As Christmas is fast approaching (only 2 months to go!) I thought it might be fun to host a blog hop about Christmas food. For me this is one of the most difficult times of the year to manage Oscar’s food because there are usually so many people involved and I can’t always influence the menu.
This is particularly the case with my husband’s family who insist on having Christmas lunch at a restaurant every year, and won’t consider having it at our home. His parent’s have to host Christmas, but they are not up to doing the cooking, so it is always at a restaurant. We’ve been pretty successful in eating out with Oscar now and finding OK meals or getting meals modified for him, but can you imagine asking for a special meal to be made for one child at one of those Christmas buffet things? Plus, I don’t think its fair that Oscar should have to eat something different when he’s with his family. Last year we tried to have Christmas lunch with hubby’s family and offered to cook lunch at his parent’s home. We arranged this about 5 months before and it was the plan until his sister booked a restaurant and effectively uninvited us. We ended up having Christmas lunch on our own, which was one of the best Christmas lunches I’ve had. All the food was Oscar friendly and it didn’t feel like we were compromising or missing out at all. Unfortunately we can’t be so anti social every year. (Or maybe we could? The thought has crossed my mind!)
This year we are having Christmas lunch with my family at our place. Our house is (hopefully) going to be demolished in January, so this will be our last Christmas (and celebration) in this house. It will be a lot of work, but at least I can control the menu and make sure that there is something for Oscar to eat that everyone else will also be eating. There will also be food that’s not suitable for him, but he won’t be eating something completely different.
Oscar has never had Christmas Cake, so this year my goal is to make an Oscar-friendly Christmas cake. I’ve been looking through my Nana’s recipes book (she has about a dozen Christmas/fruit cake recipes) wondering if I can modify any of them to use Oscar’s dried fruit and other ingredients. Last weekend I had a go, and here is the recipe I came up with, which turned out pretty good. There’s not much of my Nana’s recipe left (just the flour and salt unchanged), but the quantities and method of combining the ingredients are true to the original. Now, I just have to decorate it.
So to join the blog hop all you have to do is write a post about Christmas and food – it can be a story about your experiences, advice, a recipe or something else – and submit it through through the link below. The blog hop will be open until Christmas.
[gmc_recipe 2013]
Christmas Tree Image: luigi diamanti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Oh what a wonderful idea! I think I might submit two posts for this! Can’t wait to read what everyone has to say. Brilliant 🙂