I hope everyone is having a nice holiday season. Me? I’m cooking and eating a lot. And not running so much. You know what that means…. it means I’ll have to start running a lot to get rid of this extra holiday flab. Same story all over the western world I think. We eat and relax and eat again!
Above is a photo of my chocolate and vanilla tart, with chocolate leaves. Doesn’t that look pretty? It was pretty tasty too. On Christmas Eve we met with a group of friends, 16 of us in total, and each household had to bring a course. We, as usual, bring dessert. I made the above tart and a carrot cake. I’m especially proud of the chocolate leaves, although actually it’s dead easy to do. Melt some high quality Swiss dark chocolate (70% or more). Go outside and get some small leaves that are still in good shape. We have a Wisteria out back which sheds leaves much later than other trees so there are still a lot of green leaves on the ground. Gently brush chocolate on the BACK of the leaves and put them in the fridge for 10 minutes or more. Then paint on a second coat and chill again. Be careful not to get chocolate on the front of the leaf. When it is hard and cold carefully peel the leaf off and voila! Chocolate leaves.
I have a load of food photos from the past week. I took photos of food we ate in Cologne (we were there for 2 days), food at Christmas, and just food everywhere. I forgot to take photos of the Swiss dinner we hosted two nights ago. DB’s family came over and we had cheese fondue and raclette and we kept to the traditions of those foods. Thank goodness no one insisted in putting broccoli in the cheese fondue.
Here are some food photos from the past week:
Now I’ve made myself hungry. I’m off to the kitchen….