Looking back at Xmas, with recipe photos to share

in food •  6 years ago  (edited)

Tomorrow will be New Years Eve, and we’ll be looking forward to a new year. Hopefully, one with more growth and improvement in all areas of our lives. But let’s take one last little look at Xmas.

christmas-recap.jpg

Christmas Day menu

• Turkey “star” balls – recipe here and scroll down
• Cranberry sauce – recipe here
• Brown mushrooms stuffed with cream cheese
• Coleslaw
• Chocolate mousse with berries and whipped cream

It was so tasty I’m going to make it all over again for New Year’s Eve! And since I’ll then have photos of the mushrooms, I’ll have to post that recipe later.

But one thing I did for you was to take photos as I made the mousse. So I’ll recap the recipe from this post here with pics.

The chocolate mousse recipe (again)

Serves 4-6.

• 120g (4 oz) dark chocolate, preferably 70% cocoa. I used De Spa sugar free.
• 4 eggs
• ¾ cup of softly whipped cream
• Optional – 1-2 Tbs of your favourite liqueur (orange is especially good, but also experiment with butterscotch, Irish cream, hazelnut or whatever you fancy really)

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler, or find a bowl that will fit neatly over a pot. Make sure the bowl is completely dry. If any steam or liquid gets into the chocolate once it has started to melt, it will seize up into hard chunks that can’t be melted. Break the chocolate into squares and put it in the bowl. Bring water to the boil in the pot, then remove from the heat and place the bowl over the pot.

mousse1.jpg

Leave for a few minutes, stirring occasionally with a dry spoon, until the chocolate melts.

mousse2.jpg

Meanwhile, I prep the other ingredients. Separate the eggs, putting the yolks in a small bowl and the whites in a large bowl. Measure your alcohol, if using, into a shooter glass or similar.

mousse3.jpg

Whisk the egg whites until stiff but not dry.

mousse4.jpg

If you want to make the version with the cream, folded in, whip it up now.

mousse5.jpg

When the chocolate is melted, lift the bowl off the pot of water and beat in the egg yolks until smooth. Add the alcohol and beat again.

mousse6.jpg

Fold in a large spoonful or two of the egg whites to loosen it.

mousse7.jpg

Then add the chocolate mix into the egg white bowl and gently fold in.

mousse8.jpg

mousse9.jpg

Then fold through the whipped cream. (If you prefer, you can leave the cream out of the mousse, and just serve it on the side, but I like it this way.)

mousse10.jpg

Spoon the mousse into a serving bowl, or 4-6 small bowls or fancy glasses, and refrigerate for at least an hour.

mousse11.jpg

Serve with berries and extra whipped cream. Sorry, I forgot to take a photo later on when it was all berried up!

Miraculously, there was a little bit left over, so @andysantics48 could taste it when she picked us up the next day. So she can vouch for the fact that this seriously good mousse!

Boxing Day menu

I made another batch of avocado stuffed eggs (recipe here) and this time did pipe the mix in with a piping bag made from a snaplok bag with the corner cut off. They look heaps better, don’t they! And this was before any further garnishing.

boxingday1.jpg

This is my platter of low carb treats – sugar free gingerbread, macadamia blueberry mini muffins and choc brownie stars. Before I’d even taken the photo, half of one of the brownies was snaffled up!

boxingday2.jpg

And here are the Xmas cake mini muffins with some choc covered marzipan to go with them.

boxingday3.jpg

And then there was everybody else’s contributions, which I didn’t take photos of, or I would have been there all day.

Thanks for reading

Top pic from Pixabay, rest by me.

Follow me for more health, nutrition, food, lifestyle and recipe posts. For an archive of 2016 & 2017 posts, by category, see my last post of 2017.

Contact me in SteemitChat to ask about one on one nutritional coaching or EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) sessions by Skype. (Then put a comment on my most recent post, so I know to find you.) Steem, other altcoins or Paypal accepted.

If you’re from New Zealand (Aotearoa) and are looking for other kiwis, use #teamnz as one of your tags // check out other posts with #kiwi or #teamnz tags // follow @teamnz // or join the South Pacific channel on Discord. There is an old list of kiwis on this post.

5-tips-for-newbies.jpg

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

Where's the tofu cookies? :)

There are limits to even my inventiveness...

You just got a Team NZ upvote!

This is a curation bot for TeamNZ. Please join our AUS/NZ community on Discord.

Why join discord room? Here are 10 reasons why.<

Enjoying the bump? Please consider supporting your fellow Kiwis with a delegation. How? Read here.

For any inquiries/issues about the bot please contact @cryptonik.

your chocolate mousse looks very much like a recipe we call Ice-Box Cake. YOu layer the mousse with plain lady fingers and keep in the fridge. Serve in slices topped with whipped cream. yum!

Ooh, that would be kinda like a trifle, except chocolate. I could make my keto choc brownie recipe, except there is a flavour I call caramel, which has mesquite instead of cocoa. Use that instead of lady fingers. Maybe I'll try that tonight instead...

DId you do it? How did it turn out?

Best "trifle" ever!

yay!

Ooh, just wait till you see what you inspired me to make! I'll post prob tomorrow night. It was yum! and will last us another 2 or 3 nights.

lol, I just asked you in the last response how it turned out! I can't wait to see ;o)

Seeing all this tasty looking food makes me so hungry and its going to be a struggle to wait for my wife to wake up and have breakfast

So I'm guessing that while you waited for her to wake up, you prepared a beautiful breakfast to greet her with ;-)

Sadly no she has a limited diet so it was simply cereal for breakfast

Great season treats @kiwideb,

I see a lot of sugar around this time of year and really don't need. These look great. ♡

I was very proud of myself that I managed to almost completely avoid the sugar, and not feel deprived. (Though I did have one brandy snap.)

I'd come round yours for a top class nosh up any day of the week !

Just save for that plane fare, and you'd be most welcome :-)

Hehe, awesome!

Does this mean you are going to make the chocolate mousse again?

AWESOME!

Now here is a picture I just did that has nothing to do with your post...

Yes, I'm going to make it again, and if you're really, really good, I might let you have some...