Evaluation

Christmas......pondering
It was a good one, a truly local one, the presents went down well. Tom loved his "dead mans tie", and was so enamoured with his clock tower clothing pants he showed his brothers!! Much to our amusement we wrapped the boys Lego in a shipton mill flour bag, therefore he was especially thrilled/relieved when he opened it. We were saved by Brutons on Christmas eve, as Tom was about to head to Travis Perkins for a christmas present drill, he found a fantastic Bosch.
As for the food we ate like kings, I made it through the list, minus the hot nuts. Nigella's Domestic Godess brownies with mixed nuts were lush, as were her cheese stars. I bought a cooked leg of ham from Country Quality which I glazed myself in Quince jelly, recommended. We had this with egg and chips, yes, the community shop sells MCcains.
Christmas day started rather too early, but breakfast of the secret family recipe: mare field pie and rockness apple juice sorted that out. For the champagne picnic I wrapped membrillo and taleggio in Parma ham and baked. Alongside chipolatas in mustard and honey, the cheese stars and brownie washed down with some fizz, 30 near and dear ones and a christmas day sledge, perfect. I then hang up the apron (after getting grease over the new dress) and headed to my parents for dinner.
We hosted the boxing day extravaganza. It started with a turkey soup,(stock cooked overnight), a mushroom and tarragon broth (Leon recipe). Then for dinner we had the beetroot gravalax with pickled cucumber and creamy dill horseradish, followed by sausage hotpot(Leon again) savoy cabbage with Chilli and lemony green beans. For pud I made Nigellas awesome cranberry bake well tart, delias famed sunken choc and prune soufflé and Christmas pudding jelly. The jelly didn't work, collapsed and tasted rank, very disappointed bompas and parr, no great jelly successes yet. The trewothans cheese rocked, divine goats cheese and stichelton we forgot to eat with the Christmas cake.
The Christmas cake is lush and moist but the royal icing requires a hack saw, not yet willing to handover to fondant.
So now it's all about the leftovers. Turkey curry including the leftover lemony green beans sufficed for the impromptu dinner for 13 last night. There was a stray Hobbs house Christmas pudding in our bedroom, perfect pud with brandy butter and cream. The sausage hotpot is going to make a third dinner, I can hear the kids groans already, and the ham is still going strong. Eating far more than necessary in attempt to make it through and cook again.
I received Elizabeth Davids French provincial cooking and the film Julia and Julie. That's a lot what the new year is going to look like for me. Watch this space xx