The feast before the feast

Every year, just before Christmas, we invite my husband's cousins over for lunch. It is traditional for us to have a cold buffet style lunch, but we sit at the table to eat it! Here is my dining room ready for the food. We started with Spiced Parsnip Soup which drew very favourable comments, but I forgot to take a photo!

I made a baked ham and roasted a turkey breast, both served cold.

We love to eat pickles with the cold meat, pickled onions, gherkins and beetroot. In the centre of the dish is the homemade cranberry relish which was delicious.
I made a few things from Delia Smith's Happy Christmas book, this is the Spiced Brown Rice Salad which was really tasty with a mild curry flavour and lots of bits of veg, nuts and seeds mixed through.
The pasta salad is simply pasta, sweetcorn and some cheese chopped into little cubes, dressed with mayonnaise.
This is Delia's Christmas Coleslaw which includes celeriac and an amazing dressing made with sour cream and garlic amongst other things. I wouldn't say I could taste the celeriac but the whole dish had a great overall flavour. I didn't get a photo but the whole thing was served with a green salad and roast potatoes.
I usually make a 'real' trifle which means no jelly (jello), just sponge soaked with alcohol, in this case cherry brandy, raspberries, topped with real egg custard and then cream and decorated with toasted flaked almonds. Delia's verision of 'English Trifle' is pretty similar to the one I usually make BUT she makes the custard with double cream :o and I have to say, it was fantastic! I don't think I can go back to the one I usually make with full cream milk.
I also served Apple Pecan Cheesecake, which I've shown on my blog before. The recipe came from Judy's Kitchen and is now a favourite of mine.

I've been asked for the link to the Cheesecake recipe you can find it HERE