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.

Manchester – Poached eggs, Christmas Market and baking (Dec ‘10)

We went up norf’ to Manchester last weekend, just because it wasn’t cold enough in London and we wanted to test out the sub-zero temperatures and wet weather the city is famous for. Boy oh boy was I looking forward to getting soaked by the rain, and then cooled off by the frosty winds. What more could a girl ask for then glaciers on her nose, and stalactites on the ears?

Weather aside, we had a blast of a time there – mainly because we were with good friends, had good food, and very importantly, managed to go to the Christmas market for the first time this year. The ones in London are a bit … meh. To me, anyway. They’re uber expensive, full of pushy people, and just quite angsty. One visit there and you need to take time out for the rage to subside.

So, we set off on the Friday, having taken the day off work. After sorting the car out with the what-nots (de-icer, a blanket in case we got stuck on the motorway and had to eat the cushion seats, snacks and crisps to avoid having to eat the cushion seats), we headed up north towards the bright and foggy lights of the M25.

As we didn’t have much time to get any breakfast on the way, we decided to stop off at the service stations for some nibbles. The place we stopped off at had the usual WH Smith’s (newspapers, pasties and cold drinks), some café place with quite good deals on muffins and stuff, a Starbucks, one of those hot food counters (overpriced everything) and a KFC. We went for the KFC.

One Zinger Tower Box Meal and 3 hot wings later, we were ready to resume the battle against the M25 traffic.

To cut a long story short, after replacing the car battery, going to watch the Interpol gig at the Manchester Apollo, and then drinking lots of mulled wine, it was Saturday. Time to begin the Eat-All-You-Can-Weekend-In-Manchester.

And it began with some fabulous poached eggs on granary toast.

Lovely, yellow yolk slowly drizzling down the buttery toast – each bite better than the last. I know LC is waiting for this moment of Poached Egg fame, so credit has to be given where credit is due. It was an excellent specimen of what poached egg on toast should be. Paved the way just fine for the sausages, stew, wine, pizza, mince pies and Chinese supper that was to come (more on that later).

We then made our way towards the town hall where the Christmas Market was. Even though we’d moved from Manchester about 3 years ago, we’ve been to the Manchester Christmas Market every year since then, so for tradition’s sake, we had to try out some of the stuff on offer. As I’ve had the bratwurst quite a few times now, I decided to try something new.

As I elbowed my way through the crowd (all part of the fun), we came across this stall which I’d previously just overlooked. The thing is, when I’m at a German Market (which this was, kinda), the last thing I wanted to do was succumb to English food. Which is why I’ve never bothered to try the Lancashire Hotpot even though I’m sure the stall is not a new fixture here.

For £4.50, we got the hotpot with pickled red cabbage, and added 50p worth of Pan Heggarty, which to me, looked a lot like potato dauphinoise. Boy was this one of the nicest things we could have had at that exact moment. Being slightly wet (it was drizzling), cold, and quite annoyed at the number of people there were at the market, this was just the thing to lift the mood. It was steaming hot and the stodgy combination of beef stew with creamy potatoes (with a slight hint of crunchy tang from the pickled cabbage) was just brilliant.

Savoury cravings satisfied, we moved on to the sweet. Best thing here is the mini pancakes. Seriously the best pancakes in Manchester. Despite only getting 6 mini ones for £3, each pancake (which really is mini) is soft, fluffy and light, without being too sweet, but still spiced with a little cinnamon, icing sugar and maple syrup. Absolutely one of my favourite things at the Christmas Market.

We bought some sausages also from the market, £10 for 7 types of sausages.

Tried some of them when we got back to our friends’ and they were very nice indeed.

After all that eating, we trooped back to our friends’ flat for more eating. Eating what, though, is the question. Eating mince pies and cookies, is the answer.

LC and RH were making mince pies from scratch, and I mean, from scratch. Like, without using frozen pastry. Even the cookies were made from scratch.

This was what it looked like – I won’t even begin to try and tell you what the recipe was as all I did was eat the raw cookie dough and take pictures.

I’d not had homemade mince pies before this, and it definitely is miles better than the store-bought ones. Yes, EVEN the Marks & Spencer ones, that’s how good it was. The slightly rustic-looking little pies were crumbly to the bite, and each crumbly nibble made me want another. Those cookies were chewy and crunchy at the same time, and tasted of warm, spicy ginger on a cold winter’s night. Perfect with mulled wine.

