It's Christmas Eve!

Simon and I send you all the best over this time of year - hope you're not spending too much time in the kitchen!

Reviving the Dead Inside You!

Chicken thighs - 500g, cut into large nuggets, dusted in flour

Teriyaki Sauce:

2 tbs Kikkoman Soy Sauce

2 tbs mirin

1 tsp honey

TO COOK:

Pre-heat a frypan, add a tablespoon of oil, toss the chicken in and move the chicken around the pan until it's cooked.

Pour in the sauce and keep stirring - until the sauce is thickened, glossy and reduced. Serve immediately on rice.

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There is nothing my kids love more than a fire-roasted potato, wrapped in foil and eaten with lashings of butter and salt when huddled next to the tent on one of our camping trips.

But what about when there's a Total Fire Ban and you can't have a fire?

Or what about when you get back to the city and you're still craving that Camp Life?

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Yumi is a bit triggered by positive talk about alcohol and a bit triggered by the "dirty" in "dirty martini" - but there's no booze in Simon's recipe for a dip that you can put together in less time than it take for a friend to text and say, "I'm coming over!"

DIRTY MARTINI DIP:

Take a jar of good quality stuffed green olives and decant them into a powerful blender

splash in a bit of the brine

Add a tablespoon of cream cheese or Greek yoghurt

Squeeze of lemon

Pinch of garlic powder

Pulse to a tapenade texture

SERVE from a Martini glass with an olive on a cocktail stick for decoration

WARM CHEESE STRAWS:

Take a sheet of thawed puff pastry

brush with beaten egg

scatter with your favourite leftover cheese, something sharp

season with salt and pepper

(Simon doesn't say this but I would also add sesame seeds)

FOLD IN HALF

Slice into strips

Give the strips a little twist and spread them on a tray

Bake in a pre-heated 200C oven and cook for 12 minutes. Serve warm.

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WARNING:

Yumi loses it trying not to laugh when Simon uses the word "jazzy".

Christmas season means LEFTOVERS.

And honestly, it can get a bit grim.

The fridge is overflowing with food from Christmas and you're absolutely sick of it ...but also, it needs to be eaten!

BEFORE Christmas even arrives, let's pre-empt the leftovers with some thought starters and a recipe.

FESTIVE FRITTATA

Ingredients:

Veg leftovers

200-250g of leftover turkey or ham

6 eggs whisked with 1tbs milk

salt and pepper

some cheeses

In an oven-proof, heavy-based frypan, warm up the veg, get them crisp and heated and reactivated for yumminess.

Add in the finely chopped leftover meat

When ready, season the eggs with salt and pepper and pour the egg mixture over the leftovers in the pan.

Dot cheese around the pan or add a big grating of it over the top. Leftover fancy Christmas cheese is perfect for this.

Put the lid on the pan and leave it for 4 minutes, or until the edges are looking set but the top is wobbly. Set the whole pan under the pre-heated grill for 5 minutes.

Allow it to rest.

Serve wedges of frittata with a squeeze of lemon and some fresh herbs.

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Yumi is not into consumables and plastic crap as gifts.

Because don't you reckon everyone you love already has the things they need? Why buy them something that will probably end up in landfill?

If you *REALLY* want to give gifts, how about money? We'll take some!

Failing money, a wonderful gift is something home-made. A card, some bikkies, or *THIS* beautiful, vivid and amazing-looking raspberry jam.

I took the main bones of the recipe from The River Cottage but added pectin, which you can find pretty easily in mainstream supermarkets.

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TO MAKE MY CHOCOLATE COATED STRAWBERRIES

Prepare by

1. Washing, drying and hulling the strawberries
2. Checking there's space in the fridge for them
3. Lining a flat tray with baking paper then lightly spraying it with cooking oil

I use an ALDI block of dark chocolate, melted in a metal bowl over a pot of boiling water. Simon blasts his in the microwave in ten second increments until it's perfect.

I then roll my prepared strawberries in the chocolate using two wooden skewers.

Use the skewers to lift up the now bathed-in-chocolate strawberry and place it carefully on the tray you prepared.

Allow to firm up and serve within 24 hours.

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Yumi and Simon are getting into the spirit of Christmas preparation on your 5 Minute Food Fix! Now is the time to start envisioning your perfect meal. So...

