Starter for Christmas Day...Ideas??

A champagne cocktail or two if dinner is late.

Smoked salmon filled with soft cheese of various varieties served with a light leaf salad & lemon wedges and for the cold & hearty who venture to the pub they also have a choice of leek & potato soup if they want it when they get back indoors.

If any of my lot sneak off to the pub they'll get more than leek and potato soup when they get back!

Cannot imagine any of mine SNEAKING off to the pub, there is too much too do and we ALL LOVE getting stuck in and making the day enjoyable for one and all.

Large prawns, marinated for a while in lime juice and chilli, on cocktail sticks with cubes of mango. Not a starter really but great as a pre dinner nibble. Yummmmm!

When we ran pubs we loved Christmas Day lunch as we were only open for two hours but the place was packed and the atmosphere was great. We used to clear up then have Christmas lunch with family but we never opened in the evening.

Some nice thin soft brown bread with a little smoked salmon and sour cream just gets us ready for the bird, helped along by a glass or two of chilled bubbles.

A couple of years ago we had guests for drinks in the morning as well as house guests. The morning drinks continued into the afternoon and early evening and we all ate so many canapés and bits and pieces that we abandoned the goose destined for Christmas dinner that evening and I cooked it on Boxing Day instead.

As far as the starter is concerned, I think I made either smoked salmon mousse or chicken liver pâté with Marsala – both of which would have kept until our belated Christmas dinner. Whichever wasn't the starter was eaten as part of the day-long nibbling on Christmas Day.

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It's the end of January. Stop it!

Some grans like to plan ahead!

I like a nice salad of "Spam, spam, spam, spam��"

Soutra I think you might be stretching the truth there.

I did wonder who on earth would want to be bothered with this in January...

It's never too soon to start planning.
After all, it's nearly time to put the sprouts on

I've still got two packs of smoked salmon in the freezer if anyone's interested.

I have one from the Christmas before last - do you think the seagulls would like smoked salmon?

There was a young seagull called Rasta
Who chased kids to make them run fasta
So they threw him a chip
It got caught in his beak lip
And he now eats smoked salmon with pasta.

merlotgran