Taste Gourmet’s Holiday Essentials Kitchen Planning Guide

To make the season a bit brighter and a little easier, we've collected some of our favourite all-purpose tips to help you better enjoy your time in the kitchen this holiday season.

Start with a Clean Slate
Before bringing home your holiday groceries, it's best to de-clutter your kitchen, pantry, freezer and refrigerator. Finishing off leftovers and discarding past-its-prime produce will leave room for all of your fresh holiday favorites. Cleaning your kitchen counters to ensure plenty of work space is helpful too.
Checking It Twice
Review your recipes and check your pantry carefully to help create an extensive shopping list.
The more items you pick up on your first few visits means fewer added trips later on when the shops are really busy.
The Right Tools for the Job
Cooking for more than your household this holiday? Additional guests equal more food, meaning larger pots may be needed along with extra dishes and utensils. Take stock of your supply and pick up or borrow any needed tools before you start cooking.
Make Ahead
Cooking ahead could mean the difference between harmony and havoc. You can start your holiday meal a week in advance, giving you more time to enjoy family and friends and less last minute stress. Desserts are often perfect for making ahead and roasted vegetables, casseroles and stuffing can all be fully or partially prepared ahead of time as well.
Think Big
Sometimes you may be using the same ingredients in various recipes - onion in the stuffing as well as in your favorite casserole, for example. Review your recipes and prepare all of the onion, garlic, cranberries, nuts, etc. at the same time.
Everybody Does Their Share
Cleaning up is easiest when you have help and when you keep up with it as you cook. Try taking a clean-up break every 30 or 45 minutes. Enlist a family member to help (cookie bribes might be necessary) and tackle the job together. Remember that added guests can mean added garbage too. Have clearly labeled recycle containers available and place multiple garbage receptacles strategically around the dining and kitchen areas.
Maximizing Oven Space
Dishes competing for oven space can be tricky. Here are a few tips:
Adjust cooking temperature and time for dishes such as root vegetables and stuffing to find an appropriate common temperature. In general, foods in glass and ceramic baking dishes can be cooked at 15-20 degrees lower than what a recipe calls for. When cooking a lot of dishes in the oven at the same time, make sure to leave enough space between dishes for hot air to circulate.
While the turkey, ham, roast or other meat is resting before carving, warm prepared casserole dishes, vegetables and rolls in the hot oven. Try roasting potatoes, warming casseroles or even roasting the turkey on your barbeque.
Thank Goodness for Leftovers
One of the joys of being the holiday host is having delicious leftovers available for subsequent meals. Here are a few tips to help make sure all of your wonderful food goes to good use. Clear the table and put the leftovers away as soon as you finish eating. Prepared food shouldn't remain out longer than two hours to ensure food safety.
Share the wealth. Have disposable containers available to easily pack leftovers to send home with your guests. If you stuff your turkey, be sure to remove the stuffing before storing the turkey leftovers. In general, refrigerated leftovers should be used within four days. Too much for that time frame?
Freezing is a perfect solution. Frozen leftovers will have the best quality if used within two to four months.
Be sure to properly seal leftovers in airtight containers before freezing in order to avoid freezer burn. Consider storing leftovers in portion-size containers to ease reheating. Take your leftovers and make new, exciting dishes from them

For first-timers or seasoned pros, putting an elaborate holiday meal on the table for family and friends can be daunting, to say the least.
Not to worry, we’ve included some of our favorite tips for Meal Planning for serving a wonderful meal while staying calm, cool and collected.

MEAL PLANNING

• Make Lists: Santa's not the only one who makes lists. It can be challenging to keep all the details of your holiday meal in your head, so we suggest that you get into the habit of creating lists and checking them twice. Write your lists at least two weeks ahead of time, allowing you to add more items as they pop up. Here are a few quick suggestions:

• Guest List: Write down your guest list so you have an accurate idea of how many servings you need to prepare - then add a few extra servings for last-minute guests and leftovers. As you select your recipes, review for serving size and double or triple the recipes as needed.

• Menu: One of the most fun lists to create! Write down all of your traditional favorites and any new twists you want to try. After the meal, you can come back and write notes to yourself about what worked and what you would change for next year.

