a festive goose

It has been our habit for some years to have a goose at Christmas. I remember paying about £70 (seventy quid) for one in 2009, the year we moved up to Hull. But since Aldi and Lidl have become so ubiquitous, we generally buy a frozen goose for £20 when they come into stock in October-ish,…

turkey and moooose pie

Well, not really, but … We went to my daughter’s house for Christmas, and it was lovely. But the downside of being away is you get no leftovers; thankfully, she offered us the turkey carcass to take home, and so we did, despite her protestations that there would be no meat left on it. As…

christmas cakes 2013

  Please excuse the chocolate dinosaur cakes. They were an experiment which clearly needs more work. No wonder the bloody creatures are extinct. I actually got round to doing my Christmas cakes reasonably early (for me) this year. And inspired by my friend Jane’s most excellent, if sporadic, food blog, I have done them slightly…

christmas pig

Attentive readers will remember that we always have a goose for Christmas. But they’re getting more and more expensive, and there’s not much eating on ’em, so this year we thought we’d have a change. We had a big piece of pork, which I did in a Scandinavian stylee, after I’d seen a recipe in…

festive fare, and the remnants …

We did the usual stuff for Christmas food that we usually do … a goose with red cabbage and sprouts on the day, a slow cooked gammon for snacks, a cake. But somehow, this year, we have heaps of stuff left, so we’ll be eating leftovers for a while! After 13 years with small, rubbish gas…

beef in ginger and orange

How to turn 500g of stewing beef into six portions? Add 100g of bacon bits, a stack of butter (lima) beans, and a load of veg, thus. I used shallots in this – if you’re going to do this, they are much easier to peel if you soak them in boiling water for 10 minutes, and…

Christmas Eve …

I have walnut and raisin bread rising.  I have stuffed the goose with a mix of sausagemeat, cranberries, apricots soaked in Cointreau, crumbled black pudding, a mixture of white and soda bread crumbs.  I have made stuffing balls with herbs from the garden, and more breadcrumbs. I have rubbed fivespice powder into the goose’s skin,…

christmas cake

Rather belatedly, I made our christmas cake last night; I’d normally have done it in November, but what with the move and all … I use a variation on a tried and tested Nigel Slater recipe, and here it is: Prepare a 20cm deep cake pan – grease well, line with a double thickness of…

things to do with cold goose

Not that there is much leftover goose in my experience – fifty five quid for the bird, which fed three hungry folk on Christmas Day.  We had the other breast for lunch on Friday, with the leftover red cabbage, and a baked spud, and very nice it was too. Yesterday, Pete stripped off the remaining…

festive fayre

My idea of a good Christmas, food wise, is to cook up a load of stuff before, cook a nice Christmas dinner, then do nothing much for a week 🙂  This year was no exception. I did a gammon in ginger beer and christmas spices (star anise, cinnamon and cloves), glazed with orange juice and…