Christmas in July

You might be thinking "Christmas in July?!?", and if you are, you probably aren't Australian. See, Christmas out here is just an entirely different affair. It's the middle of summer, people go out to the beach, barbecues are common, snow is no where to be found. Quite the contrast to the white Christmas stereotypes I grew up with. Not to mention most of these people aren't really sure what Egg Nog is.

So, in an attempt to closer identify with the stereotypical Christmas as put forth by our North American and European cultures there has arisen a movement to have Christmas in July, Sydney's typically coldest month. It still doesn't snow, but it's winter, and it is closer.

Okay, really it's just an excuse to party. And in that theme we had a special Christmas in July themed Sunday Dinner. There are lots of pictures, but to protect the privacy of my friends I shall not post them here. If you're friends with me, you can send me a message and I'll share them with you. Jono, in a surprise move, brought costumes for everyone, which made the party far more fun.

Ginny had to work during part of the cooking, but even without her assistance early on we managed to create a great dinner. Menu included:

• Spinach dip served in a bread bowl.
• 2 loaves of home made bread.
• 2 Roast Chickens: 1 stuffed with apples and onions, the other stuffed with lemons, and associated gravy.
• 1 Roast Leg of Lamb, along with some veggies it was cooked with, and associated gravy
• Mashed Yams (and lots and lots of butter)
• Roast potatoes
• Sauteed green beans with almond slivers
• Apple pie
• A ridiculously rich chocolate cake made from Brendan's favorite cupcake recipe.
• Mulled wine

We also consumed a few bottles of wine from Sandalford while cooking, from a case I purchased while I was on vacation in Western Australia. All in all it was a great dinner. And I finally got to use the roasting cookbook I'd bought around actual Christmas.

As you might guess from the number of times "roast" appears in the menu, not to mention two desserts and bread our single oven was a contentious, limited resource for this dinner. We actually cheated and made the lamb in a slow cooker.  Coming to the rescue in our time of need was Kay. Part way through the day I asked her to figure out the amount of time everything needed to be in the oven. She far surpassed this simple request and the next thing I knew our fridge had a detailed list of everything that was supposed to go in the oven, at what temperature in Celsius (some conversion was required), and for how long. In addition we had a complete timeline, starting with the apple pie that was already in the oven, on when everything should go in based on time we needed it for eating, and what things could overlap in the oven at various temperatures. This timeline was then updated throughout the day as we fell a little behind. I'm still in awe of her work there. It definitely helped organize us and get dinner out at a reasonable time (a little after 8). Kay was certainly not alone though, as Ginny, Christie, Yasmine, Ann Jono, and others I'm probably forgetting to mention all helped with the cooking which started in earnest at about 2:30pm. 

And of course, you can't have Christmas without having Brendan's birthday. So we managed to convince him to come back early from cross country skiing and wished him a hearty happy birthday in July, and hence the cake from one of his favorite recipes. Now we should all just get him a present.

I don't think my Australian friends read this blog, as I've never pointed them to it, but thanks should go out to all of them for a wonderful Sunday dinner, this time and in general. It's a great tradition and I've had a blast. Looking forward to more.

Thanks should also go out to my mom for the awesome bread book. She actually does read this blog. We've been making bread from scratch for the past month or so using a cookbook she brought from the US. I believe it's called "Artisan bread in 5 Minutes a Day". It's delicious, and definitely cheaper than buy the 6+ loaves a week we're making right now in large double batches of bread. So far we're sticking to pretty basic recipes, but if I can ever find rye flour in Sydney we'll start doing some more variations. I can definitely recommend the book. It takes more than 5 minutes to make the bread, but most of the time is waiting. It's probably not more than 5-10 minutes of active work a day, which is quite impressive and the recipe seems pretty easy. Kay has starting making the bread at her house, and a few people have been asking for the recipe.

If I can get a good picture of our fridge timeline, I will post it.