Christmas and Boxing Day 2014

Christmas 2014 was very special for me,

my sister and her partner came and stay with us for Christmas.

Not only that, they are legally married since October,

so I have another sister, sister-in-law! (smile)

Having a family on Christmas Day, for me, is totally awesome!

It was also the very first Christmas with family

after almost 7 years living abroad.

We hang our eldest's Christmas Arts from school

on our Christmas Tree.

We are proud of him and what he has achieved in 2014.

Well done, Son!

And we love you SO MUCH!

We decided to buy all we need on 23rd December 2014.

On the evening of 22nd December,

we decided to have fish and seafood only.

Initially we wanted to have roast pork too,

but think it might be too much

considering only 4 adults will really enjoyed them.

At first we were thinking of buying all (except fish and seafood)

on 23rd December just from our local supermarket.

So on that day we left home at 08:30am

we were very surprised to see the parking space are almost full.

When we enter the supermarket, heaps of people are already there,

what time they arrived?  supermarket open at 08:30am

they must be there before the supermarket open.

Wow!

It was also the first Christmas where my Husband

got 3 weeks off from work.  The whole pit was closed.

Normally we never have to do shopping closer to Christmas

so we never know / imagine how busy it was.

Still a good experience, at least for me (smile).

Ok so we done our Christmas shopping on 23rd December.

Just curious, we'd like to see what fish market has on 24th December.

(Oh, initially we planned to buy fish and seafood on 24th December.)

This is what our local fish market looks like when we arrived there at 11am on 24th December, we wanted to see what kind of selection they have and how busy it might be, so here it is as you can see, it was a long queue!  They closed at 1am on that day, so there is no way we wanna stand queuing just to see what they have.  Lucky we have all ready since the day before.

So we didn't go in, we were there only to take this photo haha!

OK, so the highlight was Snappers.

I have not been eating snapper for almost 7 years,

Since I came here, I only eat barramundi.

Here is the photo before baking:

I saw this dish on tv a day before Christmas day.

It's so simple and so tasty.

The bottom was thin slices of brown onions and potatoes,

dressed in olive oil, sea salt and black pepper.

topped with Snappers - they were dressed in olive oil,

sea salt, black pepper and lemon juice.

I made few incision and insert slices of lemons in it,

slices of lemons were also inside the fish.

I dressed dill in generous olive oil before I put them on snappers.

Then baked at 180 C fan-forced oven (or 200 C conventional oven) for 30 minutes.

My husband specially made:

Snapper Tartar (with coconut cream)

cold and fresh, perfect for summer!

He said his father used to make it.

Served in ramekins.

Now he can make it himself (smile).

Other dishes are:

Snapper on onion and potato bed,

Cray fish meat and scallops in garlic cream sauce,

King crabs boiled in salt, ginger and garlic,

King prawns boiled in salt, ginger and garlic too.

I also made 2 separate sauces to go with them:

Black pepper sauce, and

Saus Padang / Padang sauce

Padang is the capital city of West Sumatera,

the sauce is with chili (of course),

lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, etc.

We also steamed Jasmine Rice to go with them,

chili sauce and tomato sauce.

They were so yummy!

Recipes to be followed.

We also made some desserts, like:

Orange Fruit Cake

so fresh, so orange-y

Coffee and Kahlua Fruit Cake

i think i prefer the Orange one

Trifle - made by my Husband

sponge cake sprinkled with raspberry drink,

filled with custard, fresh strawberries and mangoes,

topped with whipped cream and shaved dark chocolate.

Honestly, all components are good and worked together

except for the sponge cake, we put too much raspberry drink on sponge cake, it should be just drizzled, just a little bit.

My sister and her partner brought use wines :)

and other goodies from Asian Grocery shop in Sydney.

Thank you, P and V!

On Boxing day, we made Roast Pork

with roast potatoes and sweet potatoes,

with apple and rainbow salad in tahini dressing.

And I forgot to take photo.

But I have the left-over make over photo :D

Pan fried the potatoes with a little bit of rice,

sunny eggs, 2 pieces left over king prawns

for breakfast...by my husband...so good...

probably because I didn't have to make them haha!

We made another Trifle, this time with Panettone.

I never had Panettone before, it was so good on its own (or my eldest son like it with butter),

so fluffy and soft, almost like bread made with tangzhong method.

Cut them to chunks,

filling still the same: custard, mangoes and strawberries,

Topped with custard, the fruits and grated dark chocolate.

Panettone Trife - side view.

We liked this one more,

panettone hold it shape, not fully absorbing the custard

but it was fine and delicious,

even my eldest son loved it too.

It's finished today and he asked me to make another one.

So tomorrow 31st December, we will buy another one for him.

Maybe we won't make panettone trifle, but we'll see.

Hope you had a great Christmas and Boxing Day Holiday!

MAY PEACE BE ON EARTH,

IN OUR COUNTRIES,

IN OUR COMMUNITIES,

IN OUR FAMILY,

IN OUR HEART.

Thanks for looking (^_^)