Christmas 2010

I know a post is REALLY late when I have to title it by which year the meal was had. Yes, this was last year’s leftovers, but I have been busy (not really) so haven’t got round to posting about it.

But now I have, and that’s all that matters.

So, sometime last year, to be precise, on Christmas Day, we had our lovely, very delicious Christmas lunch. We’d been to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, and felt absolutely starvin’ marvin’ after it, so the fiance, his mom and I stood in the kitchen eating a WHOLE cheese and onion quiche between us.

No wonder I was so hungry the next day. But then, as traditional on Christmas Day, you’re not supposed to have breakfast. That would absolutely ruin the appetite for lunch. (On a side note, I read somewhere that on average, people consumed about 4,000 calories on Christmas – mainly because they have a greasy fry-up to begin with, and then continue the day with bulk-buy boxes of chocolates and more bottles of wine than you can imagine.)

Anyhow, onwards and oven-wards with the meal preparation. The vegetables were peeled, chopped, and put in the pan to be boiled. Parsnips went into the oven to be turned into lovely, creamy roasted parsnips.

This is almost like real-time blogging. Why? Because while the vegetables were cooking, I had to stare at this cake. Staring and wondering why I had enough manners to stop myself from biting into it whole.

And if that was not enough, I was asked to put these chocolates up on the Christmas tree. A few of them ended up in my mouth.

The few that made it up to the tree. Counted themselves lucky.

And with all real-time postings, we had to while the seconds away while the turkey roasted in the oven. Oh why is it not lunchtime yet.

Because we usually have a vegetarian meal with the main meal, this was the Noughts and Crosses pie of the day (or Tic Tac Toe depending on how you like it). The filling was a creamy, slightly curry-ish vegetable mix which worked really well.

When the turkey felt it was ready to hit the red carpet, I knew it was nearly lunchtime. OK I know it looks like it spent winter sitting indoors, but it’s because we cooked it with the foil covering it, and since we don’t eat the skin off the bird during the meal, it didn’t really matter.

This is the plate of turkey (which I hungrily put on the plate) and Cumberland sausages that were cooked with the turkey.

But enough about the bird already – let’s get to the Sideshow Bobs. Here we have the roasted parsnips. As far as I’m aware, parsnip is the only vegetable which gets better with overcooking. Like, alot better. Raw parsnips taste like carrots – and I don’t like carrots. Boiled parsnips taste like sweet potato. Hmm. Roasted parsnips taste like creamy, fluffy, slightly sticky and chewy potatoes. Probably didn’t sell it too well there, but you get the idea. I like it.

Bacon roll or sausages wrapped in bacon. The fiance had slightly under 20 of these little things.

Because I was tasked with making the bacon rolls, and because I do this two times a year, I got all the quantities wrong and ended up with a lot of extra sausage meat. So I rolled them up into little sausage meatballs and chucked them in the oven.

The items in this bowl could possibly be the fiance’s all-time favourite of the meal.

After a few hours of cooking, staring, self-restraint and maybe some nibbling in between, the Christmas lunch is finally ready!

Get the bubbly out, toast toast, open some Christmas crackers, read the jokes, and … come on, hurry up, I want to eat this!

Mmmmm Christmas lunch, meet me. Me, meet Christmas lunch. Me, eat Christmas lunch.

Once all the eating is done, we then sat down to open the presents, eat more chocs and watch a lot of TV.