- You know, you can't go wrong with a trifle.
It's the desert that brings everyone around the table.
- It's food that I grew up with,
and it's food from my heart,
and it's what makes me happy.
(dramatic music)
- Not loving it.
Gonna go a five.
- Whoa, this guy's a savage.
- I think I'm screwed.
- [Woman] Change your name to Zeta Grace Morgan, honestly.
- Zeta Grace Morgan Scott.
- [Woman] Zeta Grace Morgan Scott.
- Actually.
- [Narrator] Fresh food, great produce, epic desserts.
I am so excited, it is the festive season.
- I absolutely love Christmas time.
It's summer, it's hot,
and all you do is eat and drink and relax.
- But, do you know what?
It doesn't have to be something that costs an arm and a leg.
You can actually make a Christmas feast
that looks like a million dollar dazzler on a budget,
and today that's what we're here to show you how to do.
So, the rules for today's challenge.
We're going to be given a budget of $99
to create an epic Christmas feast to feed a family of six.
- Our feast must feature a starter, a main, a side dish,
and a delicious dessert for $99.
- And, of course, afterwards,
two experienced Buzzfeed taste testers
will taste each course, giving them a score out of 10,
crowning one Christmas feast the ultimate winner.
- $99 doesn't feel like a lot of money.
I'm curious, what are we gonna get now?
- Yeah, I feel like it's like, one turkey or something.
It's gonna be really filling.
- And, I'm skeptical, like, how do you even do that?
Under a hundred bucks?
If I'm not like, incapacitated at the end
of a Christmas lunch, then like, why did I even go?
- If we're not, zero points.
- No points for anybody.
- Yeah.
- Time to hit up the supermarkets.
Okay, we found Aldi, got my calculator,
got my shopping list, bag, let's go.
I'm going to split up my shop between Aldi and Woolworth's.
$1.35, (inaudible).
Chicken breast filets.
- Today, I'm sticking to one supermarket,
and I'm going to Woolworths.
Everything I need is there.
Let's just hope I don't go over.
Got my trolley, I've got my plan.
To begin with, I wanted to use proper lamb,
but it's just too expensive.
So, I need lamb mince.
I want to buy a kilo.
The plan was to buy one packet,
I'm buying two packets of mince.
My budget plan today is to just buy the home brand stuff,
$3.50,
but I will not buy crappy eggs.
I'm gonna get the organic eggs.
It's for my custard pies, and they're $4.40.
- I'm looking looking for burrata,
but it's clearly not available here.
Very specialty item, I'll have to get it from Woolies.
- $3.23 that's not in my budget.
I'm gonna put it in the trolley,
might have to pull it out if we don't have enough.
(upbeat music)
- Oh my God.
They sold out of panettone.
Online, it was $5 at Aldi,
but I'm going to have to get one from Woolies,
and I don't know how much they cost there.
I'm going to have to sacrifice some ingredients.
- I am so going to go over budget.
- $40.54.
$59 left.
Time to hit up the second supermarket.
I'm getting all the items I couldn't get before.
(upbeat music)
- Oh my God, it's up to $50 already.
- The last one.
- Oh, do I want dill?
Dill or fennel seeds?
Two cents off.
Didn't get my fennel seeds.
$98.98.
Let's get cooking.
- I just spent $44.20.
So, with Aldi, that brings it up to $84 and around 74 cents.
I need to find the panettone and the burrata.
I'm stressing hard.
- I am so confident,
and I know that Woolies home brand stuff are amazing.
- Okay, got the burrata, very specialty item, so glad.
Hey, I got a panettone.
Time to get to the Buzzfeed kitchen and start cooking.
I got everything under $99.
- For starters today, I'm going to make baked olives,
I'm doing a fennel tzatziki,
and a delicious yogurt rosemary pita bread.
This recipe, you'll actually find in my cookbook.
I'm going to put my plain flour in the bowl,
baking powder, salt, pepper, chopped rosemary,
add my Greek yogurt,
stir it all up until you've got a gorgeous dough.
Then, I'm going to place some flour onto my surface,
and roll my pita bread out.
After that, we're going to fry the pita bread
in an olive oil in a frying pan until crispy.
Yum, I love this bread, it's my absolute favorite.
To make my baked olives, it's so simple.
You drain your olives, pop them in a pan,
rosemary, chopped chili, strips of orange zest,
and strips of lemons zest, olive oil,
and pop that in the oven, and you've got beautiful, warm,
baked olive with citrus flavor, and a little bit of chili.
And, to finish off my starters,
I'm going to make a delicious fennel tzatziki to pair
with the yogurt bread.
This is the perfect way to start a Christmas feast.
You dip everything together,
like you're in Greece,
and it's just yum.
- It looks really homemade, which is obviously-
- [Coops] 100%.
- [Tom] better quality bread when it's home made.
