I'm planning fish for Christmas Eve as that's another continental tradition
Yes, we spent our first Christmas in Lisbon and always have Bacalhau a Braz. My mother, growing up in Germany, used to have carp on Christmas Day - she hated it! (Having eaten it, I agree - tastes of nothing).
Mr Nen and I were debating when we could start eating all the nice food in the house, and having started on the mince pies and Christmas cake in the past couple of days we decided this evening to break out one of the boxes of chocolates. I'd got some in, thinking that we were having both Nenlets and their partners here for a couple of days.
I've done all the necessary wrapping - there is more but we'll be posting Nenlet2 and his partner's presents to them and that won't be till well after Christmas as I'm not prepared to stand for ages in a non-socially-distanced queue at the Post Office. Good thing really - I am currently fed up with present wrapping having spent hours at it today, Mr Nen having More Important Things To Do.
Tomorrow I shall be getting a beef casserole into the slow cooker and then I think a walk is planned. The weather's meant to get better but it's pouring with rain at the moment.
Today we were meant to be having a much anticipated Christmas dinner, main course, cooked by my son-in-law. The snag was that I had to collect it. It has been raining hard all day. By 3 pm the main road was flooded, and by 5 pm I decided that I had no wish to drive four miles of potentially flooded country roads in the dark where I could not see the potholes, so the meal will be brought to us tomorrow in daylight. I refused to let my daughter bring it to us tonight, even though she would probably have been ok in her 4 x 4.
This will mean a French Christmas Eve, instead of the fish we normally eat. Tonight I made cauliflower cheese.
I've never understood the appeal of trifle - something to do with the texture of the sponge thingies wrapped in jelly.
I always disliked trifle for that very reason until I had a different sort at a friend's house and now I always make it that way. Fruit soaked in sherry at the bottom, trifle sponges on top of that (not sponge fingers which, as @Bishops Finger would say, are an Abomination Unto The Lord), fresh custard on top of that, lightly whipped cream on top of that. No jelly in sight. In fact I'm planning it for dessert tomorrow. We never have dessert normally, but it is Christmas Eve.
I have a very luxurious recipe for quince trifle, using mascarpone and amaretto and topped with amaretti biscuits which I will post in Heaven. I am not a great fan of traditional trifles, but this is delicious.
Christmas Eve lunch is always fish pie and in the evening we have kedgeree.
Christmas Day cooking is usually done by the children; this year only one is at home, the other's leave doesn't start till Wednesday, so I'll be helping out. Only 4 of us to dine this year. Thus far the menu hasn't been vouchsafed to me but I think pigs-in-blankets will appear at some point.
Presumably having fish on Christmas Eve was originally a fasting for advent thing?
Yes it was and still is in some traditions.
Bit different in the Antipodes where it is usually blazing hot so cold seafood on Xmas Day has become the norm except among diehard traditionalists....
My departed mother insisted on a turkey many years ago.
It went down like a lead balloon as no-one even liked turkey & she was not as good a cook as her mother who normally did all the cooking....
I'm not sure what my Christmas fare will be; I think either a small turkey or a large chicken was mentioned. I rather hope it's the latter; I'm not a huge fan of turkey.
The last Christmas David and I had together, we had roast lamb - unseasonable I know, but it was our favourite thing.
Ah, but the decision is not Piglet's - she is the guest and someone else will have done the planning/purchasing etc etc. So in that sense she gets what she's given....
(and my sister & I are so relieved we don't have to agonise around planning what my father would have been prepared to eat. To an extent he got what he was given, but he also grumbled inordinately if it wasn't to his liking.)
This will mean a French Christmas Eve, instead of the fish we normally eat. Tonight I made cauliflower cheese.
I hope you mean the cauliflower cheese was made in advance for this evening's meal, not that you ate cauliflower cheese last night. Thursday is cauliflower cheese night.
I've got the casserole into the slow cooker and am now awaiting Mr Nen's return from his run so that we can have our planned Christmas Eve second breakfast of scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. Then out for a walk. The rain has finally stopped and the sun's shining.
I did a bit of a fridge-clearing supper last night - I had some broccoli and Kenya beans that wouldn't have lasted until I get back after Christmas, so I made a Risotto with Green Things, and it was sufficiently good that I've put the recipe upstairs.
