Gourmet Christmas Menu

Feasting on Christmas delicacies is one of the most look after event of a Christmas dinner. What would be a Christmas celebration, if food is not a part of it? Most of the families arrange grand dinner parties at home on Christmas day. Near and dear ones are invited to enjoy the meal.

There will always be a time when you want to throw a party at your home and if you intend on doing it this year, here are dish suggestions that you can include in your feast. You can find both traditional as well as non traditional dishes suggested. All these are sure to add more moods to the festival of lights.

The tradition Christmas foods and drinks include Christmas wine, roasted turkey, eggnog, ginger breads, brownies, Chicken gravy, cookies, pies and casserole. Additionally you can include few of these items; Stuffed lamb, roasted beef or duck, smoked salmon or trout, egg salad, squashes of your choice, chocolate mousse, poached pears with walnuts and cabbage cooked in vinegar.

There are many options like bread and butter pudding, Creole aubergines, vegetable stew, fruit salad etc for vegetarians.

Only when you experiment you will be able to come up with new and different recipes. You can always experiment by introducing one or two new menus to the feast keeping all the Christmas traditional foods that should not be missed intact.

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How to save money when you go to restaurants

At Middlexpress, we like to give great advice to our favorite readers who happen to be foodies and sometimes they might want to go to a nice restaurant and have a great time with their friends or their family.

If I go to a restaurant or dinner, here are a few examples that could be helpful:

1/ Do your research: before finding the right restaurant, you want to check the reviews and why people like it or why they hate it

2/ Check the menu: you can now find menus of restaurants online. It’s easy to take advantage of that and find out if there are entrees you would like to order

3/ Take advantage of vouchers: use Net voucher codes or Restaurant Vouchers to get a great deal. There are tons of restaurants in your city that are looking for dinners because it’s low season and it’s your opportunity to have a great meal at a decent price with your friends and family.

It’s always a pleasure to have a nice meal with your friends but it’s even better when it’s at the right price!

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Play bingo and enjoy your family life

You might love bingo and you are not sure how to combine that with a quality family life. You might be tempted by the next bingo promotions or enjoy a great dinner with the family. It’s not that simple to combine both of them especially when you like going to the casino to play bingo with your friends or on your own.

Here a few tips to find the right balance between playing bingo or jackpot bingo and having a good time with the family:
1/ Communicate about your interest for bingo with your spouse and kids: you don’t have to make it a secret. If it’s a secret, they will be suspicious about it and it will be even worse. You don’t want that to happen. Communicate communicate communicate!
2/ Share the interest with them: explain what you like about the game and why you are excited about bingo. You can learn how to strategize in a game, learn from your mistakes and have some fun! There are some smart investors who play bridge (like Warren Buffett…) there might be a good reason why they like games!
3/ Bring them with you: bingo can be another opportunity to enjoy some great time with the family! That’s great news! Your spouse might complain that you don’t spend enough time with the family but in this case you would combine both!

It’s all about negotiation and having a great time together! Enjoy!

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Holiday Extras Bring Travel Glamour to London with the holiday Extras Customer Awards

In these times of economic downturn and doom and gloom it is always good to have a bit of cheery news along with a bit of glitz and glamour to bring us out of the doldrums!

This is just what the Holiday Extras Customer Awards have done for the travel industry over the last three years. The awards are run and organised by the online travel service website Holiday Extras, the site allows customers to use just one website to find and search out the best deals for the bolts-ons that are essential for the smooth running of your trip away, whether it be with business or if you are taking a holiday away with family or friends.

Holiday Extras pride themselves on being a company that you can trust to help you to cut through the multitude of companies that are on the web that claim to be able to help you with your travel plans. It is this reputation for having an honest and trustworthy business that has helped the Holiday Extras Travel Awards become so successful.

The awards have been stripped right back and Holiday Extras have gone back to basics and made sure that all of the winners are chosen by the voters who visit their site (the Holiday Extras Customers).

The categories look at things like the best overall airline and the airline that have the best cabin crew. This year there were twelve categories with two new ones being included. These were the categories for the best travel guide publisher (that was won by the Lonely Planet guides) and the category for the most inspirational travel film (which was won by the cult film Shirley Valentine). Holiday Extras already have plans to add new and interesting categories next year as they expand the awards.

Here is a list if of the best performing travel companies from 2011:

- Best Airline: Emirates

- Best Airline Cabin Crew: Emirates

- Best Airline for Value for Money: easyJet

- Best Airport: Belfast International

- Best Airport Car Park: Edinburgh Park and Fly

- Best Airport Hotel: Gatwick Sofitel

- Best Airport Hotel Restaurant: Manchester Premier Inn

- Best Airport Lounge: Edinburgh Servisair

- Best Airport Hotel for families: Manchester Premier Inn

- Best Airline for Travelling with Babies: Virgin Atlantic

- Best Airline for Travellers with a Disability: Virgin Atlantic

- Most Inspirational Travel Film: Shirley Valentine

- Best Travel Guide Publisher: Lonely Planet

The awards this year were a lavish affair that saw celebrities and the top people from the travel industry attend and come to together to celebrate the crème de la crème from the travel world.

The ceremony was hosted by the well-known travel writer and radio presenter Simon Calder and with such a prominent celebrity from the travel industry lending his name to the awards, it is clear just how much weight these awards hold!

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5 tips to pair drinks with food

When you think of preparing a dinner for your friends or family, you want to pair with good drinks (alcohol or non-alcohol drinks). It’s not that simple though.

Here are 5 tips to help you out to pair drinks with food:
1/ Be aware of the ingredients: if you prepare meat with a specific sauce, you will have to take that into consideration to prepare a cocktail. Do you want your cocktail to be bitter or sweet?
2/ Too much liquid can kill the taste: Liquid is complementary of your food but this should not replace food. If you start drinking too much liquid, you will completely your taste and you won’t be able to enjoy your food.
3/ Try different liquids: there are so many liquids you can mix, try different things! You could try wine (Grosset Wines, Innocent Bystander Wines or Villa Maria Wines) but also cocktails done with fruits, fruit juices,… Try different things and you will see that you can mix lots of great things!
4/ Listen to experts: check out different food websites with great middle east recipes to get recommendations from experts. There are passionate about what they do. With great reviews, you will be able to prepare a nice meal!
5/ Enjoy your moment: It can be painful to prepare food and mix it with drinks but be prepared to enjoy it! You will have a lot of fun if you are ready to have fun!

Enjoy!

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