- [Coops] There's some Christmas love went into this.
- I don't like the yogurt, but the bread is really good.
- There's this beautiful like, shock of lemon in a good way.
I didn't think olives could taste better
than just being olives,
but this is somehow proving me wrong.
- This is better.
- I think it's that citrus twist.
- So the bread is awesome.
Not a fan of yogurt, just personally.
The olive's are pretty good.
So, I'd have to give it a six.
- I could see myself on like, a sweltering summer day,
eating this.
I'm going to give it like, a seven.
- So, for my feast today,
I'm planning on making a modern Australian trendy menu.
It's going to be refined,
and it's to have a touch of Italian cuisine.
So, to start off with,
I'm planning on doing a homemade focaccia
with burrata on fig jam, and salted tomatoes.
I need to make the focaccia,
this is going to take the longest,
but also this is going to be one of the cheapest items
I'm making today.
I'm just going to mix some water, yeast and sugar together,
and then I'm going to incorporate some flour
and let that rise.
I'm adding that into a pan and then it's going to expand.
This is the fun part.
I get my hands sort of like piano keys,
and just press in all the dough,
bringing out all those air pockets.
Okay, I'm going to add some rosemary on top,
to make it feel nice and festive,
and add some salt because salt makes everything better.
To make the burrata,
I'm just simply going to do a homemade fig jam.
You cook that down until it gets really thick and sticky.
This is going to look so fancy.
I'm going to make a nest and place the burrata on top there.
Okay, the last thing I'm putting on is salted tomatoes.
A pallet cleanser, light and fresh. It's amazing.
All together, this would definitely feed a family of six.
I'm so happy with the plating.
- First course, I'm really liking the look of this.
- A lot of good elements, a lot of good colors.
The focaccia we have to have with the buratta, I think.
- Oh, you reckon?
- Should we build a little like, mound?
- Hey, you do you, man.
You do you, boo.
I'm doing...
I need to just go raw.
- Actually, yeah, you're right,
we've got to taste it just on it's own first.
- Yeah.
Homemade, we love a bit of homemade.
Okay, pretty good, pretty good.
- [Coops] That's so good.
- Real solid.
- I'm going to have to get stuck into this burrata now,
because that is probably going to be my favorite part
of this.
- It's like a dessert.
Why is is sweet?
- That's the point.
- You might as well just eat jam.
- No, we're going to have to disagree on this one.
- It's just warm jam.
- Those tomatoes are so good.
- The tomatoes work quite well
because it sort of cuts through all the sweetness.
- Great start to meal.
It's going to get a seven out of 10.
- I really liked it, it's a seven and a half.
- For my main course today I'm serving lamb keftedes,
which means meatballs cooked in sauce.
Mince, feta, parsley, salt, pepper, yum.
We're going to roll the meatballs into ovals.
We're going to pop that into a baking dish,
and it's going to have the sauce at the bottom
with the meatballs on top,
pop that in the oven, bake it, done, yum, super easy,
and super, super comforting.
The sides today,
we're going to make crispy, lemony, garlic potatoes.
Boil your potatoes, pop them on a tray.
Lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper,
roast them, and you've got beautiful, lemony potatoes.
So, we've got our zucchini chips.
We're going to slice the zucchini chips,
place them on a tray, salt them,
remove all that moisture from the zucchini.
And then, we're going to dip them in flour, salt, pepper,
and fry them in olive oil.
And, we're going to dip those zucchini chips
in some garlic yogurt.
Everyone can share, and that's what Christmas is all about.
- All right, so we've got the main and the sides.
- Smells great.
- Oh, the sauce is really nice.
- Yum, I could literally eat like 10 of these,
and I'd be in trouble.
This is meeting our criteria.
- I would just down this in a second.
- [Vikki] Lemon potatoes.
- [Tom] They're kind of fancy.
- [Coops] This dip looks phenomenal.
- Oh, quite juicy.
- It's an art form.
- Weird to say, but it is quite succulent.
I think because of all the lemon,
and it's really crispy as well,
so it's just like a good quality, like, home cooked potato.
- A succulent lemon potato.
Should we get around these little zucchini boys?
Okay, I'm looking for a good amount of like crunch in these.
That's really important.
(mouth crunching)
And, there it is, ladies and gentlemen.
- Yummy, (inaudible).
- They're like seasoned to the nines,
and with the garlic sauce.
- I love it, it's really delicious all around.
Besides the yogurt.
I'm happy to give this a really high score.
I'm going to go mince.
- It's 100% a 10 out of 10,
just so flavorsome and delicious.
- So, for my main, we're going a bit rogue here.
I'm going to do a giant chicken schnitzel,
sort of joining it together in a kind of Frankenstein way.
So, to make my chicken schnitzel,
what I need to do is get chicken breasts,
I'm going to cut that open and make it really flat.
And then, I'm going to connect it with some toothpicks.
