Assorted Ramblings...

We appear to be over the worst of the lurgy (fingers crossed!)

Presents are wrapped, shopping is done, recipe books and foodie websites have been trawled for recipes and Mr Caz has worshipped at the shrine of Nigella :) (several times!)

We've gone for a Norfolk Bronze turkey this year; the butcher reckons that once we've tasted one, we'll never want anything else at Christmas. Well, yeah, he would say that because they're more expensive than 'regular' turkeys, but that view has been endorsed by many of the telly chefs we've been watching over the last couple of weeks, so what the hell!

Rather than cooking it whole this year, we're going to do a Gordon-effing-Ramsay and cook the legs and crown separately. I asked the butcher to bone the legs, which are then going to be stuffed and rolled; that should reduce the cooking time considerably. I'll probably still put some stuffing in the neck, but if there's not room, I'm going to make a stuffing "roll" - wrap it in bacon and foil and then bake it in the oven.

I also found a tip about roast potatoes in a magazine somewhere and earlier in the week, I par-boiled them, then when they were still steaming, I roughed 'em up, coated them in a mixture of seasoned flour and semolina, left them to cool and then froze them. Just to make sure they weren't going to taste horrible on Christmas day - naff roasties would ruin things, wouldn't it? - I tried some yesterday and they were fab. Lovely and fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside. I've done more or less the same thing with the parsnips, although they're coated in a mixture of seasoned flour and grated parmesan.

It'll be nice not to be buried in a mound of vegetable peelings on Christmas morning! Other accompaniments will be orange-glazed carrots and creamed cabbage with bacon and cream.

(Chop and fry an onion, then add about 3 or 4 chopped up rashers of smoked bacon. In a big pan or wok, add as much shredded savoy cabbage as you want, put in 6 tablespoons of water and stir fry the cabbage. When it's almost cooked, add the onions, bacon and seasoning. Add 4 or 5 tablespoons of cream (whatever you've got), stir it all in and then serve.)

Tomorrow, we'll put all the other bits of the turkey and left-over bones to good use by making a stock for the gravy.

Boxing-day menus are already in my head; they always include bubble and squeak made with leftover veg and Creamed Turkey en Croute - one of Delia's recipies that I've been making for the last 20 years. (Sadly, I can't find the recipe on line, but if anyone wants it, just holler!) I'm also going to make some spicy sweet potato rosti - I stumbled across the recipe the other day and they're lovely and incredibly simple. You need about 450g of grated sweet potato - leave it in a caulinder for about 10 mins before you use it. Then mix 60g of flour with a teaspoon of caster sugar, a teaspoon of brown sugar, a teaspoon of curry powder and a teaspoon of cumin. I'm going to double the amount of cumin I use next time and maybe add some ginger - you can do whatever you like, really. Then add 120ml of milk and an egg to the flour mixture and mix it to a batter. Add the sweet potato and mix well. Then heat some oil in a pan and put in spoonfuls of the mixture; flatten with the back of the spoon and cook until crispy. Then turn the rosti over and cook the other side.

And now I'm getting hungry. Lunch time!

Just a quick drive-by post to wish everyone out there in LJ-land a very Merry Christmas (if you celebrate) and a Happy Holidays if you don't.

Here's hoping Santa bring you lots of nice prezzies and that you have a great time with friends / family or whoever you're spending the day with.

See you on the flip side :-)

XX

(PS - My final DW post will be a bit late, simply because I haven't had a chance to think of what I want to say yet!)

It's late on Boxing Day - Santa brought me a new laptop cable yesterday so I've at last been able to catch up on news, LJ and other bits and pieces.

( This Christmas, I 'ave been mostly... )

For anyone who's wondering when Santa might arrive at their house - my kids are having great fun checking out his whereabouts courtesy of the NORAD Santa-tracker.

As I write this, he's in Omsk!

There's even a 3D version if you have Google Earth :-)

I know this is probably going to upset my transatlantic friends who are currently battling with large snowfalls... but this how stupid the weather is here in the UK.

We have butterflies in the garden.

Yes - you read that right. Butterflies. In the garden. On 23rd December.

We packed the kids off to Nanny and Grandad's for the weekend last night, so today was Operation Christmas Shopping.

We managed to drag ourselves out of bed fairly early and braved the cold, the biting winds and the rain to get the rest of the stuff the girls have asked for, plus a few other odds and ends. But I'm bound to have forgotten something.

Then we spent most of the afternoon wrapping presents while watching Iron Man.

I don't know why it is though, but I can't say that I feel particularly festive. The girls are getting excited, and so are all the kids at school, but it just doesn't feel real to me! The end of term is Friday, and we're having our usual Christmas tea for the kids and some of their friends after school, so perhaps that might help to start to get me in the mood.

Tomorrow morning I'm planning to make marzipan and then slap it on the Christmas cake so I can ice it next weekend. Maybe I'll even make some mince pies.

The end of another... well, I was going to say long week, but to be honest, none of them seem that long, these days.

And it's two weeks until the end of term - thank God.

It's funny, but every teacher I've spoken to, either in person at school, or via various fora and blogs has said the same thing - that for the last week or so, the kids have been 'orrible. I can only attribute this to the fact that we're all tired. It's been a long term; staff will have done 15 weeks (of actual teaching) and the kids will have been in school for marginally less time, and we're all knackered.

This is always the case in the autumn term though - it's the longest term of the year and the one with the least holidays. Well, other than half-term, NO holidays.

But although it's December, and the kids - my own and those at school - are starting to talk about Christmas, it just hasn't sunk in that it's only about 3 weeks away now. I'm probably so focussed in just making it to the end of term in one piece that it's all passing me by. I haven't bought a single card or piece of wrapping paper. I've bought a couple of presents for the kids, but otherwise, Mr Caz is going to have to take care of it all. I'm just too tired.

But... when I do get around to getting cards, if you'd like to receive one, please drop me an email with your address (and your name!) and I'll do my best to oblige :)