• Shopping List: With menu and recipes in hand, making up your shopping list is a breeze. Remember to check your spice drawer for any holiday favorites you need such as sage, thyme, cinnamon and nutmeg. Dried spices lose their potency and freshness within six months to a year from the date they are first opened, so spices you used last year may need to be replaced.

• To-Do List: This one should include items such as "create a centerpiece" and "polish the silver" and "vacuum the house." Write this one up in time to get a couple of things crossed off every day for the week or two leading up to the big day.

• Cooking Plan: Looking at your menu, put together a two or three day cooking plan. What items can be prepared ahead without a loss of quality? Cooking a turkey? Make sure to plan time for thawing. Also, plan ahead for Christmas Eve dinner so you can focus all of your cooking energy on preparing holiday dishes.

• Accept Help:There seems to be a false perception that if you host the big meal, you have to prepare everything yourself. Not so. Big holiday dinners are all about sharing good food with family and friends and the stress of constant cooking need not be a side effect!

• Practice Makes Perfect:This adage couldn't ring truer than when it comes to planning a big holiday meal. If you are planning to prepare new dishes, a practice run may be in order.
  

SOME OF MY FAVORITE RECIPES TO HELP!

Three Citrus and Mustard Glazed Whole Ham
Serving size: Serves 12 with lots of left overs
Preparation Time: 30 mins
Cooking Time: 1 hour 30 mins

• INGREDIENTS

• 6-8 kg Simply the Best Leg Ham on the Bone
• 1.5 cup Taste Gourmet’s Three Citrus Lime Lemon and Orange Christmas Marmalade
• 4 teaspoons Simon Johnson Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoon water

• (Ingredients in bold available at Taste Gourmet)

• WHAT TO DO:

• Preheat the oven to moderate (180 degrees C). Cut through the rind about 10cm from the shank end of the ham in a decorative pattern.
• To remove the rind, run thumb around the edge of the rind just under the skin. Start pulling the rind from the widest edge of ham, continue to pull the rind carefully away from the fat up to the decorative pattern. Remove the rind completely. (Reserved rind can be used to cover the cut surface of the ham to keep it moist during storage.) Combine the marmalade, mustard and water in a small saucepan, stir over a medium heat until melted.
• Place the ham on a wire rack in a large baking dish; pour a little water into the dish. Brush the ham with the marmalade glaze. Cover the shank end with foil. Bake in a moderate oven for about 1 hour 30 minutes or until browned all over, brushing occasionally with the glaze during cooking.

Christmas Roast Turkey with Cranberry & Macadamia Stuffing with Gravy
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 220 minutes

• INGREDIENTS

• 30g good quality butter
• 4 bacon rashers, rind removed, finely chopped
• 1 brown onion, halved, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 140g (2 cups) fresh breadcrumbs (made from day-old bread)
• 55g (1/2 cup) macadamia nut halves, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 cup Dried Cranberries, rehydrated,
• 1 Taste Gourmet Free Range Egg, lightly whisked
• Salt & freshly ground black pepper
• 6kg (size 60) fresh or thawed frozen turkey, neck removed
• 50g good butter, extra, melted
• 2 tbs plain flour
• 250ml (1 cup) dry white wine
• 250ml (1 cup) Chicken Stock
• (Ingredients in bold available at Taste Gourmet)

• WHAT TO DO:

• Melt 20g of the butter in a frying pan until foaming. Add bacon, onion and garlic and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until onion softens.
• Transfer to a heatproof bowl. Add the breadcrumbs, macadamias, cranberries and egg and stir until well combined. Season with salt and pepper. Preheat oven to 180°C.
• Rinse the turkey inside and out under cold running water. Pat dry with paper towel. Fill the cavity with breadcrumb mixture.
• Tie the legs together with string. Tuck the wings under. Place turkey, breast-side up, in a roasting pan.
• Brush with extra butter and cover with foil. Roast in oven, basting every 30 minutes, for 3 1/2 hours or until juices run clear when thigh is pierced with a skewer.
• Transfer turkey to a platter. Remove string. Cover with foil and set aside for 15 minutes to rest. Strain the pan juices into a heatproof jug.
• Melt the remaining butter in the roasting pan until foaming. Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until mixture bubbles. Gradually add the pan juices, wine and stock and cook, scraping the pan with a flat-edged wooden spoon to dislodge any bits that have cooked onto the base, for 5-6 minutes or until gravy boils and thickens. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Strain into a heatproof serving jug.
• Place the turkey on a large serving platter and serve with gravy.

