Easy Christmas Entertaining From Provender Brown!

Quick & Easy Festive Canapés

They say first impressions count the most, so make sure you welcome your friends and family with some tasty bites. Also great for parties leading up to the big day or for munching while you tackle the wrapping!

• Smoked salmon on blinis with crème fraiche and lumpfish caviar
• Croustades filled with Little Herb Farm Sweet Thai Chilli Chunky Dip with Cashew Nuts & Parmesan, finish with a Sweety Drop pepper and a garnish of snipped chives
• Croustades filled with Beetroot & Rosemary Hummus or Taramosalata - they are both fabulously vibrant in colour, so alternate the rows for a great visual effect. (V)
• Duck Mousse with Tracklements onion marmalade on canapé sized oatcakes.
• Les 3 Toques mini pastry cases with a roll of Venison Salami, Crowdie cream cheese & cranberry sauce.
• Spanish rosemary and olive oil biscuits, topped with with good quality Artichoke or Tomato Bruschetta. (V)
• Peppersweet mini peppers stuffed with soft cheese – buy from the deli counter, drain off the oil and they’re ready to go.  If you want to be posh, stick them on a cocktail skewer.
• Cooking Chorizo & Piquillo Pepper skewers – slice up cooking chorizo, fry until it has good colour and pop on a skewer with a slice or piquillo pepper (available ready cooked and sliced in tins).
• Mini Cooking Chorizo on a stick - dead simple but yummy
• Goats Cheese with Tracklements Fig Relish on Sfoglie biscuits - warm gently under the grill before serving
• Odysea Aubergine Meze on Extra-Virgin Olive Oil biscuits (vegan, GF, DF)

One of our go to resources for canape ideas is the Tracklements recipe page.  Really imaginative and super easy, we managed to agree on a top three to save you looking!  Click the links to go straight to the page. 

1. Mustardy Bacon-wrapped Cocktail Sausages with Prunes & Apricots – we recommend using chipolatas & streaky bacon from Puddledub.
2. Camembert & Hazelnut Parcels with Tracklements Christmas Spice Chutney
3. Cranberry & Brie Tartlets – save time and use Les 3 Toques mini pastry cases

Drinks For Your Canapes

For Christmas Day it has to be champagne and you’d be hard-pushed to beat Charles Heidsieck.  From the original Champagne Charlie, and the smallest of the Grandes Marques, these wines are elegant, beautifully balanced and captivatingly complex.  They’ve also won a shower of awards over the years, often seeing off the better known champagne houses.  Charles Heidsieck Brut Reserve Champagne

If however you have a houseful, you might understandably be looking for something a bit cheaper!  If you're looking to avoid the sweetness of Prosecco, check out our Gambellara Monopolio Durello Spumante instead.  It's made in Northern Italy and has a fresh saline minerality with delicate aromas of papaya and plums and at £13.75 is incredibly good value.

Christmas Day Starter Ideas

Prawn Cocktail may be traditional (and we insist on Tracklements Proper Tomato Ketchup in your cocktail sauce) but you really should try the offerings from Inverawe Smokehouse. We'll be stocking a wide range of their smoked fish and pates, but if you see something of theirs that you like, don't hesitate to ask! We'll happily order it for you. 

• Inverawe Smoked Salmon – What we love about Inverawe is the quality of the fish is what you taste first and foremost. A slow and gentle cold smoke over oak chips imparts a subtle smokiness to the fish, which retains a supple and tender texture. The fillets come pre-sliced in ribbons, so, to serve, simply drape, coil, or roll your ribbons on a plate, and make sure you've got plenty of Dill Mustard Sauce, Cultured Butter, and good dark bread alongside! An optional garnish of dill sprigs or chives will add a bit of colour and freshness.   
  
  
• Inverawe Smoked Salmon Mousse with Trout Caviar - a very special treat of delicate smoked salmon mousse with Trout Caviar gently folded in. This makes for a delicious and dramatic presentation; simply serve as is, or place into your favourite mould and garnish. An easy but stunning starter for grand dining, one which everyone will love. To serve, just add light melba toast or crusty bread.
  
  
• Pear, Date & Walnut Salad with Stilton Dressing - perfect if you're catering for vegetarians or would just like something a bit lighter.  We can testify to the BBC Good Food website a great resource for recipes, which is where this one came from - recipe here >

Wine For Your Starter

Elle loves the Martin Codax Alba Martin Albarino, it's crisp, dry and refreshing, makin

g it perfect with any seafood dish - in fact it's what all the Spanish are drinking whilst consuming our Scottish seafood!

