Making Christmas a Highpoint

Our Christmas celebrations started early this year.

With two of our closest friends planning an overseas trip over the Christmas period, we decided to have an extra early Christmas dinner with them last weekend.

Roast turkey

Roast potatoes

Roast pumpkin, Meredith goats cheese & rocket salad

Chocolate mousse with brandied berries

Gastrology were invited by Jess from MANGO to visit Highpoint’s new Fresh Food Market and were generously provided with a $50 voucher to use at the Fresh Food Market and a $25 voucher to use at Melbourne Fresh Meats which we put to good use (along with quite a few extra dollars from our own hip pocket) to purchase all our Christmas dinner ingredients.

Thankfully the dinner was a huge success. We were very pleased with the quality of the produce from both the Fresh Food Market and Melbourne Fresh Meats. Here are the recipes we used to prepare our Christmas dinner. They are all very simple and easy to follow. Enjoy!

Recipe: Roast pumpkin, Meredith goats cheese & rocket salad

Ingredients

• ¼ pumpkin (from the Highpoint Fruit and Vegetable Market)
• 6 'squares' of Meredith goats cheese in extra virgin olive oil (from Go Vita)
• 200 grams of rocket (from the Highpoint Fruit and Vegetable Market)
• 1 small red onion (from the Highpoint Fruit and Vegetable Market)
• 2 tablespoon good quality extra virgin olive oil (from Yes It's Fresh Deli)
• 1 tablespoon good quality balsamic vinegar (from Yes It's Fresh Deli)
• Salt
• Pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 220 degrees celcius.
2. Place chopped pumpkin on a baking tray lined with baking paper, drizzle lightly with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
3. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until golden.
4. Meanwhile, in a small bowl whisk good quality extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar until combined and season to taste.
5. Very thinly slice the red onion.
6. In a large bowl toss the pumpkin, sliced red onion, rocket and crumbled goats cheese together gently. Drizzle with the dressing.

Recipe: Roast turkey and gravy

Ingredients

• Roast turkey (7.5kg turkey from Melbourne Fresh Meats)
• Butter (from Yes It's Fresh Deli)
• Good quality extra virgin olive oil (from Yes It's Fresh Deli)
• Corn starch
• Salt
• Pepper

Instructions

We bought a fresh turkey that was ready to cook. So all we did was lightly brush the turkey skin with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and pop it into the oven, following the instructions on the pack.

For the gravy, we saved the turkey juices and turned it into a lovely gravy by reducing the liquid in a pot and adding rosemary, a spoonful of butter, dissolving one tablespoon of corn starch and lastly, adding salt and pepper to taste.

Recipe: Roasted potatoes

Ingredients

• 1 kg chat potatoes (from the Highpoint Fruit and Vegetable Market)
• 3 sprigs rosemary (from the Highpoint Fruit and Vegetable Market)
• Good quality extra virgin olive oil (from Yes It's Fresh Deli)
• Salt
• Pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 220 degrees celcius.
2. Remove leaves from the rosemary sprigs and chop finely.
3. Place chopped potatoes on a baking tray lined with baking paper, add rosemary sprigs, drizzle lightly with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
4. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until golden.

Recipe: Chocolate mousse with brandied berries

Ingredients

• 200g good quality dark chocolate, chopped
• 20g butter (from Yes It's Fresh Deli)
• 3 organic eggs, separated (from Yes It's Fresh Deli)
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar
• 1 cup (250ml) pouring (single) cream
• Berries (from the Highpoint Fruit and Vegetable Market)
• Brandy
• Icing sugar

Instructions

We used Donna Hay's chocolate mousse recipe. 

The recipe says that it is for 2 people but when we doubled it for our party of four, it was far too much! I would recommend halving this recipe for two, or using it as is for four.

Instead of the raspberries that Donna Hay uses in her recipe, we served the chocolate mousse with brandied berries which were very easy to prepare. We mixed icing sugar and brandy to taste, then allowed the berries to soak in this mixture for about 4 hours.