Christmas and more excitement

So I had a whole series of posts planned but the last few weeks have just flown and not it’s boxing day! And in an hour we’ll be getting onto a bus to get to a plane and another one and another one and then in about 26 hours we’ll be landing in Melbourne to start our 4 week holiday! I’m so excited! Good friends of both Barry and me are getting married in Tasmania in January and we decided it was a great opportunity to catch up with them, see them on their special day, meet other friends who are attending and spend some time on what promises to be a fabulous island. So there won’t be so much posting done although I'll definitely be enjoying lots of nice food and wine. I hope you all have a fabulous New Years Eve and see you in 2008!

ps...a fab tip I found in one of my cookbooks, if you have any mulled wine left over, freeze it and serve it as a sophisticated granita

A wintery pizza

Another brief post as this week we are in Ireland visiting Barry's family. We're getting all are family visits sorted now as we won't see them for Christmas. The reason?? We're going on a 4 week holiday to Melbourne and Tasmania! I'm so excited as we haven't had a holiday all year and we've been saving days for this one! Anyway, more about that in a later post.

With all the traveling, socializing and getting presents organized, the cooking has been somewhat limited recently but I still wanted to share this recipe with you. Its another one from my friend Simone who is a source of great recipes that are often easy but totally delicious! For this one we were lazy and bought a ball of pizza dough at the local store, which here is as good as home made, topped it with thinly sliced potato and Taleggio cheese. After baking it in the oven for about 20 min at 220°C on a pizza stone the cheese was melted and golden. Topped with some truffle oil to give it a nutty earthy smell, it was an incredibly tasty dinner that we'll be making much more this winter. I also think my little bottle of truffle oil won't last very long (even though a little goes a long way) as we've already been using it on this pasta and I think it would work well on something like a mushroom bruchetta.

In a pickle...

...that's what happened to these baby onions, herbs and spices using this recipe. I've made this recipe for the last several years and they are great! so much better than the store bought ones. They make a lovely present or are great to keep and eat with fondue, raclette or meat. I normally make half the liquid suggested in the recipe or use twice as much onions...whatever you fancy. This is my entry for A Spoonful of Christmas hosted by Zlamushka I know it's a bit short but am in the Netherlands up to my ears in Sinterklaas poems and surprises.