Month: December 2015

 Here we see some interesting sausage-meat stuffing balls. They are made of sausage-meat, onion, garlic, fresh thyme and Greek oregano. The rest of the space in the dish was filled with balls of Paxo sage and onion stuffing, but that’s not as interesting.

Roast potatoes had been cooking in the tasty duck fat for 15 minutes before I added the parsnips. At the time, I thought this wouldn’t be enough parsnips. This is a common error with Christmas dinner.

Suddenly, I had carved lumps off the turkey crown, put the trimmings and vegetables on the table, and we were pretty much ready to eat our dinner!

We let the Youngling pour the Champagne, which he did very well. No wastage, no half empty glasses.

This was my dinner, before I added even more…


Turkey, Cameron’s delights, sage and onion stuffing, sausage-meat stuffing, roast potato, roast parsnip, carrot, peas, green beans, Brussels sprouts, and gravy. 

Of course, we have explained to the Youngling that Brussels sprouts are delicious, but he continues to believe his uncle’s remark that they can never be eaten. Here is the token sprout we always put on his plate, so he can discover for himself how lovely they are, when his uncle’s evil influence wears off.

Here’s a strange little adventure I had today, with an ordinary white loaf. 


I proved it in my nice new proving basket, turned it out, and scored it with a serrated knife. Now, as far as I could tell, and I was careful about this, all the cuts went to the same depth.


Here’s a shot, just after it went into the oven. The loaf looks jolly nicely shaped and even. The baking stone should have been evenly hot, but maybe it had not been heating up for long enough, and was hotter at the back of the oven. Quite early on, there was an obvious bulge at the back of the loaf. Yes, Deirdre, I do know the glass oven door could do with a clean.


Still, the loaf was rising nicely…


And, when I took it out of the oven, it was very obvious that the “oven spring” had not occurred evenly. One of the cuts has taken up almost all of the stretching that the loaf has done. I ask you all to theorise as to why it is like that.

• Uneven depth of scoring cuts?
• Unevenly heated stone?
• Shaping stresses in the loaf not evenly distributed?
• Fan oven hotter at the back side of the loaf?
• Act of God?
• Something to do with the curvature of space?

I was considering whether to cook something complex for our Christmas dinner, but decided to take the easy route this year, and chose a turkey crown. That will do for a couple of days, at least! We have had a commercial three bird roast in the past, and I was quite disappointed with it, because it had an awful lot of stuffing compared with the amount of actual bird meat, and was impossible to slice neatly. I do intend to do another three bird roast, some day, but I will try to use a minimal amount of stuffing, and use mostly sausage-meat, maybe with some chestnuts.

These chicken wings were cooked in our air fryer, and were very pleasant, but having to put the basket in the dishwasher to remove the burnt spices and remaining chicken fat was a bit annoying. You don’t get that problem when you do chips in them. Still, at least quite a lot of the fat didn’t get eaten, so that’s good.

 As threatened recently, I made a few pastrami on rye sandwiches. It’s supposed to be a classic combination, and they do go together very well. The price of the pastrami in the shop, at £3 for 110g, is ridiculous, though. It’s brisket, for goodness’ sake. I will most definitely make my own, some time. When I do, you’ll see it on here…