I'm shortly going to get up and get myself organised - I'm not sure when my brother's picking me up, but I don't want to be still in my nightie when he does ...
Smoked salmon with scrambled eggs beckons for breakfast.
I’ve just put our pudding on to steam. I used the good housekeeping hidden orange recipe but experimented with it by adding 50g of cocoa, 100g of chopped dark chocolate and chai Christmas spices. I candied the orange yesterday and soaked the fruit in Cointreau.
We also now have orange flavoured sugar syrup for cocktails/hot chocolate 😀
Now off the morning walk.
My day started with St Michael’s vegan bacon, and it wasn’t bad at all. I’m not sure what the rest of today’s meals will be, but I’ve started preparing veg (a la St Delia) to be microwaved tomorrow to be served with St Michael’s butternut roast thingy - there are enough interesting (and safe for more) ingredients that turkey deprivation won’t be felt. Amusingly a neighbour was complaining that he’d have too much (a turkey for 12 just for him) but I didn’t feel any urge to drop a hint.
In the early hours of this morning I completed my final Christmas present - lace making isn’t easy when a cat is needing fuss! I’ll have a stroll into town to deliver it and see if the Waitrose queue is short enough to join for a the bits that would be rather nice to finish off tomorrow’s feast.
My arm is sore & stiff after yesterday’s covid vaccination so will need pampering with much ginger wine and festive screen time.
I really don't mind - I'll eat most things (with the possible exception of mussels or aubergines).
Presents for the littlies are now wrapped, and I think the plan is that we'll stop off at my sister's on the way to Edinburgh and deliver them; we may or may not run into a nephew en route.
As my brother and s-i-l have to go and see her disabled sister at some point, I may get the chance to listen to King's without imposing it on them. Whether I'll be able to do it without eye leakage might be another matter; last year I didn't even make it to the end of the first verse of Once in royal David's city.
I'm having a lazy, quiet morning. Got up late and a part from a bit of housework and present wrapping haven't done much. It's lovely and peaceful here as husband and son have gone out for a walk. I'm making the most of it.
Some shopping this morning for Essentials (the WINE cupboard is now well-stocked, at least until Sunday ), and I now await the seasonal phone call from my sister in France.
WINE will probably be drunk at both ends of the phone line IYSWIM.
Chocolate log has been made, though my Swiss roll wouldn’t behave so I had to plaster it together with chocolate frosting as well as cranberry curd. It looks like it was attacked by a demented axeman.
We should have been having lamb with Lord and Lady P and her family, but now we’re back to two families and they’re in a bubble with her parents, Christmas dinner will be a ham joint with various sides from M&S, followed by slices of a rather nice looking pudding.
Lunch will be traditional for this household - fresh baguette (already part baked) and cheese from Hereford.
Tonight we are going to have the plated up Christmas dinner my son in law cooked yesterday but flooding prevented the journey to collect it. I wanted to have it at lunch time ( as we do on Sundays and Christmas Day) but Mr Puzzler said he could not possibly do that.
Yesterday we had Thursday’s Cauli cheese, and on Saturday I expect we will have Friday’s fish. What a topsy turvey week (predictive text produced “ tipsy turkey” - I like that.)
Listening to Carols from King's on Radio 4, which I haven't done for years - I'm normally en route to my Christmas Eve service then... which is not taking place this year, or rather has been advanced to a (rather nice, seeing the circumstances) Zoom meeting on the 4th Sunday of Advent.
My daughter is bringing our dinner for tonight, which involves ham in some form. She ordered a modest piece of gammon for £8 but Tesco substituted Finest Bone in Gammon, usually £20.
Grandson has benfitted from a large part as he lives on her way to me. We do not argue wih substitutions like that!
So am I - while sorting things out in the living room a bit to make it tidy and festive. Mr Nen and I have been for a hearty cold walk and came back to have lunch which included port and cheese. Wine will be imbibed later with my slow cooked beef casserole; followed by trifle. The fruit is marinading in sherry even as we speak.
I am also listening to King's. This is not negotiable chez Dragon for reasons relating to my childhood. It has been accompanied by tree dressing, which is surprisingly hard when small people want ALL the baubles added at once. I now need to do an emergency supermarket run for Santa's wrapping paper, whilst Dragonlets are distracted by a n online crib service. The Chinese for tonight has been ordered.
I'm listening to the King's radio broadcast: very nice singing (obviously), but there are one or two things that are Just Wrong.
Firstly, I can't remember when they stopped giving the Fifth Lesson to the Organist (he now gets the Seventh); it just doesn't seem right.
Secondly, and imho more importantly, they're apparently going to do an arrangement of O come, all ye faithful that isn't by Willcocks, presumably won't feature That Chord™, and will consequently be Heretickal.
ETA: I haven't suffered any eye leakage, which is a Good Thing.
[...] I'm listening to the King's radio broadcast: very nice singing (obviously) [...]
... and now I'm listening to the BBC Two version on the telly.
ETA: Just wondering if the adult chorister on the utmost left hasn't been with them as kiddo earlier; I appear to recognise him, but perhaps I am mistaken. - Do they continue to sing with them as grown-ups?
[name-drop alert]
The parents of one of the King's Singers, who are taking part, are friends of mine; his father was David's predecessor but one in Belfast, and David played for their wedding.
In a burst of late afternoon activity I cleaned the kitchen and made a tray of polenta. This will later be sliced into chips, doused in parmesan and baked. To go with an expensive pan-fry of scallops and prawns with a vermouth and cream sauce. And a bottle of fizz.
Christmas has officially begun here with the Cutting of the Cake. I am glad I don’t plan to drive because I may (ahem) have been a bit heavy handed with the brandy.
Earlier I had a Waitrose visit (amazingly uncrowded with no queues) to pick up things I didn’t know I needed (lemons for g&t, sweet dessert wine, Parmesan for the parsnips)
I'm on my second round as well, and plan to listen to the radio version again tomorrow, as I had to dash out half way through to put cards through the neighbours' letterboxes before it got too dark to see.
Today didn’t turn out as planned. Cb had organised a distanced walk with Erin , exchanging presents at the same time then coming to me to collect presents and the food I should have been cooking for her here. But first she collected an order from a friend in a village near to me. Then her brand new car wouldn’t start. The RAC couldn’t find a fault and ordered a tow truck which was then diverted to flood related emergencies. So I’ve been driving around delivering food and presents and taking cb home. Car likely to be towed on Monday now.
Red wine opened.
This evening’s dinner had a starter of prawn cocktail with boiled egg, mayonnaise, and clementine and rocket salad. Then potato dauphinois with rare venison steak and pickled pears, followed by chocolate log with Cointreau cream.
Now I really need to wrap some presents.
My presents are somewhere with Hermes - I have refreshed and refreshed the tracker which promised delivery yesterday and hasn't been updated subsequently.
Part of me is hoping the driver will be home or heading home by now but the other half of me is hoping that they will still deliver.
We’ve recorded that panto for later @Wesley J . We watched the National Theatres’s Dick Whittington yesterday. Annoyingly If there were subtitles I couldn’t find them, so missed some of the word play, but fun anyway.
We’ve just watched a Christmas special of Would I Lie to you, which was fun.
Christmas has officially begun here with the Cutting of the Cake. I am glad I don’t plan to drive because I may (ahem) have been a bit heavy handed with the brandy.
I know there's a fair amount of brandy in our cake, as I put it there! Finished the bottle... on the other hand, I have no intention of driving again till New Year's Eve, when I have to go to w*rk. Not yet started eating it, as we have much chocolate and the parental Knotweeds have just delivered presents and some of Mum's home-made biscuits, which are going to have to be tested.
We’ve recorded that panto for later @Wesley J . We watched the National Theatres’s Dick Whittington yesterday. Annoyingly If there were subtitles I couldn’t find them, so missed some of the word play, but fun anyway. [...]
The recorded and free (!) YouTube version has got subtitles! Merry Christmas!
That's what we were watching @wesley j. I think I just couldn't find the right button to press. Oh well I enjoyed it anyway. We've also recorded the BBC comic relied Cinderella for later. We are up, had breakfast but not yet dressed. There is a vague idea to go and play frisbee our local playing field when we are. Later there should be present unwrapping via zoom with my brother and family.
