Less than a week! The presents are wrapped, now onto the food preparations. Today is reserved for the making of the traditional rum balls and rocky road. If I make them too soon, they end up all gone long before Christmas!
Speaking of Christmas food, I wanted some inspiration for the vegetable dishes for Christmas eve dinner and Christmas day lunch. I had a good look through both of these new cookbooks I have recently bought, but nothing jumped out at me as something to add to my menu. Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty in both that I would make, but just not for Christmas. The Jamie Oliver has some fantastic cocktail recipes as well as food, and both books have such beautiful photos throughout, they are worth looking at just for that alone. But alas, I am back to square one on what vegetable dishes to make. Any suggestions of what you like to serve with either baked ham or turkey are welcome in the comments!
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Joke of the week:
In honour of my Nutcracker collection, this week’s joke is courtesy of a friend of mine…
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What I’ve been watching:
A trip to the cinema with my teenage sons to see the new and much anticipated Spider Man movie.
You don’t have to have seen every Spider Man movie to enjoy this. I have actually only ever seen the Tobey Maguire trilogy prior to this one. I liked everything about this movie, particularly the way they brought the different Spider Man universes together and it was also quite funny in many parts. Highly recommended!
And I’ve also been watching Christmas movies. I have to say, Netflix Christmas movies and I do not get along. I have yet to find one I can tolerate. So we’re cycling through the classics and enjoying them all the more for their timelessness. This last week has seen us watching a Christmas movie every night and that is unlikely to change right up until Christmas eve, when we switch to the Carols instead. I was very excited to see A Boy Called Christmas pop up on my Telstra TV Box Office as an express release last night. I can highly recommend this wonderful new Christmas film, sure to become a classic.
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What I’ve been reading:
All 5 star reads! How lucky is that?!
And I’ve just started this one…
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Until next week…Merry Christmas if you celebrate and best wishes for the festive period.
Theresa Smith Writes 
Happy holidays to you. 🎄☃️
We usually have Brussel sprouts in some form. All in my family love them.
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Oh, we love them too, with the exception of my daughter. I’m not sure if they are in season here right now though.
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Ah, of course. I am in North America
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Me, I’m traditional, so it’s the usual roast vegies in our house, but if you want to go with colourful salads you could have a Greek beetroot salad (basically baby beets with yoghurt and fresh spices dressing), or a ‘festive’ salad made with red and green lettuce leaves, cucumber shaved into thin strips, cherry tomatoes and some croutons plus a French dressing. If you want something hot, have baby new potatoes served with do a red and green combo of thin strips of capsicum tossed in dressing, make sure you peel them first by scorching them in the oven so that they are soft and sweet. (I’ve seen red ones in a jar where the prep is done for you, but never green ones.)
Thinly sliced potatoes baked with milk, cream and butter go well with Christmas meats, but it’s rich and filling and maybe not what you want if you want to have pudding too.
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Oooh, nice ideas. I’m thinking something salad wise with the baked ham on Christmas eve but hot vegetables for Christmas day with the turkey. Thank you!
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Ottolenghi has fabulous salads that would complement turkey and ham. Have a look at Plenty More or Sami Tamini’s Falastin book. If thinking hot, roasted baby carrots with labne or goats cheese with hazelnuts is lovely and maybe a green vegetable and potato dish. Tomato and onion pie was a regular in the 70s!! Happy planning.
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Thank you for those ideas. I didn’t even think of carrots!
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I don’t think I requested the Trent Dalton for review given it’s non-fiction, though perhaps copies were limited anyway. I’m not sure if I’d like it or not. I used to like his features in Q Weekend but not sure if I’d want to read an entire book of them… though guess it’s something you could stop and start given the nature of short pieces.
A seen a bit of stuff around about The Boy Called Christmas but don’t get that service. I must admit I’m yet to watch ANY Christmas movies….
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I bought the Trent Dalton. I didn’t actually see it up for request, although I might have missed the email. It’s definitely one you can dip in and out of and while I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, I am really enjoying this.
The Telstra TV is a set top box that allows me to watch everything through the one portal, all streaming services I’m subscribed to as well as normal TV. It gets around that issue of some TVs not having particular apps for certain streaming services on them. I bought it when I first bought my TV because my TV had limited apps, wouldn’t even let me watch Stan. As a Telstra customer, I have this box office feature unlocked on it which allows me to rent or buy movies. I don’t do it much because everything I want to watch is usually available anyway but occasionally there’s an express release that I’d have liked to see in the cinema but didn’t. I watched The Dry that way, as an express release and now this one. I like the idea of going to the cinema but rarely get there.
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