A Vegetarian New Year’s Feast

A dear friend was visiting from Canada over Christmas, so a bunch of us booked a cottage in an orchard to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Any excuse is a good excuse to plan a feast, so I put together a menu and we all pitched in to make dinner. Everything was delicious!

First up, PIMMS! Made with the a mix of lemonade, ginger beer and soda water, because I like it that way.

Ottolenghi Baked Pumpkin – One of my Mothers made this for Christmas lunch and it’s heavenly. Check out the recipe here.

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Ottolenghi Raw Vegetable Salad – I can’t find this on his website, but it’s in the wonderful cookbook, Plenty More, and another website has published it here.

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Kale Slaw – This was a salad of my own invention with kale, red cabbage, spring onions, red capsicum, my home made pickled carrot & daikon, black sesame seeds and a sesame / soy / rice vinegar dressing

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Steamed Kipfler Potatoes with butter, rosemary, chives, parsley & thyme – the recipe is in the title.

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Here’s the table set (with bonus cobs of corn, roasted in their husks on the BBQ! and a tub of lime & garlic aoili because of course.)

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IMG_5345We had a cheese plate for dessert- Comte, Washed Rind, Ash Brie, Manchego, Blue Dauphinois & Chevre, complete with peaches and some honey mead from the orchard we were staying in. Incidentally, if you’re looking for a cute place to stay south of Sydney, Darkes Cottage on AirBNB was well equipped and cosy, with delicious produce and friendly staff. It’s about 15 minutes drive to Stanwell Tops Beach.

Finally, gratuitous holiday snaps, instagrammed for maximum blue sky. Please enjoy how sun-safe my pals are: