us and we prepare them each year.  I will make Rum Truffles as a treat, usually the week before Christmas day.  I first made these about 10 years ago now whilst I was at University they were one of the things I made when I came home to visit my family.  These are sweet and have a bit of a kick to them and they leave you feeling warm and happy.

Desserts have a particular focus for us as a family, we usually buy or make a Bailey's Cheesecake which can be ate cold.  This is something that is really more savoury than sweet.  Other desserts include poached pears in a chocolate brandy sauce which I first had about 15 years ago now.  The last major dessert of course is Christmas pudding, we get a chocolate variant that is a mix of a traditional Christmas pudding with chocolate added to the mix, with a melting middle chocolate centre the oozes out all gooey when you cut into it.

Most recipes we make this time of year come from a cookbook that I got when I was about 6 or 7 years old that was passed down to me, The Good Housekeeping Step-by-step Cook Book from 1980, the thing I love about that cook book is that it's from a by-gone era so most of the recipes are traditional.  There probably isn't much in it which would still be considered healthy today if I am honest but of the many things we have made from it almost all were things we loved.

Aside from the things we make, we do buy a lot.  As I said before mince pies are something I really only eat at this time of the year, so too are things like all-butter shortbread, apple and cranberry sauces, and for me Brussels Sprouts will always be a Christmas food even though you can buy them all year round, almost all of these foods you can, I just associate them with this time of year.  Brussels Sprouts we prepare as roasted with buttered breadcrumbs, things as simple as carrots we turn into spiced carrots with a sprinkle of cinnamon, raisins, and sliced onions mixed in when boiling.  Parsnips too get roasted instead of boiling, cut into quarters and drizzled with honey and a sprinkling of Rosemary.

Christmas dinner itself is always roast turkey and a roast ham, the latter is boiled first, then cut into two halves each roasted, one with a home-made orange and brown sugar marmalade glaze and the other coated in a honey and mustard glaze.  To drink, as a kid this would always be the one time of the year we actually bought Shloer which is a non-alcoholic fizzy fruit press grape drink.  Alcohol never really featured at Christmas for us apart from the Rum or Brandy used for some recipes when cooking.

As a kid I had my fill of chocolate at this time of year too, with tins of Roses, Quality Street, and Celebrations, which are all assortments of chocolate sweets.  My favourite was always the Strawberry creme, Orange creme, or the Green Triangle which is a Hazelnut creme if I am not mistaken.  Although not a treat as such I also usually get a bag of mixed nuts my favourites being the Walnuts which I like opening with a nutcracker.  We never really had Chestnuts, I know that's a traditional food for this time of year but I can never remember having them, I'm not even sure how you prepare those, I assume they need to be cooked since the cliché is to have Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.  I've also developed a penchant for pistachio nuts but I have to restrain myself with those because I'll sit and eat the whole bag in one sitting if I let myself.  There's something therapeutic about splitting nuts, it's relaxing.