Christmas Come Dine With Me

Every year, my best friends and I have a girlie Christmas dinner which we have been doing this since we were old enough to drink in pubs.... which makes twelve years of Christmas girlie dinner hangovers! We always used to go out for a meal and then as we all started to get our own places we took to cooking Christmas dinners ourselves, but the saying 'too many cooks' springs to mind and too many times we ended up being very tipsy very quickly and dinner being forgotten.

This year we decided upon something different. We are all fans of Come Dine With Me so thought that we would have our own CDWM style Christmas dinner. We couldn't do it the same as the TV series with going to each others house for 5 nights so we opted for cooking a course each.

We were due to pick the courses from a hat, but in true 'us' fashion, we left it too late so it was a scramble over email as to who wanted to do what. I ended up dessert which suited me as I figured most would be drunk by the time we get to eating it and my score would be higher thus, I would win. But it isn't about the winning - it was the taking part that counts!

The menu was as follows:

Canapes: Caramelised onions and mozzarella puff pastries, brie and cranberry filo parcels, smoked salmon and prawns with cream cheese bites, roasted tomatoes and cream cheese bites, prawns with Thai green curry dip and pitta bread with homous

Verdict: All were very very yummy! A lot of effort went into the preparation and there were plenty of options. I gave Peta a score of 8

Starter: Laura went the extra mile and presented the starter on a scroll, complete with coffee stains! There was even a bottle of Chianti to complement the very tasty bruschetta.

Verdict: Delicious! The home-made pesto was mouth watering. I rated this course a 9 due to the amount of effort and the nice little touches.

Main Course: Chicken Thai Green Curry and Tofu Thai Green Curry with sticky jasmine rice and noodles

Verdict: Very impressive home-made Thai paste, clearly a lot of effort (which we were reminded about by Jade and Anna with stories of their exhausting shopping trip and hunt for green chillies!) The curry flavour was as good as any I have eaten in restaurants. However, I did score them at a 7, my reasoning being because I felt they could have impressed more with the presentation (oooh get me and my opinions!) I also commented that I thought the rice was 'too sticky', clearly the 3 bottles of wine were beginning to show they pointed out that it was meant to be sticky jasmine rice!

Dessert: Christmas Sticky Toffee Pudding with chocolate toffee sauce (courtesy of twitter friend @scooby867)

Verdict: Well, I won with a score of 25/30. I impressed with my presentation - a light dusting of icing sugar and a decoration grabbed off my tree. I also got higher scores due to the chocolate sauce; not being able to eat chocolate myself I made two versions which meant everyone was happy! Thankfully, Jade who is 4 months pregnant has a very sweet tooth and is craving puddings.. I knew I was onto a winner!

Me and my pudding!

It was a great evening and everyone put a lot of thought and effort into their courses. The videoing of our comments and scoring was hilarious, particularly as the bottles of red disappeared. We never got to see Peta's score for the main course, she turned the video 'off' to record her score then on again as she left the room, so there was twenty minutes of a mattress. Great viewing! But not as good or as funny as the other tape I found in my camcorder case. Rewind back to 2004 to another girlie night in and a very drunken one at that. We laughed so hard at how young we looked, how I seemed to be dressed in men's clothes, our attitudes and our dancing skills: Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace - eat your heart out! There were a few parts that pulled my heart strings, the fact that I claimed that I was going to get married in 2006; I remember feeling that my life was so planned out. I am now thankful that it didn't turn that way.

Saturday night was fantastic, not only was the food amazing but the nicest part was all being together and being able to catch up over several bottles of wine. Getting together like last night proves more and more challenging as we get older due to our work commitments, lack of time and everyone busy with partners and moving on to the next stage of their lives.

Good times.