Christmas food

Time to catch up on some recipies that I have enjoyed cooking over the holidays. Christmas in my tiny family is very low-key and simple. We like to go walking and we like to eat. Sometimes we watch a film. That's about it for three days.
We had our main meal and presents on Christmas eve so we could have a good day out on Christmas day. I was pretty tired and uninspired so I went for a simple dinner - family favourite of polenta and roast veg. I use quick-cook polenta, cooked up with lots of butter and dried herbs. I sometimes put in a teaspoon or two of sundried tomato paste. To this I add a good panfull of shredded cabbage which has been gently fried in oil and a couple of cloves of garlic. Stir in lots of grated cheese - I'm a cheddar fan, but purists might prefer parmesan, but my mum hates it so that's never an option. Put the polenta into a shallow oven dish and pop in the oven while the veggies roast.
My choice of vegetables varies - this time I think we had red peppers, red onion and courgette, with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. In the past I have made a nice chunky sauce of mushrooms with a little cream.
Pudding - now, this was a new experiment. I have been enjoying tiny slivers of a wonderful middle eastern cake that my friend makes. It's based on a Claudia Roden date cake, from the Book of Jewish Food, but Claire's version has figs, apricots, pears and all sorts of other dried fruit in it. Basics are:
250g dried fruit
200g ground almonds
200g sugar
2 eggs

My version was:

250g dried figs, finely chopped and soaked overnight in water. Drain and mix with the almonds. Instead of sugar I added a tablespoon or so of maple syrup and the eggs. Stir it all up and put in a loose bottom cake tin (line base with greaseproof paper) and bake in a medium-hot oven (gas 6) until it looks done and is no longer gooey in the middle.
Claire's sugary version is fudgey and sticky. My version was more solid and cakey, and a lot less sweet, but still delicious.

To make this into a Christmas treat par excellence, I made a real egg custard to go with it. I haven't made custard in years - I used to make Tiramisu when I was in my late teens, and the custard recipe I use is from Italian Vegetarian Cookery by Sara Heathcote Laing. This is the only cookery book that I have kept over the years. I bought it in about 1992 and it's nice and sticky.
Her recipe is:
1/2 pint milk (I used skimmed)
1oz cornflour
1 egg yolk
vanilla flavouring (I used a vanilla pod with some seeds scraped out and added in)
Just under 3 oz sugar.

I used maple syrup in place of sugar, adding it to taste. It gave it a lovely rich flavour and it went down a treat. yum!

It didn't occur to me to take any photos of any of this. Another time, foody friends.