Just thought on I haven't burnt last years Christmas tree yet. I might drag it round and stick a couple of baubles on it and tell her we can save £50 this year I can call it upcycling, a brown fir is this years look I'm told
I braise my carrots with acacia honey, maple syrup and a little star anise .... I also give them individual names before serving ...
If you don't like carrots, don't have them. I can't believe they taste anything like a carrot after all that sweet muck is added.
I coat my top bananas with liquid salted caramel before popping them in the freezer briefly for the caramel to set ... I then dip them in a light tempura batter before frying them in sesame oil ...
I prefer my spuds completely mashed to fcuk ... I have perfected this technique over many years and it never fails to please
Good thinking ... I've burnt ours but there's still a bit that didn't completely disintegrate .... got some green creosote in the shed ... I wonder
My parents moved down to Cornwall earlier this year, so we're at their house for Christmas. I'll be cooking dinner with my brother, whilst Nanny, Grandad and my missus entertain the little un. One thing I like to make at Christmas is a slow cooked collar of pork, with demerara sugar and cloves. I boil the collar first, then sprinkle on the sugar and add the cloves, then finish it off in the oven to crisp up the outside. Beautiful melt in the mouth with a lovely sweet crisp crackling
I tend to do breakfast on Christmas day and that's more or less it, bar building complex Lego builds with a pounding head. No lego this year though so should be ok on that front. A proper full English of bacon, scrambled eggs, sausages, beans, mushrooms, beans and toast first thing with a bit of bucks fizz to blow some of the cobwebs away and then I hover about asking if I can help while sipping booze and picking at nuts and crisps and miniature hero's before the meal is served at some vague time later on in the afternoon. She does it, and it's usually very good. With the help of her brother, although I'm never sure what he actually does he seems keen so **** it. Her mum brings round a criminally over cooked side of beef and some beef gravy but it's edible so can't complain. Sometimes get to go to the pub for an hour or so but we haven't for the last couple of years so that 'tradition' seems to have dies a death. Christmas Eve is the best day though, walk on the beach and a coffee first thing then off to a local for a meal at dinner time with a couple of pints thrown in then it's battling to get the kids to bed before I sit, usually while she's asleep on the couch, in front of the wood burner watching **** TV drinking mulled wine. Can't ****ing wait.
So if Xmas eve is a meal with a couple of pints and then some mulled wine (yuck btw) why do you have a pounding head during the lego builds?
Pressure. There's a timescale to it, it needs to be done before the table can be set etc. Plus, 'couple' is an arbitrary term for whatever gets consumed that day. Mulled wine is far from yuck, depends who does the mulling.
Personal opinion, warm wine with spices is foul. Chilled and crisp white, or room temperature and rounded red - lovely.
