In My Kitchen: December 2024

We have eaten all the Christmas leftovers, the Christmas tree is in the compost and the last of the Christmas presents left the building today.  It is well and truly January 2025 but today I talk about the good eats in my kitchen of December.  I am back at work today and the joy of two weeks leave - over what my sister in Ireland calls Twixmas - is over.  Our Christmas tree star was drooping so much that I think it was relieved when I took down the tree.  As always I wish for more time to sleep in, read books, and get crafting. Of course I wish I had done more cleaning but there is so much else to do - or not do as the case might be, given how busy early December was.  For more about the past year, check out my Reflections on 2024 post.

I have written more  in a post about festive foods in 2024, but even so a little bit of silly season will find its way into this post.  There has been a lot of leftover nut roast and salad sandwiches over the holidays but we ate well on New Year's Eve.  Sylvia loved the Christmas nut roast so I made it again, this time with some oats and miso.  It was great with mushroom gravy, potato salad and lettuce with tomatoes from our garden.

It's a truth universally acknowledged that when baking mince pies and cake, that one needs Minestrone and chia jam.  Or so it was in our kitchen just before Christmas! Sylvia bought bananas a few weeks before and watched the skins get nice and dark before she finally used the flesh of the banana in this miso maple banana bread.  She also baked the one batch of chocolate mince pies that we enjoyed very much.  I also had some lovely traditional mince pies from my mum's kitchen. 

Everything is better with rhubarb strawberry chia jam.  Even a spoon looks pretty good with a mound of this jam on it heading for my mouth.  I had about 85g of rhubarb from the garden that I chopped finely.  I added a 250g punnet of finely chopped strawberries and a few tablespoons of maple syrup and a teaspoon of sugar.  Then I simmered it until it seemed soft enough.  It was so good.  Even good on the miso maple bread and the miso glaze.

The miso maple banana bread with miso glaze was also great when we saw Wicked at the Abbotsford Convent outdoor cinema.  The banana bread and mince tarts were as magical as the movie!  

I have heard good things about the vegan Pana Organic chocolates.  So I bought a couple of blocks when it was on special at the supermarket.  Both the Tasman Sea Salt and Coconut Rough bars were lovely.  Smooth milk chocolate made with coconut milk.
 

After an early bike ride to see Sammy J's farewell live show on the Melbourne Museum forecourt - he's been on ABC breakfast radio for 5 years - I was passing by Calle Bakery.  I stopped in for a loaf of spelt sourdough bread, yuzu honey salt croissant and a spinach and cheese pastry.  All sturdy baking to carry on the back of my bike and all excellent to eat.  I also had a lovely light rye sourdough loaf from Bake Alley Bakes during December.  So great to have amazing bread for salad sandwich!

Before Christmas I finally took all the fading kids artwork off the overhead kitchen cupboards.  This is as far as I got.  The minion falling into the sponge cake in the collage makes me laugh. It is still a work in progress.   More to come ....

Sylvia made an amazing Mac and Cheese for Christmas Day.  It was one of those tik tok viral sensations!  We had to have a practice batch a couple of weeks before the big day.  It was so rich with amazing cheese strings when a spoonful was lifted out of the saucepan of cheese sauce. This was a big batch but we loved the leftovers as much as when it was fresh out of the oven!

Somehow Sylvia has managed to associate these mushroom pinwheels with Christmas.  Surely is not a coincidence that she has made them before Christmas two years in a row.  Last year they were candidates for Christmas day that never made it.  This year we made it with some huge portobello mushrooms my mum gave us.  They were good but still too small.  Now I want to try them again with two pieces of puff pastry joined so I could make them bigger when I roll the pastry up!

Our cat is Shadow by name, shadow by nature.  He loves to lie in the shade of the rogue catnip that has grown like crazy since it took root in the corner where the concrete slab meets the wooden fence post.  I have been meaning to cut it back but now I have noticed bees where it is flowering!  It seems the creatures in the garden are encouraging a backyard jungle! 

We doubled these Chilli garlic tofu udon noodles for one from Fresh Off the Raq.  We really liked the seasoned crumbled (or minced) tofu with the noodles.  Next time though we have agreed that Sylvia will go easy with the chilli paste.  I served them with lots of corn, asparagus and snow peas.

Sylvia asked for this simple vegetable and pasta soup from yessidothecookingg on Tik Tok.  The onion, carrot and celery were boiled and blended in a little broth and then thinned with more broth and mixed with cooked pasta.  It looks plain but was unexpectedly good!

A recent favourite of Sylvia's is Tofucado.  Great name!  Easy dinner!  The rice is cooked while the tofu is grated and fried until crispy.  The avocado dressing is prepared and stirred through the avocado which is served with rice, diced cucumber and crisp seaweed.  Sylvia likes it with furikake.  I loved it with tomatoes and celery.

Another Tik Tok success was the Sticky Wine Glazed Tofu Fillet by by ellysplate. The tofu is boiled in stock.  The drained stock is made into a more complex marinade for the tofu to rest in overnight.  It looked like a lot but I was amazed to see that it all just fitted in the Dr Who lunchbox.  The next day was Christmas day and the tofu was baked with regular basting with the marinade.  It looked great with the cross cross cut into the slab of tofu.

Here is a plate of leftovers the day after Christmas.  It is filled with Mac and Cheese, nut roast and gravy from Christmas day and Pearl couscous, cucumber and rocket salad with pesto nut roast from Christmas eve, plus some salad veg.  I have seen some fun recipes for Christmas leftovers but it is such a lazy time of year I am happy to have mine in a bowl or a sandwich.

This is another lazy dessert platter from New Years Eve.  We gathered some sweet baking from the shops, cherries, apricots strawberries and some Lindt chocolate bears.  I was quite taken with the stollen cookies from Aldi.  We drank a mocktail of apricot nectar, apple cider and non-alcoholic champagne and had fun with sparklers in the back yard.  It was a fine way to celebrate the end of the year.  I hope you have had a good festive season and wish you well for 2025!

I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event. If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by 13th of the month.  Or just head over to her blog to visit more kitchens and her gorgeous hand drawn header.  Thanks to Sherry for continuing to host this even that brings together some wonderful bloggers who share glimpses into their kitchens.