Cold Soba Salad with Salmon Sashimi

Blech, it was like 4000 degrees today, if we were food, then the house will be the oven, and if the house were an oven, then we'd be done cooking YESTERDAY!
That's how hot it was :(

So anyways, what to eat on a steamy hot day?
Cold noodles of course! Nobody wants to move around prepping food when all you want to do is vege out...

Look what we achieved with a little bit of inspiration :)

Soy, mirin, sake dressing for the noodles

Looks good eh?
What fresh salmon should always look like!

Noodle salad containing mixed herbs, shredded cucumber and enoki muchrooms

Rice noodle soup with chicken

Hot day, simple soup noodles always satisfies the hunger pangs...
Chicken broth, rice noodles, tonnes of herbs and a zingy red cabbage & parsnip pickle thingy.

Uh-oh!
Ooops, looks like we forgot to take photos of this yummy dinner lol
Sorry peeps!

Guess it finally got to the point where we were too hungry and did what normal folks do; went straight in for the eat instead of letting our food slowly cool into a pleasant state of warmness while the photo shoot happens before we eat.

It was bound to happen eventually I guess....
There's always next time eh? New Year's Resolution #4108: Will not forget to take photos of Rice Noodle Soup again.

It's still good - Lamb Salad (yes, AGAIN!), with Thai dressing

Well... it wouldn't be a Christmas to remember if we didn't have enough leftovers to last us at least a week...
So, left over lamb, left over salads... put them together LAMB SALAD!
But this time, it also went really well with a thai style dressing.
Oh so good!

I think we left out the mangoes this time...
Saved the mangoes for breakfast instead.
But talk about yummy! This was YA-HUM-MEEEEE!

It's still good - Lamb and Mango Salad with Balsamic Dressing

And because we're so good, we even take on the orphaned food from other people's Christmases!
No point letting food go to waste, it may as well fill our fast expanding bellies...

Mixed salad leaves, cherry tomatoes, mango, mint and lamb
All dressed together with a yummy balsamic dressing

It's still good - Christmas Leftovers

This is what happens to Christmas leftovers....
And boy did we have leftovers!!

Ok, so now that you've seen it, what's on the plate, you ask?
Roast ham (of course), baked giant mushroom with feta and parmesan cheese, stuffing balls (of course), roast potato and spinach and carrot salad with leftover cocktail sauce for dressing.

Jealous?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Here we give thanks for all the wonderful people who have graced our lives in 2011.

Merry Christmas to our dear wonderful amazing friends!!

Lunch at the Mews, and Dinner at the newlyweds. We all suffered a serious case of Food Coma.

Pork loin with stuffing prior being prepped

Just tap like that to keep the stuffing in...

There we go. Poi-fect!

Hmmm, check out the layer of fat under the skin.
MMMMMMMM FAT......

TADAH!
The end product, and perfect crackling.

Lol, looks a bit like heaven doesn't it?

Here's a better shot.
Prawn cocktail (centre)
Prawn, mango, caviar rice paper rolls (I calls it Prawn Roly-poly Keemi-style)

Christmas ham, glazed with raspberry jam & apricot conserve.
Pwetty ain't it?

Yummms!

Pan friend orange marinated duck breast

Cue drools now.
Perfecto!
Nice and pink!

Pan fried duck breast with snow pea, mint, carrot and lettuce salad.

*Squeals with delight*
My dining room set is almost complete. So excitements!

Here's what it looks like on the plate!

Champers with strawberries and mint

We thought we'd keep dessert nice and simple.
Chocolate cups with jaffa sorbet and home made vanilla ice cream. AWESOME-NESS!

Lol, that's how tiny they are...

And after lunch, here comes DINNER!
Ok, the spread included baked Christmas ham with orange glaze, prawns, silverbeet, salads, oysters, potato salad, roasted lamb and stuffing (hmm... don't think that made it into this pic).
So. Much. Food.

Dinner desserts, yup: DESSERTS (multiple)
(from top to bottom) strawberry tarts, flan (coffee or mocha or something yummy like that...), lemon curd tarts with blueberries and cherries, sticky date pudding.

Mini tartlets of home made lemon curd and blueberries and cherries.

Sticky date pudding. Delish!

Here we are saying thank you and happy Christmas to everybody!

Steamed eggs and Shortbread cookies

Steamed egg is a dish that my parents made often, and we loved it for the wonderful flavours, and the ease of cooking.

What is steamed egg? Well basically, eggs (of the chicken variety), salty duck egg, and century eggs (or preserved duck eggs), with a bit of pork mince and a teensy weensy bit of water with cornflour.

Mix everything together. Steam.

Et Voila!

Steamed egg.

Actually, this time we didn't have any mince so we just skipped that part. Still turned out wonderful.

Gotta love the black gooey-ness of the century eggs. YUM!

Oh, and Lu made some shortbread for friends...
I, of course, had to do a taste test to make sure it met our high standards before others get to try it.

Full of buttery goodness.

Pan fried leather jacket and purple cabbage salad

We hadn't tried this fish before... Leather jacket...

Apparently, it is supposed to taste like snapper, but at a fraction of the price.
Verdict?

Looks good eh?
So what is it?
Leather jacket, with home made curry powder and pan fried.

Purple cabbage with celery and capsicum salad

See! We don't lie, we totally made the curry powder!
Well, Miss T did all the work, but there ain't no I in team ;)

Yup, tasted good. A bit boney though.
Might be better in a fish cake, will have to try that next time.