![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Dec. 24th, 2007 06:10 pmI'm completely shattered!
I've managed to get everything done today and I've just taken the last batch of mince pies out of the oven. They looked absolutely delicious, but I'm so tired I couldn't feel hungry enough to eat one. Charles ate the broken one and said it was really good. He actually said that my mince pies are always better than anyone else's, bless him! Not that he's partial, or anything!
The gammon is cooked and is in the oven already studded with cloves and covered with a mixture of brown sugar and mustard. All I have to do now is put the oven on an hour before we want to eat. Charles has made the pease pudding and it's wonderful! I shouldn't think we'll ever want to buy shop-bought again.
I had a terrible time colouring the almond paste for the poinsettia leaves. First of all I couldn't get the stuff green and red enough and then suddenly I'd got food dye everywhere! I didn't think I was ever going to get it off my hands, but it's mostly gone now; it came off the marble slab and the rolling pin OK, but it's badly stained the pine kitchen table. Fortunately we shan't eat in the kitchen again until at least Thursday and I may have been able to remove it with bleach by then.
It took us hours to prepare the chestnuts. I think Charles will let me buy ready-prepared next year as half the first batch were bad. He put some of them into his own home-made stuffing with sausage meat extracted from super-duper chipolatas, lots of thyme, red onion and something else I can't now remember. It smells very appetising even raw. I just hope I remember to cook it tomorrow. I totally forgot the stuffing last year. We had to have it on Boxing Day with the cold meat. He went to do the shopping with John and said that the sausage meat available was disgustingly and unfeasibly pink, hence the sausages. I very much fear that I may have brought him up with standards he can never afford!
The rest of the chestnuts he will sauté with the parboiled sprouts and a little bacon. I do hope the goose defrosts properly in time. It's sitting in a big dish on the sideboard in the dining room, but I'm not entirely convinced that Bramble can't get in there, since we sometimes discover the door mysteriously open. I shall have to find somewhere else more secure to put it overnight otherwise I shan't be able to sleep for worrying about it although at the moment I feel as though I could sleep on an ironing board!
It's always the same at this time of year. The house is stuffed full of lovely food and suddenly none of us feels hungry!
Personally I feel extremely sticky and can't wait to get into a lovely long hot shower before I go to bed. I even feel as though I have icing sugar and bacon fat in my hair!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! I've just remembered that I still have presents to wrap! Wail!
Happy Christmas World!
I've managed to get everything done today and I've just taken the last batch of mince pies out of the oven. They looked absolutely delicious, but I'm so tired I couldn't feel hungry enough to eat one. Charles ate the broken one and said it was really good. He actually said that my mince pies are always better than anyone else's, bless him! Not that he's partial, or anything!
The gammon is cooked and is in the oven already studded with cloves and covered with a mixture of brown sugar and mustard. All I have to do now is put the oven on an hour before we want to eat. Charles has made the pease pudding and it's wonderful! I shouldn't think we'll ever want to buy shop-bought again.
I had a terrible time colouring the almond paste for the poinsettia leaves. First of all I couldn't get the stuff green and red enough and then suddenly I'd got food dye everywhere! I didn't think I was ever going to get it off my hands, but it's mostly gone now; it came off the marble slab and the rolling pin OK, but it's badly stained the pine kitchen table. Fortunately we shan't eat in the kitchen again until at least Thursday and I may have been able to remove it with bleach by then.
It took us hours to prepare the chestnuts. I think Charles will let me buy ready-prepared next year as half the first batch were bad. He put some of them into his own home-made stuffing with sausage meat extracted from super-duper chipolatas, lots of thyme, red onion and something else I can't now remember. It smells very appetising even raw. I just hope I remember to cook it tomorrow. I totally forgot the stuffing last year. We had to have it on Boxing Day with the cold meat. He went to do the shopping with John and said that the sausage meat available was disgustingly and unfeasibly pink, hence the sausages. I very much fear that I may have brought him up with standards he can never afford!
The rest of the chestnuts he will sauté with the parboiled sprouts and a little bacon. I do hope the goose defrosts properly in time. It's sitting in a big dish on the sideboard in the dining room, but I'm not entirely convinced that Bramble can't get in there, since we sometimes discover the door mysteriously open. I shall have to find somewhere else more secure to put it overnight otherwise I shan't be able to sleep for worrying about it although at the moment I feel as though I could sleep on an ironing board!
It's always the same at this time of year. The house is stuffed full of lovely food and suddenly none of us feels hungry!
Personally I feel extremely sticky and can't wait to get into a lovely long hot shower before I go to bed. I even feel as though I have icing sugar and bacon fat in my hair!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! I've just remembered that I still have presents to wrap! Wail!
Happy Christmas World!
