Merry Christmas

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Sorry I have not been around much the past month - in all honesty I've been enjoying every moment of my holidays and spending time with my family. I have still been cooking tons, as you'll see in a second, but that's about all I've been doing. So here is a quick overview of the past month and of my Christmas, because the day is over here in Australia and I won't be able to recap in a few days as I will be in America!

For my Mum's birthday, now over a month ago, I made this gorgeous cake:

I have made some amazing things since I have been home, including this spaghetti pie:

For Christmas, I made some gift baskets for some of my friends. I did these baskets for four friends (Annie and Will, neighbours from my old town who I have mentioned before, and Laura and Meaghan, my two best friends from high school). Enjoy the following overload of pictures. The treats I made were, in order of pictures,hot fudge sauce, chocolate chip biscuits, hot chocolate on a stick and apricot coconut granola. I made tons more, but these were the best pictures. The final pictures are of the finished product.

I also made brownie pops as a Christmas treat. They're like cake pops, but made with brownies. I wrote an article/recipe about five ways to make your brownies Christmasy. Check out the online magazine I was published in, here.

Here is our Christmas tree, which I have to admit, for a fake tree in the middle of a hot summer, is pretty impressive.

Now, I just love Christmas. I've said before that this is my favourite time of the year and the food is definitely a big part of that. For Christmas breakfast it was just me, my parents and my brother (who officially will be attending my university in Brisbane next year). We had homemade English Muffin Bread, Apple Banana Walnut Danishes, fresh fruit and a variety of cute little jams.

For Christmas lunch, there was a whole lot of us this year. There was my immediate family, my Mum's parents, Mum's sister and her family, family friends of my grandparents and our neighbours Annie and Will and their family (like I've said before, they're pretty much our family). We made a whole variety of things (and by we I mean everyone who attended), the centre piece being Jamie Oliver's turkey wellington Mum and I made. It was fantastic. We also had homemade lasagne, potato bake, three different types of salad, grilled veggies and fresh ham. We always get a ham for Christmas.

Dessert was Christmas pudding and ice cream cake, but I wasn't feeling like it, so I had some leftover biscuits from my Christmas baking, the last of my brownie pops and a few Moneto's (those chocolate sticks). I get a box of those Moneto's every year for Christmas and a box of Ferrerro Rocher's and I can pretty much guarantee they will last a day or two. At most.

Now it's just my immediate family left and we're watching Love Actually (which is pretty much everyone's favourite movie). Tomorrow the family is heading out to a nearby lake where we will swim and picnic. The day after I will be frantically packing my bags and then catching a plane to America.

So there will be more radio silence for the next few weeks until I return then hopefully back to regular scheduled posting! Merry Christmas everyone, and Happy New Year!