Here too - the room where I'm sleeping at my brother's has an absolute cracker of a view, and faces almost directly east. I took a picture of it with my mobile, but couldn't really do justice to the colours.
This morning, my friend, having heard the radio come on for a moment before I silenced it this morning, came in just in time to see the ISS pass over the zenith. Not in the right direction to be mistaken for a Bethlehem star! I sleep with the curtains open so I can see that sort of thing. He is currently out of sync with real time. Except in California. I used to think it was being with his mother which kept him awake all night, but no. So I am having a solitary day before we share a late lunch/early dinner with trimmings. I've opened gifts from those who aren't playing Secret Santa, and swept up the mud which came in on his shoes last night when he came back from partaking of the church communion service via a window, like a medieval leper (didn't think it fitting to take one of the limited places.)
The church is one originally set up by the people of the "big house", so in the middle of fields rather than the village*. The road access is from completely the wrong direction, so he used the footpaths. But he has taken some photos to send to the clergy.
Off to eviscerate the freezer.
A very Merry Christmas, and a Healthy and Happy New Year to all.
*There are a lot of that sort of church round here. As Cole Hawlings in "The Box of Delights" might say, they may go back to pagan times. When the chief landowner was the priest of whoever they were worshipping.
Merry Christmas!
We opened our pressies, had breakfast (potato farls, ham, poached egg, Buck’s Fizz) and the went to Zoom church. Husband has just put the turkey on.
We have a game to play called Don’t get got (Christmas version). We have tasks we have to trick others into doing/saying today...
I'm having a beautifully lazy day so far. Lunch was v. good leek and potato SOUP with bread, CHEESE and charcuterie, and dinner should be happening around six in the evening. I've offered help, but so far not been given anything to do.
Pressie haul was very good, and included a mortar and pestle (mine didn't make it across the Pond), a lovely soft blanket and a gorgeous teal-coloured scarf.
Comments
I've done all the necessary wrapping - there is more but we'll be posting Nenlet2 and his partner's presents to them and that won't be till well after Christmas as I'm not prepared to stand for ages in a non-socially-distanced queue at the Post Office. Good thing really - I am currently fed up with present wrapping having spent hours at it today, Mr Nen having More Important Things To Do.
Tomorrow I shall be getting a beef casserole into the slow cooker and then I think a walk is planned. The weather's meant to get better but it's pouring with rain at the moment.
This will mean a French Christmas Eve, instead of the fish we normally eat. Tonight I made cauliflower cheese.
I have a very luxurious recipe for quince trifle, using mascarpone and amaretto and topped with amaretti biscuits which I will post in Heaven. I am not a great fan of traditional trifles, but this is delicious.
Christmas Day cooking is usually done by the children; this year only one is at home, the other's leave doesn't start till Wednesday, so I'll be helping out. Only 4 of us to dine this year. Thus far the menu hasn't been vouchsafed to me but I think pigs-in-blankets will appear at some point.
Yes it was and still is in some traditions.
Bit different in the Antipodes where it is usually blazing hot so cold seafood on Xmas Day has become the norm except among diehard traditionalists....
My departed mother insisted on a turkey many years ago.
It went down like a lead balloon as no-one even liked turkey & she was not as good a cook as her mother who normally did all the cooking....
The last Christmas David and I had together, we had roast lamb - unseasonable I know, but it was our favourite thing.
Ah, but the decision is not Piglet's - she is the guest and someone else will have done the planning/purchasing etc etc. So in that sense she gets what she's given....
(and my sister & I are so relieved we don't have to agonise around planning what my father would have been prepared to eat. To an extent he got what he was given, but he also grumbled inordinately if it wasn't to his liking.)
I've got the casserole into the slow cooker and am now awaiting Mr Nen's return from his run so that we can have our planned Christmas Eve second breakfast of scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. Then out for a walk. The rain has finally stopped and the sun's shining.
I'm shortly going to get up and get myself organised - I'm not sure when my brother's picking me up, but I don't want to be still in my nightie when he does ...
Smoked salmon with scrambled eggs beckons for breakfast.
We also now have orange flavoured sugar syrup for cocktails/hot chocolate 😀
Now off the morning walk.
In the early hours of this morning I completed my final Christmas present - lace making isn’t easy when a cat is needing fuss! I’ll have a stroll into town to deliver it and see if the Waitrose queue is short enough to join for a the bits that would be rather nice to finish off tomorrow’s feast.