The Best of British Turkey Trimmings

We may not be the place to go for a bird, but we can do all the trimmings with plenty of style! When it come to big occasions like this, it's often best to keep things simple. Nigella may not approve, but sometimes we just don't have the time to be making everything from scratch, especially when the likes of Tracklements have created such tasty alternatives!

• Puddledub chipolatas - plain or gluten free chipolatas
• Puddledub Streaky Bacon – smoked or unsmoked streaky bacon
• Tracklements Cranberry, Port & Orange Sauce
• Clement Faugier vacuum packed cooked chestnuts
• Pancetta – smoked or unsmoked pancetta
• Duck fat – for the tastiest, crispiest roasties

Wine For Your Main Course

Don't be afraid to serve red wine with your turkey.  The full-blown turkey dinner with all the traditional sides is full of flavour and complexity, and can work well with a medium-bodied red with relatively high acidity and not too much tannin. 

Michael is a fan of the Jean-Claude Boisset Bourgogne Pinot Noir (£25), an excellent red Burgundy from the Côte de Nuits.  The fruit for this wine comes from vines that are an average of 40 years old, ensuring that the quality of the blend is far higher than that of a standard Bourgogne.

If you prefer something more traditional with your turkey, then Ed recommends the Mancy Macon Villages Les Classiques.  A  well-balanced, elegantly fresh white Burgundy, it is medium bodied fresh and fruity, with good citrus acidity balancing the orchards fruit flavours.  Although it's not her favourite, it's from Martine's neck of the woods, and at £17.99 it represents excellent value for money. 

Cheese Board Heaven

The choice is yours, but we managed, after heated discussion and debate, to land on this mix. Make sure to top it up with plenty of Tracklement’s Spiced Christmas Chutney, Peter’s Yard Sourdough Cripsbreads (Martine's favs), Fine Cheese Company Crackers for Cheese and your favourite oatcakes. Complete with a scattering of nuts, grapes and fresh figs, and everyone will think you’ve morphed into Nigella!

• Colston Bassett Stilton – is there any other? A perennial winter favourite.
• Mont d'or– more commonly referred to as Vacherin, this seasonal cheese from the Jura Mountains gets its unique flavour from maturation in Norway Spruce, and is soft, oozing and lusciously delicious!
• St Andrews Farmhouse Cheddar -  a buttery yellow cheese with a creamy texture which is slightly harder and denser than a typical cheddar. It's aged for 9 to 12 months for a bold flavour and a well rounded lingering finish.
• Alp Blossom - this Alpine cheese is covered in dried flowers, which bring a lovley pop of colour to the cheeseboard.  It has a beautifully creamy and nutty flavour with a spicy and floral finish.
• Blackmount Raw Goats' Milk Cheese - a sharp, herbaceous goats' milk cheese, Blackmount has a wonderfully complex flavour and dense, fudgy texture, zesty. This little ash-coated pyramid is also a cheeseboard stunner!

Pair with Port

A great way to finish would be with a Tawny port from Sandeman - either the Fine, or if you want something special, go for the 20 year old, or the Offley LBV. The decision is normally helped by how long you wish to keep your port.  Tawny lasts much longer in the opened bottle due to its oxidative process. So if you intend to nurse your bottle, go for tawny or if it’ll be gone by 1st January, try the Offley LBV; both are fantastic examples of the different styles. 

• Sandeman Fine Tawny Port, £16
• Sandeman 20 Year Old Aged Tawny Port, £40
• Offley LBV Port 2011, 75cl, £22.50

And Then Later....

Does anyone actually ever have room for more come this point? No... but we'll always stuff in a wee mince pie or a slice of cake!

We have two differnent sizes of mince pies from Maclean's Highland Bakery - cocktail mince pies or full-sized mince pies, both delicious (I should know, i've been munching my way through the bashed ones sitting outside my office!).  If you prefer something more continental, we have Stollen, either from Germany or from our very own Wild Hearth Stollen Sourdough Bakery here in Perthshire, Lebkuchen and Pfeffernüsse.

Food For Christmas Eve or Boxing Day... Or Any Other Night You Fancy!

If anyone still feels like eating on Boxing Day, we have no shortage of goodies to supplement your leftovers with quiches, terrines and pates, smoked fish, chutneys, pickles, breads.

For easiness - and that's what we're all looking for, let's be honest - we've created a new Grazing Selection which comes bagged at £45, or boxed at £55, and has everything needed to whip up the perfect grazing platter in next to no time. Cheeses, charcuterie, olives, chutney, crackers and oatcakes with delicious white chocolate cannoli to finish off. Just add wine!

Now, where did I put those elasticated waist trousers!