Christmas Eve dinner for a tired, happy toddler

It's 5pm on Christmas Eve. So far today Little E has eaten two fried eggs, bacon ("ham! ham!"), two pancakes with raspberry sauce, gingerbread ("biccies"), chips (also biccies), rice crackers (little biccies), miniature chocolate Christmas brownies ("cakey") and mountains of watermelon.

It's dinner time. She's tired. I need something fail safe. So here it is. Cook in the microwave cheese sauce to put on pasta, and a plate with some cucumber and tomato.

Microwave cheese sauce for pasta or potatoes or whatever else

1 heaped tablespoon of butter

1 heaped tablespoon of plain flour

1 cup of milk

1 cup of grated cheese

Chopped parsley or chives

 

1. Put the butter in a microwave proof jug or deep bowl and zap for long enough that it melts (30 seconds in our microwave).

2. Add the flour and whisk vigorously until it makes a thick, lump-free paste.

3. Add the milk a little at a time and whisk vigorously until the liquid is lump-free, scraping down the sides with a spatula if necessary.

4. Zap in the microwave for two minutes then take out and stir.

5. Zap another two minutes then take out and stir again (you may need to do this again depending on your microwave - it should be quite thick by this point).

6. Stir in the cheese, zap for a further 60 seconds.

7. Stir in the herbs.

8. Serve on pasta. Freeze the excess in small portions in sandwich bags or ice cube trays.

I've used it as the base for baked macaroni cheese and I reckon it would be good on baked/boiled potatoes. I've also seen recipes that involve baking leftover cooked rice with cheese sauce and cooked vegetables.

I would post a photo of the result but again it was served in the red Ikea googly-eye bowl and no one but a toddler would think it appealing. That said, our toddler just devoured her bowl of without complaint and demanded seconds - a happy household all round. We're set to repeat today's excesses tomorrow.

Merry Christmas wherever you are.

Christmas 2010

D and I elected to have Christmas at our house because we thought it would be easier than dragging E between several houses, or trying to get her to sleep anywhere other than home. So Mum, Dad, D's parents, Grandma, my sister (and, briefly, D's brother) came here for lunch.

Mum and Dad did their usual baked ham and pudding. Grandma made her special potato salad. D's parents brought a yummy prawn, avocado and bacon entree, a salad and an orange and almond cake. I was sorry that by the time dessert rocked around I was too full to even contemplate the cake on top of the pudding! (Although I compensated for that over the next few days!) Sister S brought all the ingredients for a jug of Pimms, and a very exotic and Christmassy-looking salad made with barley, pomegranate seeds, fetta and mint. D & I got off lightly, providing another salad, drinks, nibbles and ice cream to go with the pudding. We were all very well fed.

Part of the feast

Presents-wise we also all did very well. I keep joking that we need a new house to fit all of E's loot in, but it's not far from the truth. The presents quite dwarfed our little tree!

(Our compromise between something that E could not destroy and our usual half hearted attempt (a poinsettia plant with a few decorations)).

E thought the presents were pretty good, although so was the paper...


At about 4pm E decided she had had enough of visitors and fuss and excitement and threw a complete fit, chasing all the visitors out of the house. I'd given her a smaller than usual lunch, anticipating that she would eat enough other bits and pieces during the day to compensate. Mum minced some Christmas ham for her at home and brought it along, and E ahd a great time playing with that, although I don't think she actually ate much of it. She also had fun chasing bits of potato salad around her tray, but I also suspect not much wound up inside her. By 4pm I think she though we were starving her, but at the time I thought she was just overwhelmed. Half an hour later, after the visitors had all gone away and she'd had some milk, she was perfectly happy, and we had a nice end to the day playing with all her new things.

Note to self: next year we should spread Christmas over several days as that way we can avoid the drive between Mosman Park and the hills and also avoid everything all happening all at once.

NB: for those who are interested there is another version of this post on my other blog with more photos.

Creating traditions

I love the idea of families having special Christmas traditions. A friend's family has a day each December where they invite over as many people as want to come, everyone brings a rolling pin and biscuit cutters, and they churn out hundreds of gingerbread cookies. The host family winds up with enough that they can give them as Christmas gifts to all and sundry and everyone who attends goes home with a bagful.

One Christmas tradition my immediate family has is that of the Christmas pudding. It is really mainly Dad's tradition and he is the main cook. He and Mum have been using the same recipe for about 20 years. Pudding-day is late in November or early in December. The recipe makes two ginormous puddings that are far more than we could ever eat on Christmas day; fortunately they keep indefinitely (on occasion we have cracked the second one out for Easter!) The recipe calls for huge quantities of dried fruit, 10 eggs, flour, brown sugar and liberal amounts of brandy. We make it a gigantic ceramic mixing bowl. Everyone in the family must have a stir for good luck, if not immediately upon it being put together, then sometime that weekend.

It occurred to me that traditions can evolve organically - which is lovely - but sometimes if you want nice things to occur you have to put in a bit of effort and deliberation and kick start them. So the tradition I instigated this year is that of the tree decoration. D and I never bothered with a tree in pre-E days, we always just had a poinsettia with a few decorations. This year we had big plans for a "proper" tree but that was before E taught herself to crawl! The compromise is a 45cm $8 fibre optic number from Coles and it is placed well out of reach on a table top. In years to come I hope E will help with or be responsible for the year's addition to the decorations, but the photo at the top is my attempt this year (in recognition of E's complete bird obsession).

We also plan to take E to church on Christmas morning. We are not especially religious but both were taken to church on Christmas day as children (and D more frequently). I want E to grow up thinking that Christmas is about something more than presents even if I don't necessarily believe iin all of the Christian aspects of it. D and I both love the carols and hope that E will enjoy the spectacle of a Christmas service. That's the plan anyway.

What Christmas traditions does your family have?