Christmas Dinner – what does it look like in your home? Turkey with all the trimmings? Not in our home I’m afraid. We’re a bit untraditional in our house when it come to Christmas Day food. In fact I’ve only actually had Turkey on Christmas Day twice in just over 30 years. We’ve had duck, beef, salmon en croute, prawn linguine, Sri-Lankan curry, a Chinese banquet and more. For us it’s a chance to have whatever we really fancy having, buy quality ingredients and make it a special meal.

This year my husband has worked over most of the Christmas period, he was home on Christmas Day but working from home. Due to the nature of his work it could mean you just plate up a meal and then the phone rings….that’s that….cold dinner. So we wanted to keep things simple this year. Having spent Christmas in Spain before my husband requested Paella. His wish = my command!

Having looked through a few recipes I took bits from all of them and as always followed none of them but created my own version. We used saffron plus a special Spainish paella mix (brought over from Spain), chorizo, chicken, prawns and mussels along with the essential rice plus peas, peppers and mushrooms. Easy to cook, keep warm in case of phone calls and lots of left overs for baby dinners and Boxing Day. Here’s a photo of it cooking. It was so tasty that we only managed paella…no dessert, no chocolates, nothing till cheese and wine in the evening 🙂