Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and is looking forward to the new year!! I know I am!!!

We had a lovely Christmas Day with lots of good food and surrounded by friends. In fact, we even had two Christmas meals in a day!!! Christmas lunch at our friend's place and Christmas dinner at our place!! I'm sure all of us were in some sort of food coma that night!!!

Anyway, for the first time ever, I've decided to cook a traditional Christmas meal, sort of. This was our menu:

• Christmas Honey and Marmalade Glazed Ham
• Bread Rolls
• Coleslaw
• Potato Bake (cooked by my dearest friend)

I actually bought the leg of ham from Woolworths just a few days before Christmas and was frantically looking for recipes on how to glazed a ham as I've never done it before. I think I was a little bit too ambitious and was stressing myself at the same time with "What if it doesn't turn out ok?", "What if it taste yuck", and so on. Did I tell you I've never made bread rolls before too? I was trying to do a lot of things from scratch with my new Thermomix and I'm just glad everything turn out ok!!!

Also, all three of the dishes that I prepared were all made with my Thermomix. I must say, it has been used quite a lot lately and I'm absolutely loving it. It definitely has to be one of my best purchases for the year 2014.

Last but not least, happy new year to all of you!!! Wishing you lots of love and happiness. Thank you Lord for blessing me with a wonderful husband, my lovely daughter Sabina and another baby on the way. Can't wait to start the new year as a family of four.

My Latest Kitchen Gadget: Thermomix TM5

Yes, I've jumped on the Thermomix bandwagon and I'm really glad I did. I've been wanting one since I attended a demo quite awhile ago when they were still selling the old model. My dearest Mum decided to give me her Thermomix since she hardly uses it and I used that opportunity to trade it with a brand new model TM5.

I placed my order in the beginning of October and it was an agonising 6.5 weeks wait for it to arrive!!! Boy am I glad when it did arrived and guess what I cooked as our first meal a few days later?

I knew what I wanted to cook as my first meal after I attended my second Thermomix demo as I was completely blown away. It was the Salmon Velouté Meal. I love that dish so much because you're actually cooking 3 dishes at the very same time!! You get a really nice potato and leek soup, a side of vegetables, and the beautiful Salmon, served with a lovely sauce. Even Sabina loves this dish!! She kept asking for more!!

Since I had my Mum and Sister with us at the same time, I decided to cook the Chilli Mussels with Thyme and Tomatoes, and also prepare the Lemonade drink. It was a total hit among my family.

I can't wait to try out more recipes with my new gadget. What's your favourite Thermomix recipe?