Happy New Year - and all that palaver.

Roulade with white chocolate and coconut mousse

All tucked up and ready for a snooze in the fridge before getting a slathering of Chocolate Ganache. (I removed the kitchen towel first).

All gussied up and ready for the big Christmas party.

I figure that once you're more than halfway through January, the obligatory "happy new year" that you sprinkle around on a daily basis, gets a bit - well stale.  Seeing is I'm coming through just under the wire, I figure I could do a wee post on my 'Christmas'* food shenanigans.

The centrepiece of 'Christmas' dinner was a questionably crazy, but ultimately successful attempt at a Buche de Noel. Alongside this we had:

1. Braised beef short ribs (family's favourite recipe that apparently I now must make every year)
2. Mashed sweet potatoes with goats cheese, truffle oil and crispy shallots
3. Roasted garlicky brussel sprouts with crispy bacon and maple syrup
4. Home-made bread
5. Oh yes, and 'christmas' cocktails (cranberry simple syrup and Prosecco) and plenty of Oregonian Pinot Noir with the meal

We were all too busy eating that it wasn't until afterwards that I had an "Oh sh$t" moment - with all the excitement I hadn't remembered to take any photos of the actual food to share with you. Take my word for it though, in my opinion (and in the opinion of ACB, Janette, Davida, Debbie and Donna) it was the ultimate.

The buche de noel with chocolate meringue mushrooms and peppermint bark was loosely based off of a Martha recipe found here:

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/birch-de-noel

One must always take the marvellous Martha with a pinch of salt though (e.g. when she says to buy a coconut, break it with a hammer, shave it with a peeler, curl it, bake it, grate it...you can also do as me and just stick some store bought coconut in a tin and place in the oven to slightly toast for 5 minutes).  I also didn't like the idea of a '7-minute frosting' as she has in her recipe - so after a bit of deliberation went with the gut - a chocolate ganache because really, worse case scenario you've got a bucketload of basically chocolate fudge.  This can only be a good thing, right?

*'Christmas' (in quotes) Also known as Christmukah- the American holiday that Jews celebrate.  The one with lots of food, presents, decorations, christmas carols, etc.  Just without the Jesus bit.