Christmas BBQ at 76

We did it! We pulled it off like a couple of amateurs who rarely stayed more than 30 minutes in their kitchen but spent Christmas eve night marinating meats till Christmas Day itself!

This Christmas, kw and I hosted our first barbeque back at our new place, inviting just our families, close friends and a couple of pugs. I’m crossing my fingers, hoping this is the first of many to come.

Are you feeling festive yet?

Do the lights turn you on?

No? Ok… how about these DIY menus?

Naturally our zealousness landed our guests with loads of food. For the barbeque, we prepared kalbi beef shortribs; BYOB (Build Your Own Burger) with beef patties from Culina, streaky bacon, lettuce, tomatoes and either cheddar or emmental cheese; garlic chili chicken; saba shioyaki and sweet potatoes.

A hunk of yogurt-marinated leg of lamb that we grilled in the oven.

Or maybe actual humans? 

Don't worry, you will get to see more of them later.

We were super duper thrilled by the turnout. I don’t know how many of you suffer from this but whenever I organise something, I have an acute phobia of last-minute no-shows (shudder). And something even more amazing? There weren’t that much leftovers.

Our mums prepared stuff too. Kw’s mum whipped up a cold potato salad this time round. I should have taken a picture of it – the radishes had faces carved in them!

My mum brought along smoked salmon and pomelo salad, as well as stir fried vermicelli with braised leg of pork aka ter ka bee hoon la.

Just a fraction of the spread as I was too busy making sure I had enough to hibernate over the monsoon season taking care of the guests.

Desserts were a contributed effort with yang baking gingerbread cupcakes with cinnamon buttercream and candy cane frosting … there were only 9 of these rare commodities.

My elder sister brought along an apologetically soft strawberry shortcake from Patisserie Glace that suffered slightly on the journey over.

Diana whipped up an apple crumble with a killer crust.

Taboo brought out the competitive spirit in many of us. It is never just a game.

Team #2 vs. Team #1 aka Team W-i-n-n-e-r-s

In the spirit of Christmas and snatching giving, we had a $20 gift exchange done Secret Santa-style.

Karl and his cupcake luggage tag which he was remarkably unnerved by.

Zhu with her NERF gun and Diana with a robot that matched her outfit.

Zee and the most practical gift I have seen so far; Jansen with a gift that matched his macho-esque physique.

The NERF gun showed us it only takes a plastic gun and 2 foam balls to make a uman sacrifice out of Andrew.

Definitely the first of many Christmas barbeques to come!