Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas & Chox in box




MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
I heart Christmas! (sigh) I Absolutely adore what this day represents, how it brings love ones together and the uncontrolable joy that expels through every vessel in my body upon receiving presents. But what I absolutely adore about Christmas, is the food - food glorious food. Your turkeys, hams, chooks, spuds roasted to perfection. Oh dear goodness Christmas is like a smorgasboard that celebrated once a year and gives anyone and everyone a guilt-free reason to indulge themselves into having extras. More potatoes? Yes please!....Gravy oh yes!

However this Christmas, was first one in a long time where we had home cooked meal, or should I say barbeque. Last year I was on a plane to Cambodia on Christmas day, the year before that we went to a birthday. This year Mum had the fortunate task of feeding us silly and she succeeded. What was on the menu:

Cos lettuce salad mixed with capsicums, olives, tomatoes and feta cheese
Potato salad (always good)
garlic sauteed prawns (with chilli dipping sauce)
Corn on cobs
barbequed baby carrots
Lamb on the barby

Melbourne's weather decided to take a break from giving us thunderous, lightning and constant pouring of rain the days leading up to Christmas. We were praying for good barbeque weather, as Mum was adamant of having her lamb chops on the bbq and her prays were answered, it turned out to be beautiful, actually - warm, not to windy, not hot, just right.


Unfortunately folks, I did not take any pictures and I have a good reason. I'm currently moving out and renovating the house, so everything is everywhere at the moments, so instead of showing you pictures of our wonderful Christmas feast. I've posted up these choccies. Yes folks! Chocolates, I made these about a week ago, during the last week of work. Last year I made chocolate chip cookies and put them in tiny boxes and gave them out to my workmates. This year I wanted to make chocolates, but didn't have the stamina to present them in little gift boxes, so instead I brought them to our Kris Kringle morning brunch and was well enjoyed by my fellow peers.


INGREDIENTS
200g of either milk,white or dark cooking chocolate broken into pieces i used dark and white)
1/4 cup thickened cream
20g butter chopped
1 cup rice bubbles
1/2 cup desicated coconut
50 g red glace cherries coarsely chopped

EXTRA: Coco powder and/or icing sugar to decorate.

This recipe was adapted from Woolworths Fresh Magazine at my local Safeway supermarket. Simple, beautiful, tasty. I used dark and white chocolates.
1. Melt chocolate, cream and butter in heatproof bowl over a pot of boiling water until smooth. (In the original recipe, it instructs you to melt the chocolate cream and butter in a bowl in the microwave for 1 1/2 mins, stirring every 30 seconds)
2. Ad Rice bubbles, coconut & cherries and stir until well combined. chill until firm.
Divide mixture into 2 parts and roll into logs by place chocolate on a sheet of baking paper. Cut into 1cm- thick slices. You can roll some of them into balls to create different shapes.
3. Coat with coconut/icing sugar or coco powder

They make adorable pressies. As shown in picsabove I placed them in a round box