Our Epic Feast

I’ve only just recovered enough from our Xmas dinner to talk about it.

Family consensus was to have an untraditional dinner this year. Not everyone was enthralled with the prospect of changing the big bird feast and there was quite some discussion. An idea was thrown in to cook a course each which sounded exciting to me. Kind of Italian style with a few antipasti, maybe a pasta, a little fish and duck for the slightly miffed annual big bird eaters who were grumbling that we could eat Italian everyday. The courses were delegated and we agreed to be prepped and ready to go for six o clock.

There was a little confusion on this point but it all landed on the table in a delicious  succession .

Here’s what we ate

Herby garden salad with toasted seeds and honeyed goats cheese

Istanbul mussels , stuffed with rice and dill

Braised fennel with tomato, capers, olives and lemon ricotta

Tagliatelle with wild mushrooms

Fatty prawns with borlotti beans and roasted cherry tomatoes

Roasted Brussel sprout risotto

And for the big bird eaters

A Salad of duck confit and raspberry vinegar

Which must have been totally delicious because even after all the previous course the plates were scraped clean

It didn’t stop there. We had xmas pud with lashings of cream, slices of buche de noel which i couldn’t quite manage and Irish or French coffee to wash it all down.

Quite the feast.

I did wake up at five o’clock in the morning feeling like a beached whale but apart from that I’d highly recommend this method of feasting.

The dirty dishes were fairly epic and of course as we had all cooked there was no designated dishwasher but somehow we muddled through

Funnily enough the desserts were traditional. I don’t know what happened there but I was very happy to have the Xmas pudding. Delicious. I’m not quite sure how I squeezed it in.