A very British Christmas

[Simon]

No: HPFGUIDX 6526

Neil wrote: "mice pies"

Mice pies? Are they any good?


Having got that out of the way onto something a bit more serious.
My Christmas Dinner this year will be something like (cooking for 5 unless
plans alter). Please note that this meal will start sometime in the early
afternoon and then go on for at least two hours - hence why there is so much
food and why so many courses.


Starter 1: Pate (imagine an appropriately placed accent on the e)
Starter 2: Prawn Cocktail

Probably only a choice of one of those two, but maybe both - we are still in
the planning stage.


Fish Course - maybe, we cannot decide if enough of the people (i.e. two
definitely will not eat fish) there will eat fish to warrant this course.


Main Course:
Roast Turkey
Sage and Onion Stuffing
Apricot and Rice Stuffing
Roast Potatoes
Mash Potatoes
Roast Parsnips - glazed in honey
Carrots - in lime butter
Small sausages (chipolatas)
Bacon (put on the turkey during roasting)
Brussels Sprouts in Hazelnut something or other (I do not eat these so have
no idea what happens to them!)
Cranberry Sauce (Homemade of course)
Bread Sauce
Gravy


Dessert: Christmas pudding - with brandy done carefully, so we do not burn
down half the house or my eyebrows. I object to loosing eyebrows to
something I will not even eat (and I think just object to loosing them full
stop).

After Dessert: Port and Stilton (this course is for my mother and myself who
will be fed up of having been cooking for most of the day and will want
something nice to look forward to at the end of the meal - neither of us
particularly likes Christmas pudding).

Another Course: Coffee (tea for those of us who do not drink coffee), brandy
and chocolate mints and maybe mince pies.


Cracker to be opened somewhere in the above - we usually make our own and
put one small Christmas present in it. So in some years the crackers have
cost a fortune as we have struggled to find anything that anyone wanted that
was small enough to fit in the crackers.

There is also a Christmas cake to be added in if anyone feels that they have
not got enough to eat!


Neil wrote: "You could serve cold roast beef for tea as you will be picking
from the turkey carcas for at least a week and it's nice to have some
variety in your flesh-eating (ahem, I'm a vegetarian)."

If you buy a correctly sized turkey then it does Christmas lunch (or dinner
if you wish to call it that) and one other meal. The important thing is to
make sure you get a correctly sized one, or else it will be turkey
everything for about a week!


Neil wrote: "In the afternoon you might try mulled wine (red wine, spiced
with cloves and other things) and mice pies.  It's also advisable to pig out
on things like nuts, satsumas, dates, turkish delight and chocolates by the
sackload whilst viewing Christmas 'specials' on the telly.  Later on, it's
traditional to have a blazing row with a relative about something trivial
and get completely rat-arsed."

We sometimes do this in the morning - little afternoon left after the big
lunch! Or maybe while watching television that evening. I realised a couple
of years ago (when I was 18) that that was the first year I had ever watched
television on Christmas Day.
On Boxing Day it will be a cooked breakfast and then pigging out on any food
you can find for the rest of the day as we eat up any food we can find.

Also we already have three bottles of rose wine for Christmas and 22 cans of
Boddingtons (I drank 2 while no one was looking!). Now we just need to get
the red and white wine and anything else we want to drink (like the port and
brandy).


Simon (looking forward to Christmas already! - I get little chance to over
indulge all year as I am a poor student, Christmas is, therefore, very good
fun)