Christmas food overload!

Christmas has been and gone for another year, leaving in its wake a mouthwatering mountain of food and drink to be consumed in these languid days between Christmas and New Year. My own efforts in the kitchen contributed to our magnificent food mountain; on my first day of the holidays, I made the Christmas biscuits I blogged about last year and wrapped them in cellophane and ribbon to go in each person’s gift bag:

But it was a fortuitous retweet on Twitter that gave us an unexpectedly wonderful start to our Christmas food fest. I won the most amazing Christmas hamper from a French restaurant in London called Boulestin, and it was so exciting that I just had to blog about it. I had it delivered to the in-laws’ house as we were going to be out, and we went round in the evening to collect it and I had such fun opening it and discovering the treats within.

In the first layer there was loads of fresh fruit and nuts – apples, grapes, pineapple, oranges, a melon, lychees, plums, kiwi fruit – from Premiere Fruits Catering. I kept some for us and shared the rest out amongst the family, as we’d never have got through it all ourselves!

There was also a pot of Stilton courtesy of Paxton and Whitfield.

My favourite of the fresh things, though, had to be this – a whole side of delicious Hendersons smoked salmon from Wright Brothers. We had a little bit of it as a starter on Christmas Day, but it’s so substantial that I’ve divided the rest of it into three and frozen it for future treats.

Underneath that layer of goodies was a further layer of fantastic treats, the most significant of which were TWO magnums of red wine from Fine Fizz and Wine and Berkmann Wines. I’m so excited about these. I’ve never had a magnum of wine, and now I have two! I’ve earmarked them for housewarming parties (if everything goes to plan with our forthcoming house move!).

There were also two bottles of fizz – a Collet rose Champagne from  Fuller, Smith and Turner and an English sparkling wine from Gusbourne, which also came with a fancy corkscrew and stopper. On top of that there were three non-alcoholic beverages in the form of these beautiful-looking juices from Classic Fine Foods, who also sent various other treats including Valhrona chocolate, Huilerie Beaujolaise oils and vinegars and a pot of lobster rillettes.

Also on the oil and vinegar front was a box of Forvm wine vinegars (with a Roman theme!) from Georges Barbier and these bottles of balsamic and oil from Belazu, who also sent balsamic pearls and Rose Harissa paste.

On top of all that, Tecfoods sent jars of cherries and artichokes. I feel thoroughly spoiled, and it was all in a lovely big hamper that I’ve already designated as a suitable linen basket for our new house.

So that was a fab start to our Christmas! I hope you all had an equally lovely Christmas and I’ll be back soon with another post now that I finally have some time to write!