Some people came over for more eating on Saturday night, and we had a really nice time. Bearing in mind the fact that I’m not that sociable most times (the tube has that effect of making me not wanna be around other people), my dusty (and in fact, quite last season, dah-ling) social skills were brought out and we had an excellent time - plenty of mulled wine, mince pies, brownies, German Christmas cookies, Chinese supper of Szechuan stir fried spicy green beans, dumplings with spicy chilli oil, beef fried hor fun and indigestion tablets.

To be continued …

It’s the long-awaited Christmas feast!

I’ve been training for this one, I have. Stuffing myself with Quality Street, Lindt, and all other forms of chocolate for weeks in preparation for the chocolate marathon at Christmas, and eating more pannetone than is recommended by the Italian Pannetone Board just so I can say I’ve had enough of it once the stores stop selling them.

All for Christmas Day, when the calories are ignored, and an all-day buffet ensues.

Not many words accompanying the pictures, as I am too full.

But first comes the preparation – the peeling, the roasting, the washing, the baking, the setting of table.

The Prep:

All the vegetables are laid out on the table, ready to be peeled and baton-ed.

We have the kale, a slightly crunchy, bitter vegetable – to be boiled. Go on, chuck it in the pan with some water, now that’s a good ‘un.

The ever-adored Brussel sprouts – the stuff of dreams (mine, anyway. I like them). Mini cabbages in looks, mini cabbages in flavour. Put them in with the kale.

Rustic carrots, still in their bunches. Top and tail them, cut them into batons, and place them in the roasting pan with some oil, and a little bit of honey.

The cauliflower, to be boiled in the same pan as the kale and sprouts. Some like it crunchy, some like it mushy, I prefer it stir fried with some garlic and and mince, but of course you can’t have that for the Christmas meal.

And lastly, in the vegetable category, the parsnip. The not-so-tanned cousin of the carrot (not really, but they look similar) is great roasted with a bit of oil, when there is a slight crunchiness on the outside and a sweet, sticky mushy centre.

And in between all that peeling and cutting, a mini Quality Street break.

The roasting and cooking

Stuffing – traditionally stuffed in the turkey (thus called stuffing) to retain the moisture, and to add flavour to the turkey, it can also be cooked separately from the turkey, in a baking tray. What I like about stuffing is the fact that it tastes slightly like chicken congee (rice porridge), with fried shallots (to me anyway. To most people it probably tastes like stuffing).

Bacon rolls, also known as ‘pigs in blankets’ because the sausage meat is wrapped in bacon, thus the logic of both names.

Joint of bacon – when turkey alone just ain’t enough.

Ten pieces of bacon joint, sitting on the plate
Ten pieces of bacon joint, sitting on the plate
And if one piece of bacon joint should accidentally get eaten by me
There’ll be no bacon joint pieces left, sitting on the plate

(From one to none, in the space of five seconds.)

The turkey. In most cooking programmes, turkeys don’t look like this. They kinda look brown, as though they’ve been on holiday for a week in the South of France, with a nice shiny layer of glistening moisture to show just how succulent they are. Well, in reality, turkeys in oven don’t like to cooperate, and sometimes, you have to cover them in bacon to retain any moisture in the turkey. So, even though it doesn’t look like it’s been on holiday, it tasted excellent. Roasted with sausages and Shitake mushrooms swimming around it.

Roasties, spuds, tatties, or roast potatoes. First peeled, then boiled, then shaken around in the pan to ensure they’re slightly mooshed and then roasted in the oven. The mooshed bits crisp up reaaaaal nicely when roasted well.

Roast carrots and parsnips.

The stuffing from earlier. (This is taking alot of effort, what with the fullness and the telly on in the background, thus the lack of illustrative descriptions). Trust me, the meal was really nice.

The vegetarian pie, with a shortcrust pastry base, some vegetables, mushrooms and cheese as filling, and a cheesy-scone mixture for the pie cover.

The eating:

This was why I am still so full (and it’s Boxing Day).

My plate from Angle 1 – you can see the turkey, the sausage, and some of the stuffing on the left of the plate. At the back, you can see the Brussel sprouts, and some of the parsnips at the top right of the plate.

My plate from Angle 2 – here you can see the stuffing which has been dolloped with Coleman’s English mustard (a must … ard, for most meals). Brussels on the left.

My plate from Angle 3 – the roast parsnips and carrots and the turkey and sausage. Gravy drizzled all over, with cranberry sauce.

Dessert – summer fruit pavlova, with a lemon filling. We found that this goes really well with apple crumble.

Merry Christmas to all, and if you’re as full as I am, just watch some telly and forget about the washing up.