Christmas is just around the corner! Let all the fun begin with planning the Christmas Menu for 2018. It would definitely be a Mediterranean Christmas Menu!
Christmas preparations have already begun with Christmas cookies. Like every year, the house and neighborhood will be surrounded by the smell of spices cinnamon, clove, rosewater, honey and of course butter. It is a tradition in Greece to make at least two kinds of cookies: kourabiedes (butter cookies) and melomakarona (honey cookies).
Keep them in huge platters and make them part of our Christmas decoration like in every traditional Greek home and offer them as a homemade Christmas gift. Treat the people you love with sweet Christmas wishes.
Butter Cookies aka Kourabiedes : These snowy white, insanely delicious cookies are so quick and easy to bake up and their taste will stick with you forever. My children love to dust iced sugar on them (along with the table and kitchen’s floor) and my favorite moment is eating them hot when they came out of the oven. Pure pleasure!
Honey Cookies aka Melomakarona : A healthier version of Christmas cookies. Dairy and egg-free cookies. Only honey, walnuts and olive oil (the sugar can be replaced by the natural sweetener of your choice) for those goodies. Don’t underestimate them. They will definitely amaze you with their flavor complexity. These cookies are bathed in a honey syrup which makes them so soft, delightfully melting in your mouth. Impossible to eat only one.
Now that the preparations are done and our platters are full of “cookies mountains”, it’s serious time talk.
Christmas Menu for 2018
I love the preparations and I am a sucker for testing new recipes for Christmas every year. Yes, it is the best excuse for extra cooking for foodies, food lovers or just passionate cookers. I cannot even describe the satisfaction of a successful new recipe and those eyes opened wide with the first bite. Gosh, I live for that moment. I really do.
In search of new ingredient combinations and flavors, every Christmas dinner is unique. Why serve the usual Christmas dishes like turkey with gravy and not surprise everyone (yourself included) with something new? Something out of the ordinary but still delicious, healthy, festive and … totally Mediterranean.
I have for you an amazing Mediterranean Christmas menu, a mix of traditional recipes and new Mediterranean cuisine dishes.
Go on and taste all the goodies without guilty or any kind of judgment and share those priceless moments with your family and friends. Sharing delicious food is the key to the Mediterranean way of eating. So make it memorable and recall the 2018 Christmas dinner for all the love around you and for the delicious food, of course. If you let my recipes be part of your memory, it will be such a great honor!
Mediterranean Onion Soup
This soup is the perfect starter for your Christmas dinner. Caramelized white onions, shallots, leeks bathed on white wine, beef or vegetable stock and crusty bread under a luscious layer of cheese. Truffle oil adds a bit of festive luxury that will be largely welcome. Not drooling yet? Your guests most certainly will.
Grab the recipe here
Cabbage Pear Salad
Cabbage, pear, raisins, prosciutto, and pomegranate. It is packed with fresh, distinctive flavors that enhances anything you serve with it. This cabbage salad is absolutely phenomenal.
Grab the recipe here
Prunes Lemon & Honey Stuffed Pork Loin
The pork is intensely flavored with succulent stuffing that is the perfect complement to a garlicky thyme rub and a bed of tender potatoes. Homemade pan gravy keeps the meat even moister and adds another layer of flavor.
Grab the recipe here.
May your table be rich, the food tasteful and all the joy surround you and the people you love.
Cheers,
Sylia
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