A few recipe ideas for christmas

I’ve just got back from two weeks of work travel to Kenya and it’s kind of thrown me off my Christmas planning course. I feel quite disconnected from it all and haven’t even been into any shops let alone heard one Christmas carol. I also need to get on top of my festive baking for the holidays, so this week is going to be pretty busy. I’ve been in this blogging business for nine years now so have a few really nice recipes in my archives and I wanted to round up a few of my favourites in case you are like me and are still in the planning stage of it all.

For starters, to a big feast, it’s best to keep things quite light or fishy. Here are a few ideas:

Tuna tartare with togarashi dressing

Smoked salmon potato cakes with herbed cream and pink peppercorns

Raw Norwegian salmon salad with goats cheese

Calamari & tomato salad with olives & lemon

Salmon tartare

Tuna gravadlax with dill on butternut rosti

For nibbly things around drinks, my best-ever chicken liver pate recipe is excellent. I like to serve it with something sweet, like orange marmalade & melba toast.

Bacon-wrapped sausages with rosemary & honey

Serve these as a festive snack with drinks or alongside your roast turkey.

Last year I made the amazing Franck Dangereaux Christmas feast from Ucook and if you are looking for an excellent duck à l’Orange recipe, this is a good one for you to try. Franck is French so it’s classic and easier to make than you might think. There is even an instruction video if you follow through with all the links.

I recently made confit fit duck legs with cherry sauce in my Instant Pot and this was a delicious recipe.

If you are wanting a simpler Christmas style dish that involves poultry but doesn’t require you to cook a whole bird, then my chicken breasts stuffed with pork, apple and sage might be the ticket for you:

In terms of gammon, the recipe I posted the last week for gammon cooked with ginger beer & rooibos tea is now my go-to. I made a delicious glaze from the cooking broth (which is out of this world), and added honey and mustard to spice & sweeten it up.

A Christmas feast requires a lot of side dishes, so I have an ongoing post that includes a plethora of side dishes to choose from. Whether you are in the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern, you will find a few ideas there.

I wouldn’t contemplate a Christmas without duck fat roast potatoes, and I feel I have the best recipe. This year I am going to try and roast them with a few smashed cloves of garlic and fresh rosemary stalks to see if that could add some flavour, but otherwise, they are perfect the way they are.

Dessert is obviously very important so here are a few ideas from the classic to the less so:

Summer berry Eton mess with pistachios

Amarula Tiramisu

Classic Christmas pudding

Jamie Olivers Christmas pudding strudel with chocolate

Pink swirl meringues with pomegranate syrup

Christmassy baked apples with brandy-soaked fruit

Festive baking recipes

As much as I adore a good homemade mince pie, my go-to recipe is now my Apple & mince pie crumble bars. They are kind of like a shortbread jam bar and a mince pie hybrid with a crunchy flaky almond topping. They are less finicky to make and quite frankly who wants to stress at this time of year.

Frangipane mince pies with orange pastry
Christmas mince-pie frangipane tart (I love this large mine pie rendition because I love Christmas mince so damn much.
Easy stout fruit cake – If I’m not making my favourite fruit & nut Christmas cake, I make this easy recipe which I’ve adapted from my maternal grandmother’s recipe.

For a festive cocktail to kick things off, my pomegranate and ginger spritzer is one of my most popular cocktails on the blog. You can keep it virginal or add a splash of your favourite booze. I think tequila Bianco, rum or vodka works really well here.