Christmas part 1

Well, this is strangely the first family Christmas I have had and it went for the whole four days. I'm kind of tired.

Really tired. And I am working every day this week except for New Years day and I am ready to curl up and sleep. But alas, I shall post the meals.

This is the meal that I had at my brother in law's mother's place. She is currently housing her nephew and future niece at her house before they take off and get married three times. They're getting married in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Melbourne...just to make sure everyone in the family knows about it. But, the point was raised about whether or not you could run away at the second one if you got cold feet.

Anyway, I will shut up. Here is the food.

The future bride also did hospitality and she was very delicate with her presentation. This is also good for another reason, but I will get to that later.
(clockwise starting from top left)Salsa in a filo cup, soba noodles, grilled mushroom with cheese and bacon and a mushroom and zucchini kebab.


These oysters were really good. I asked my "aunt" where she got them from and surprisingly, Box Hill market.


Salmon sashimi. Was a little lack lusture, but we noticed that some of the plates were better than others. We make a joke that my "aunt" doesn't actually cook. She makes her famous phone call to the local fishmonger or sushi bar. Really.
Her interpretation of Italian is when you steam cauliflower, eat it with pasta and put a fried egg on top. Chinese is when you steam cauliflower, eat it with rice and put a fried egg on top. "Aussie-style" (as she calls it) is steaming cauliflower, eating it with toast and putting a fried egg on top.
This is actually not a joke and her son will confirm that.


This is a third of the turkey I made. I brined it overnight and roasted it with onion and celery in the cavity, salting the inside and outside and putting butter between the skin and the flesh. I roasted it breast side down, at 180 for 3.5 hours. Guess how much it weighed?
The reason why the future bride is so useful is because after transporting the fucker to my "aunt's" house, we were all trying to pass off carving the bird in fear that it would eat us. She thankfully has to carve one up every week when they serve at the TAFE restaurant, so she saw it as practice. It is also good, cos I would have otherwise treated it like a fucking giant chicken (well, that is how I cooked it, so meh).
Also, used the pan juices to make a gravy. Hmmmm, gravy. The condiment I missed during my vegetarianism.


The sides.
I steamed carrots in a foil bag with wine, butter, honey, garlic and almonds. I also roasted a pumpkin with chili flakes, brown sugar, garlic and sage.
Roasted potatoes and prawns. There was also a giant salad, but it is out of the frame.

This is my brother in law's cousin. My sister asked him for a knife to cut the pear and custard crumble cake that she made and he ended up giving her a butter knife.

Well done, Vincent.

The best part of this is how Honky my parents are. When I told them the bones of the bird would be good for rice porridge, as well as the meat, the literally collected it all, as well as the carcass and (also literally) fought my "aunt" for the bone attached to the drumstick she wanted to keep for later.
It was a Flinstones moment that was rectified when my "aunt" said that she promised she would bring the bone over to their house after she ate it.