SIMON'S MONSTER BRUSSELS SPROUTS

Halve 500g of Brussels Sprouts, toss in 2tbs of good olive oil and sprinkle with salt, then roast them in a hot, 230C oven for 15 - 20 mins.

In a mixing bowl, toss the now cooked and charred sprouts with a tablespoon of your favourite chilli crisp oil, and a teaspoon of soy sauce and/or rice wine vinegar. At the end, toss through a handful of chopped roasted peanuts or sesame seeds.

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Yumi and Simon catch up with each others' Christmas plans and while Simon will be a guest at someone else's soiree on Christmas Eve, he plans to bring this amazing Panettone ice-cream dessert which will be both AMAZING, and really easy to make!

Allow 1L of your best quality vanilla ice-cream to soften on the bench for 10 mins.

Meanwhile, crumble up a 300g mixture of inside soft bits and outside crusty bits of the Panettone you have that's getting a bit tired.

Stir these through the ice-cream, along with half a cup of chopped nuts, eg., pistachios, half a cup of dark chocolate chips, and a quarter to half a cup of glacé fruit like cedro. Add half a teaspoon of orange zest and a splash of amaretto.

Smoosh it into a lined loaf tin and smooth the top and get the whole thing back in the freezer.

TO SERVE:

Slice the loaf into neat slices. Garnish with crumbs of Panettone or, Simon's suggestion? Some microwave-softened PISTACHIO CREAM.

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What is not to love about some of the weirdly specific cookbooks out there?

You're going to hear about one that Yumi found that is so weird, and so niche, she will obviously never cook from it! Lol.

THEN, there is the wonderful 'Tomato' by Claire Thompson. The book is a celebration of this wonderful ingredient and all that it can do, and from the book a recipe that is now officially Yumi's Summer Fling / Crush, and yes, we will be having it over and over. (I even dehydrated a version of this without the fresh mint and took it hiking. It slapped.)

PEEL 1kg of fresh tomatoes.

(Do this by marking criss-cross in the bum of the tomato with a sharp knife, dunking the tomato for about 30 seconds in a pot of boiling water, then dunking the tomato into an ice bath. The skin should come off easily after this,)

Fry up 2 cloves of garlic in 2tbs of oil. (I skip the garlic.)

Add in a chopped fresh red banana chilli or 2.

Add in the peeled, loosely chopped tomato.

Season well with salt and pepper.

Cook down for 12 minutes. In the last 30 seconds, add 1/2 tsp mint.

TO SERVE: Spoon the tomato mixture onto a lipped platter. Fry up 2 more tbs of good olive oil with 2 more cloves of chopped garlic, add in 2 tbs (I add a lot more: 1/3 cup) of pine nuts. Drizzle this mix over the top, adding in as much freshly torn mint as you want.

PS. I discovered this dish exists in Sami Tamimi's wonderful cookbook 'Falastin' as a dish called Galayet Banadoura that is pretty much exactly the same, including the need to peel the tomatoes!

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On one of Yumi's hikes, the hikers went bananas for Gemma's Cheesy Vegan Kale Chips, based on this recipe.

The question was: Would the yumminess translate to home?

Good news is:

YES!

So with a fair bit of pride, Yumi wants to share her version of the recipe, which leans into her love of spice (and allergy to garlic and onion):

YUMI'S BEST-EVER CRUNCHY VEGAN "CHEESY" KALE CHIPS

Prepare 1 big bunch of good kale, washed, dried and torn off the inedible spine in big pieces

In a food processor or blender, mix:

400g cashews, soaked for a couple of hours or overnight

100g nutritional yeast

2tsp flaked salt

100ml macadamia oil

1 tsp ground white pepper

1 tsp chilli flakes

1/2 tsp ground ginger

60 ml water

zest and juice of one good, juicy lemon

Massage or wipe the cheese mixture onto every kale leaf. This is a long and somewhat tedious process so before you get your hands dirty, have a podcast ready. (Can I recommend 'Ladies, We Need to Talk'?)

Spread each leaf out onto your drying racks or oven tray. They dry better if not clumped together and not folded or scrunched.

In a dehydrator: on the highest setting for about 10 hours.

In the oven: at 120C for around 2 hours, but check. Some spots on the trays will be hotter than others.

Store the crispy chips in an airtight container.

Any leftover cheesy mix can be stored for 4 days, or frozen until needed.

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