kandos Christmas – CONVENT AND CHAPEL

A good year to be gone, but it ended well.

My girls were here for another Convent Christmas -this time a pretty lazy one. No big roast dinners and hours in a hot kitchen on Christmas Day. This year it was seafood and salads – grilled lobster tails, blue swimmer crabs and prawns and the inevitable glazed ham – with salads to let us have lots of easy meals afterwards.

Dessert of course was pavlova and a raspberry ripple ice-cream made with ricotta – just yum and has lasted well.

Smoked salmon carpaccio served with homegrown micro herbs. Looked much more vibrant in real life.

Hayley left before New Year taking bags of veg garden bounty back with her whilst Aimee and I had an extended break, sampling the local cafes and a few more low key meals at home, including what is becoming one of my favourite pantry/fridge meals – salmon carpaccio. Another low maintenance meal of finely chopped smoked salmon mixed with other finely chopped goodies such as cornichons, caper berries, spanish onion, capsicum, tomato and coriander and served with toasted triangles. A light refreshing dinner or entree anytime.

To start off the year, I made something I haven’t done for ages – a cake! A lovely butter cake with apples in the middle and on top. The apples are lightly stewed in a sugary syrup which is reduced and poured over the warm cake and also used as a sauce. Just yum – I must remember to bake more often.

Anyway, the Christmas break is coming to and end with the family all returning to Sydney and I’ll be back at work shortly. It’s been a quiet time but great to recharge the batteries and here’s hoping for a more positive 2016.

One of the many great things about country towns is the community spirit and how well locals participate. Kandos has this in spades. Everyone enthusiastically embraces events, the markets and …competitions. There appears to be two competitions in particular worth driving around town for – the Christmas lights and the mail box challenges.

These last two were a pigeon pair, next door to each other – two for the price of one. Note Santa and his reindeer sliding down the roof.

This year my daughters drove us around as we snapped just a few of many Christmas decorated homes – some people go the whole hog – reindeers (or kangaroos) pulling sleighs on roofs, lots of Santas attempting chimney drops, fully outlined houses, we couldn’t capture the snow storm on camera … but you get the picture. Some people go full out and it’s a lot of fun to see. A few other cars were also pulling up with us so we weren’t the only ones doing the viewing rounds.

Anyway, here are just a few. Unfortunately some didn’t photograph so well and the girls didn’t seem quite as enthusiastic as us in driving around the streets! The Convent on the other hand was far more subdued with the usual Christmas tree lights however the Grotto has fairy lights which is a nice touch.

More reindeer – we missed the kanga’s pulling the sleigh on another roof.

Tag: kandos Christmas

Farewell 2015

Merry Christmas, Kandos Style