Christmas Day 2010 was interesting. 4 Starters, 4 Main courses and 4 Desserts. Madness I hear you all say, and madness it was.
We normally do something different on Christmas Day as the parents are usually in Bangladesh, so we hijack their home for a 3 day sleep over and food-fest. This year as the parents were here for the first time in a few years, we (the children) thought we should make sure Mum doesn't have to go anywhere near the kitchen and do the cooking ourselves. The rub being that it is Come Dine with Me style.
My 2 older sisters, my little sis and bro and myself. Me and little sis are a team as we are not married, go figure. 2 older siblings are individual teams, little bro and his wife are a team also. This was going to be a very long day.
The few weeks before we finalised our menu.
Starter - Pigs in Blankets
Main - Jerk Chicken and a Mango chutney with roast Potatoes and Parsnips
Dessert - Profiteroles.
Christmas morning me and little sis were up at 9am to prep and cook. Due to the fact that both little sis and bro and wife live at the parent's place, we were going to have to share the kitchen. As they don't ever get up before midday, we got the short straw.
Cooking was fast, efficient and well... punctual. We were done by 12.15pm, I was impressed.
Mango Salsa Before....
Mango Salsa After.....
Jerk Chickens
Profiteroles
And after...
Bro and sis get in and are there for hours. And hours and hours. We didn't start eating until 5pm!
Let the carnage begin!
We all eat 4 starters, take a rest afterwards. We were starving at this point, so rushing each course was going to be a bad idea.
Starters done, Mains come along and the queue is long too.....
We eat roast duck, jerk chickens, lamb tagine, and Paneer tikka. What a belly full and we have not even looked at dessert yet!
Nice to see mum's plates are going to good use ;)
Then comes my favourite part of the menu, the desserts. Me and little sis make fresh profiteroles, older sis makes gorgeous falooda....
Second oldest sis makes Clementine tarts....
Little Bro and Wife make Black forest Cheesecake and Banoffee Pie
At this point, I must add that al my pics go a bit weird as I am so full of food that I am unable to focus, function and even move.
After all the eating is done, we get to scoring. My lovely nephew Fahim has been filming the whole event from the prep the night before right up to the presentation and eating. The scoring is done in secret and in one of the bedrooms so no one knows who has scored what. We had to make it fair and honest!
The scoring done, we come downstairs and show the hilarious results on the parent's TV. Just like the real show, there was bitchiness, cat fights and snooping. A bit of cooking, and much hilarity. The best and worst experience ever! A good little bit of the Islam family clan's history to be cherished forever.
Me and little sis are second, and the 3 other teams are all joint first. So we lost. But only by 1 point, so I do feel like it was a triumph none the less.
Labi, my oldest niece made a great certificate for us all to cherish. Unfortunately the pic is not letting me upload but will try another time!
The best prize of all was spending time with the family in a fun and exciting way. Christmas day will never be the same again.
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