My arm is sore & stiff after yesterday’s covid vaccination so will need pampering with much ginger wine and festive screen time.
Presents for the littlies are now wrapped, and I think the plan is that we'll stop off at my sister's on the way to Edinburgh and deliver them; we may or may not run into a nephew en route.
As my brother and s-i-l have to go and see her disabled sister at some point, I may get the chance to listen to King's without imposing it on them. Whether I'll be able to do it without eye leakage might be another matter; last year I didn't even make it to the end of the first verse of Once in royal David's city.
WINE will probably be drunk at both ends of the phone line IYSWIM.
Lunch will be traditional for this household - fresh baguette (already part baked) and cheese from Hereford.
Yesterday we had Thursday’s Cauli cheese, and on Saturday I expect we will have Friday’s fish. What a topsy turvey week (predictive text produced “ tipsy turkey” - I like that.)
Grandson has benfitted from a large part as he lives on her way to me. We do not argue wih substitutions like that!
So am I - while sorting things out in the living room a bit to make it tidy and festive. Mr Nen and I have been for a hearty cold walk and came back to have lunch which included port and cheese. Wine will be imbibed later with my slow cooked beef casserole; followed by trifle. The fruit is marinading in sherry even as we speak.
I'm listening to the King's radio broadcast: very nice singing (obviously), but there are one or two things that are Just Wrong.
Firstly, I can't remember when they stopped giving the Fifth Lesson to the Organist (he now gets the Seventh); it just doesn't seem right.
Secondly, and imho more importantly, they're apparently going to do an arrangement of O come, all ye faithful that isn't by Willcocks, presumably won't feature That Chord™, and will consequently be Heretickal.
ETA: I haven't suffered any eye leakage, which is a Good Thing.
... and now I'm listening to the BBC Two version on the telly.
ETA: Just wondering if the adult chorister on the utmost left hasn't been with them as kiddo earlier; I appear to recognise him, but perhaps I am mistaken. - Do they continue to sing with them as grown-ups?
The parents of one of the King's Singers, who are taking part, are friends of mine; his father was David's predecessor but one in Belfast, and David played for their wedding.
So am I
Earlier I had a Waitrose visit (amazingly uncrowded with no queues) to pick up things I didn’t know I needed (lemons for g&t, sweet dessert wine, Parmesan for the parsnips)
Red wine opened.
Happy Festivities nonetheless! And cheers!
This evening’s dinner had a starter of prawn cocktail with boiled egg, mayonnaise, and clementine and rocket salad. Then potato dauphinois with rare venison steak and pickled pears, followed by chocolate log with Cointreau cream.
Now I really need to wrap some presents.
Part of me is hoping the driver will be home or heading home by now but the other half of me is hoping that they will still deliver.
Now watching the rather pleasant 'Cinderella - A Comic Relief Pantomime for Christmas' on BBC Two!
We’ve just watched a Christmas special of Would I Lie to you, which was fun.
A glass of water and off to bed, I think.
Beautiful sunrise here this morning.
Here too - the room where I'm sleeping at my brother's has an absolute cracker of a view, and faces almost directly east. I took a picture of it with my mobile, but couldn't really do justice to the colours.
Merry Christmas, one and all! 🎄🎄🎄
The church is one originally set up by the people of the "big house", so in the middle of fields rather than the village*. The road access is from completely the wrong direction, so he used the footpaths. But he has taken some photos to send to the clergy.
Off to eviscerate the freezer.
A very Merry Christmas, and a Healthy and Happy New Year to all.
*There are a lot of that sort of church round here. As Cole Hawlings in "The Box of Delights" might say, they may go back to pagan times. When the chief landowner was the priest of whoever they were worshipping.
We opened our pressies, had breakfast (potato farls, ham, poached egg, Buck’s Fizz) and the went to Zoom church. Husband has just put the turkey on.
We have a game to play called Don’t get got (Christmas version). We have tasks we have to trick others into doing/saying today...
Pressie haul was very good, and included a mortar and pestle (mine didn't make it across the Pond), a lovely soft blanket and a gorgeous teal-coloured scarf.
My family are really good to me.