Getting in Touch with Your Inner Chef

Hi there, well, we've been talking about it for a while but we have finally made it happen - our new blog will be weekly and will mostly be all about great food and coffee.
There's so much great stuff happening in the food world right now it's hard to know where to start.
But the topic on the lips of all of my customers, family and friends is Master Chef. Everyone has their favorite, and their least favorite, everyone has fancied themselves at cooking one of the contestant's dishes, everyone has a favorite judge and a story to tell.
Master Chef has really grabbed our imagination. Channel 10 used it to replace it's long running Big Brother franchise and the show has really delivered - in rating and in taking it's place in the local food culture. And there has been not too much cringing as some of the country's leading chefs line up to feature them or their kitchens in front of the cameras.
While the show differs in format from the US and UK versions and has adopted a few "reality" show stunts such as peer elimination and bringing back ousted contestants, there is no doubting the impact it is having on all kinds of food lovers.
In our store and cafe, customers are choosing the food from the menu that is similar to that cooked on Master Chef - after Justine cooked lamb shanks for the sailors of HMAS Kanimbla, we served more lamb shanks in a day than we normally do in the week.
When the judges ran their Master Class for the contestants and used Persian Fairy Floss to garnish a dessert, our stocks of Pariya Persian Fairy Floss - all flavours - sold out. Just for the record - we have new supplies in stock - Chocolate, Saffron, Pistachio, Vanilla and Rose. (This a a glorious product, definitely for the grown ups, not for the kids though.)

This fabulous product is made by Sydney based Pariya Foods and is part of a huge range of traditional Middle Eastern confectionery and sweet meats which they made by hand to traditional recipes. The Fairy Floss is a perfect garnish for many desserts and can elevate a simple home cooked dessert to looking and tasting very special. It's not necessarily a cheap product, but it's wow factor makes it a very worthwhile investment for the pantry. .. Anyway, I digress.
Customers have also been demanding really good quality extra virgin olive oil (of which we have a good selection) and a wide variety of spices. I also saw Sydney based reports of utensils such as pasta makers and piping bags selling out of quite large kitchen supply stores.
It led me to finally doing something I had been talking about for a while; we've started a regular bi-monthly publication - called Get in Touch With Your Inner Chef - Taste Gourmet's Food and Recipe Guide. First one focuses on winter and contains some great information on the basic products you need to have in your pantry to get you cooking each night of the week.
We also look at some of the common but misunderstood gourmet food products such as Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Verjuice, Salt Flakes, Vinocotto and Balsamic Vinegars. And we have heaps of recipes suing these products. Our first edition also features many of our Italian products and even shows how to cook your pasta the Italian way. The Guide is free and we will be publishing new editions each two months, the next one will feature Spring recipes and in December we will focus on the festive season with Christmas recipes, tips and information.
So far, for the first edition, we have printed over 800 copies and they are proving very popular.
But there is also a much bigger picture here. Worldwide, since the start of the Global Financial Crisis, there has been a massive increase in people cooking at home, taking cooking classes, buying cooking and kitchen utensils and in buying cook books and subscribing to food magazines. The national supermarket chains have also reported increased sales and have begun publishing recipes for "budget" meals in their weekly specials catalogues.
Foodweek.com.au reports that research by Mintel shows that the recession is definitely driving up food and drink sales and that we are indeed cooking more. Mintel Senior Analyst Bill Patterson says over the past year we have seen people trying to save money on food by either dining out less or cutting supermarket bills or both..more people cook at home more..
The Global Financial Crisis is helping us find a way back to the kitchen, and better still not only are we cooking more, we are interesting in cooking well, in creating high quality semi-restaurant quality meals, in using great quality fresh products and ingredients, and in experimenting with new tastes, flavours, tastes and techniques. It's nice that something good came out of the GFC.
And it helps to partially explain why we are sitting addicted to Master Chef SIX nights a week in prime time.
But is does beg the question - what will we do each evening when it finishes in a couple of weeks time? Maybe our inner chefs will drag us back to kitchen to start practicing what we have been watching..