Really that simple, I've used three chicken breasts.
Now, I need to crumb coat it.
So, I'm using some flour, eggs and some bread crumbs
with Parmesan cheese worked through it.
It's going to be absolutely delicious,
and just give it more of a summer vibe.
Of course, chicken schnitzel goes perfectly with coleslaw.
So, I'm making a rainbow slaw.
It's nice and healthy,
it looks fresh and vibrant and colorful,
and it's just going to add a pop to the table.
So, to do my side,
we're doing something that is a little bit
of a Tik Tok inspired dish.
I'm making air fryer corn ribs.
You get that corn,
and then you put it in an air fryer with some miso butter.
You air fry it for 15 minutes, nice and simply,
don't even have to watch it,
and it's going to come out perfectly.
I feel really proud of this.
This isn't something that you would typically have
at Christmas time,
but I think the sheer size of it makes it feel festive
and makes it feel like a statement,
and that's what you want with a Christmas feast.
- There's literally like, 10 chickens in that schnitzel.
- Chicken's are cheap.
It's a smart decision by this chef to go with the chicken.
Salad wise, look, not loving it.
- It could work with the rest of the flavors.
- Nicely salted, crispy.
- It's one of the most beautifully seasoned schnittys.
- [Tom] Cold slaw.
- Mm, it's like I'm eating like,
a little pork rib, but it's corn and it's delicious.
- If you like corn, it's actually pretty good.
- It's where it's at.
Corn on the cob, we got a little corn rib.
Cornucopia.
That was actually a really good joke.
(both laughing)
- The schnitzel's nailed it, but the other things,
even though there's enough of it,
I don't think it's that solid.
I'm gonna go a five.
- Savage.
Well, I think this was like, really delicious.
It gets like, an eight out of a 10.
- So, for dessert, my favorite meal of the day,
galaktoboureko.
That's right, Greek custard pie.
To start off with,
we're going to infuse our milk with cinnamon sticks.
Then, we're going to slowly bring that to boil,
and then we're going to pour our semolina in,
and then slowly pour our eggs in.
And then we're going to let that semolina custard cool down.
The galaktoboureko has loads of butter,
crispy layers of filo pastry, yum.
That custard is going to go between layers of butter,
filo pastry, in the oven.
And then, you pour this honey syrup over the galaktoboureko
and serve it, and everyone is going to love it.
I am so happy with what I've put out today.
It's food that I grew up with, and it's food from my heart,
and it's what makes me happy.
- [Woman] Do you know what you're eating?
- No.
- I got no clue.
- It looks kind of like, custardy to me.
It's like, so nice and flaky the pastry on the top,
but then it's all nice and like-
- Oh, it's warm.
- This is kind of citrusy as well.
- That's so good.
- It's like, syrupy.
It feels like I'm getting a hug from someone.
- It's orangy actually, it's very orangy.
- Yeah, you're right.
- It's like my favorite dessert texture.
- It's like eating a cloud.
- If you like cheesecakes, this one's for you.
I'm going to give it (beeping).
- I'm going to give it (beeping) as well.
- I'm going to win those judges are over.
I'm making the iconic Christmas trifle.
So, to start off with, I need to make a custard.
It comes together with some really simple
and cost effective ingredients.
We've got eggs, milk, vanilla, and sugar, and corn flour.
Mix them all together, whisk in a pan,
just don't stop until it's silky and smooth.
Okay, the next component is making a cherry reduction.
Cherries are obviously synonymous with Christmas,
and I feel like they've just got that festive look,
they're bright red, they're bold,
and they taste absolutely stunning.
So, of course I couldn't create this
without a budget friendly twist.
We're using that panettone, layering it in a trifle bowl
with some custard and a cherry reduction,
build it up until it looks complete.
Okay, that's my whole Christmas feast done.
It's on the table, I'm feeling good about it.
Let's get those judges tasting.
- I wondered what the little dots in it were.
It's a panettone, I'm like,
"Whoa, you've never heard of that being done before
with a trifle."
I love that, it's like a different spin
on something traditional, right?
Or, two traditional things, really.
- I love the custard part of it.
- That is delicious.
- Really feels a lot more modern, contemporary.
Like, I can totally imagine myself sitting down having this,
you know, with my family.
- I would obliterate this.
It's getting a 10 out of 10 for me.
- It didn't taste like the best trifle I've had.
So, I'm going to give a seven.
- Oh my God.
- [Narrator] And, the winner is.
- I'm nervous, have I won?
(graphics dinging)
- [Narrator] Vikki.
- Yes.
Oh my God, that's so exciting, that's awesome.
I feel like I'm gonna make my Greek people out there proud.
Thank you so much for watching today,
I hope you loved the video.
Subscribe, press like, comment, tell us what you want next.
- Happy holidays.
- Merry Christmas.
(upbeat music)