Christmas Day Overload!

As we do every year on Christmas Day, we spend it with family.  This year was no exception!

One thing, however, that has changed is that we now have a child.  Well, we had one last year (just 3 weeks old in fact), but this year was different.  She is 1 and LOVES exploring and investigating, AND eating!

We headed up North of Auckland for Christmas lunch, and Phil made a simple, yet delicious pasta salad.

We have made this salad before and loved it.  The recipe (Food in a Minute) is for Spiced Hoki, but as the salad was so good by itself, we obviously ignore the Hoki part.

After lunch we headed back to Auckland to my parents house for dinner.  This time Phil had prepared (the night before) a yummy Apple Pie.  Actually the exact pie that is in our other post (Apple Pie & Home Made Pastry).

I'd love to say I had some input in what was made, but alas I didn't.

Surprisingly I do know how to cook, but things like that have taken a back seat now that we have a baby.  In saying that, Phil LOVES to cook, so I wouldn't deny him that pleasure!

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas ... here's to next year!

Apple Pie & Home Made Pastry

Phil has made this particular recipe several times, and it is a HIT!  He even makes the pastry from scratch ... did I mention this man is amazing!!!

The recipe for the Apple Pie AND the Pastry is on the Food Wishes website.  Chef John has some great videos, which are easy to follow and quite funny!  Although for this particular recipe, he calls pastry "pie dough" ... bloody Americans!! :P

Phil makes the pastry about an hour or so before he makes the actual pie - this is to ensure it spends enough time in the fridge to cool down.

One thing he has said time and time again is "people don't realise how easy it is to make pastry".  And it is true.  There are only 5 ingredients in it, and the major player is butter.  If Phil can do it, so can you!!!

Here are the links to the videos/recipe:

Apple Pie
Pastry

Phil's Pie ... OM NOM NOM

If you are making this for dinner, Phil recommends cooking it a bit in advance as it takes quite a while to cool down enough to eat.  Same goes for if you are taking it to someone's place - cook in advance so that the hosts only have to reheat it.

Serving it with vanilla ice cream or cream (or both!) makes it absolutely delicious.

Everyone who eats this will LOVE it.