Annual Christmas post - and SATG Lunch Update!

I started a guided walk through my very best Christmas recipes along with a selection of menu themes back in 2017. Each year, I update the post with my latest recipes and add more suggested menus, including the 2020 $20pp menu from last weekends' Sunday Life feature! Read the [2020 Christmas Recipes & Menus]( - or scroll down for the annual SATG Party Update…. [Get the Christmas Post]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Annual SATG Christmas Party Update! Every year, the entire RecipeTin Family (mother, brother, sister, me - partners are excused) are roped into catering the annual Christmas party for my mother's social group, the Saturday Afternoon Tennis Group ("SATG"). They do not play tennis on Saturday afternoons and have not done so for decades. Though I am told they used to, and hence the name. 2 decades on, and nobody has thought to change it?? 😂 Nowadays, their activities are more along the lines of golf (9 holes thank you very much, not 18, WITH golf carts), champagne tastings and other such pursuits. About 5 months into each year (yes, 7 months in advance), we are hesitantly approached and asked if we are open to catering the Christmas lunch. There was one year when they didn't want to burden us again, so they didn't ask. The lunch was held at a restaurant and I hear there were grumblings about how much less variety of food there was…😂 I don't know about your family, but when our mother "asks", she is not really asking. She pretends to ask, but if we refused, we would be subtly punished for the rest of the year. Also, specifically, we all enjoy [Japanese food](=) on tap, and the occasional bento box deliveries, and we most definitely do not want to put that at risk….😈 And so we always agree, and there's a flurry of activity in the days leading up to the big event, in particular this year more than other years because I offered to host it at my house. Just easier than lugging suitcases of kitchen gear to someone else's house (yes, seriously, I would take a giant suitcase filled with pots, pans, bowls, cutting boards, knives, platters….) The lunch was a huge hit! Everybody had a wonderful time, the food went smoothly. I even rushed through the Christmas decorations this year with a real Christmas tree and all (I'm usually notoriously late with putting it all up!). It was a stunning summer day and there were outdoor as well as indoor tables set up. The group was smaller than in previous years due to COVD limitations (22 people), noting that this is a pension card carrying group, so we took extra precautions including sit down smaller shared platter service rather than the usual one big shared buffet table. And as is part of the annual tradition, I'm sharing the menu from the lunch in case there's something on it that you'd like me to share before Christmas. The menu gets refined every year based on what we notice gets cleared quickly vs those that aren't that popular (we know, for example, they are not enthused about veggie sticks no matter how fancy we try to make them 😂). To this day we are still puzzled why things like mini arancini balls and salt & pepper squid isn't popular because we know with our group of friends, they are the first to go. We thought maybe it was for health reasons, but based on the (vast) volume of triple cream brie they inhale, we think not! 🤣 So here's what we made this year - note that it's a little different to previous years because we didn't do buffet style - it's sooo much easier plonking giant things on a table for people to help themselves! Recipes: - [Seafood Dipping Sauce for prawns]() - the family House Special! - [Sausage Rolls](=) - a firm favourite we pull out year after year - Smoked salmon blinis with lumpfish caviar - new! Want it? (Psst Sounds so posh to include caviar, but lumpfish caviar is actually super good value!) - Cheese on crackers with quince paste chutney - triple cream brie, truffle manchego, blue cheese, cheddar - [Bitter Leaf Orange Salad]( (wait, I think we switched orange for peach?) - [Mrs Brodie's Famous Potato Salad](=) - minus the bacon, because we didn't want the extra salty pops - [House No-Mayo Slaw](=) - an extra special Coleslaw made without mayo! - [Maple Glazed Ham]() - requested specifically, year after year! - Herb & Garlic Lamb Racks with Gravy - new recipe! I was going to do the [Crumbed version]( I shared on Monday but thought that was too fiddly to do on a large scale. - Roast Fish with Salsa Verde - new recipe! That verde makes everything soo tasty. It's such a great quick dinner trick! - [Chocolate Mirror Glaze Cake]() - two of them! I was frosting them at 6am that morning 😂 I forgot to refrigerate before slicing so it didn't cut with precise layers as pictured in the photos, it was an extremely hot day! Ahh yes - and the Pavlova Christmas Tree dessert!! How fitting that the Pavlova Christmas Tree was on the cover of Sunday Life on the day of the lunch!! My full recipe with the usual process steps and tutorial video is coming on Monday, but for those of you who cannot wait, the recipe has been published on the Good Food website - click [here]()! And that's a wrap! SATG Christmas Party, done for another year. Wait, that's not true. We should be hearing from them again in 5 months time to lock in Christmas 2021! 😂 – Nagi x --------------------------------------------------------------- Life of Dozer Mr Dozer loves parties. Because something good always falls in his mouth…. - Nagi x [Unsubscribe]( | [Update your profile]( | PO Box 883, Gladesville, NSW 1675