I did the Xmas food shopping yesterday and bought two puddings, one for Xmas day (obvs) and one a “break glass in case of emergency” affair in case I need more. Not “…in case of unexpected visitors” more, just…more.
But here I am, late evening 22 December and I’m about to crack – I’m going to start on the stand-by pud. You can’t NOT though, can you, when you know it’s there in the fridge being all fruity and spicy and sticky and nutty and delicious and chanting “EAT ME EAT ME EAT ME”? (This last bit might just be inside my head.)
So what are you looking forward to consuming gratifyingly unhealthy amounts of this Christmas?
Gorgonzola
Unrestrained consumption of crisps, savoury nibbles, biscuits, cheese and crackers … I enjoy the license to graze more than the main meal.
I think I am the only person in my family who likes Christmas pudding – Good.
Baileys smoothie for breakfast. And maybe a cigar.
I think I said this a couple of years ago, but one of my favourite things about Christmas day is that you can start necking the hard stuff pretty much as soon as you wake up and nobody gives it a second thought. None of this “sun’s over the yard-arm” bollocks – I’m up, I’m suppin’, whassup?
Mewwy kwishmushhh.
The crystalline tinkling of icicles in the first morning light, the distant parp of the post-horn as the coach-and-four crests the snowy hill, and the unmistakable “hweeuuurgghh whoosh brrrzzzzzttt BANG” as 3 pints of Bailey’s smoothie exits Mama horizontally at 09.45 and arcs down unerringly onto young Johnny’s Scalectrix. The timeless soundtrack to Christmas in Merrie Olde Englande.
Today I saw one of the worst slogans I’ve ever seen, for The Perfume Shop: “It’s beginning to smell a lot like Christmas”. Unless they are selling eau de sproutfarts, that really doesn’t say what they think it does.
Ha ha ha brilliant!
Even better: Christmas dinner leftovers in bubble n squeak every lunchtime for the rest of the year. Oh!
I make a point of getting our pud in January. It’ll be nicely mature by now. Yum yum yum.
I am the only person in the world who positively likes roast turkey. I bloody love it. As far as I’m concerned the days of hoovering up the leftovers can go on forever. It is also the only time of year I get to enjoy stuffing (steady) which I will have hot or cold (I told you once) at the table or even just standing up in the kitchen (Right, that’s it. Get out of my house)
It’ll be a quiet Xmas day followed by a totally mental Boxing Day, by the sound of it.
Looking forward to my neice’s Christmas morning fryup and then the roast potatoes, roast parsnips and brussels sprouts from the big meal later. Cheesecake, trifle, alcoholic beverages, chocolate, cheeses and savoury nibbles as required throughout the entire weekend.
The turkey and the other meats are not that important to me, really.
Ah, it was cheesecake on the menu I could change my mind about the nibbles being the highlight of the day.
It will be a quiet meal with just three of us, The Light her father and I. Obviously her dad’s needs will set the agenda. I’ll probably make a veggie curry the night before to reheat so his turkey can be cooked on the day, there will be soup beforehand (but a more timid one than I would make on his account), and Christmas pudding, to which I’m indifferent after. Cheesecake would be against the laws of the universe on Christmas Day so pudding it must be. I’m working till Christmas Eve so sadly it’s too soon to start drinking straight away.
Whisky. Can’t be bothered cooking owt just for me so I may make a cheese butty after a days painting.
My only solid plan is to listen to nowt but Billie Holiday and Ray Charles all day.
Roast pork on the Weber – the old school charcoal model so it is roast pork crackling for me.
It will be 33 in Melbourne according to latest forecast.
I cooked my traditional spiced ham in the oven tonight, none of that bland pre-boiled ham for me. I resisted tasting it so I can present it whole on the julbord without looking greedy and impatient…but the smell was making it very difficult. I’m looking forward to the mountains of sandwiches with slices of leftover ham and strong mustard that I’ll be having during the rest of the holidays!
(And of course the pickled herring, with beer and schnapps! And Janssons Frestelse! And Nubbesallad! )
Forgot to mention it up there ^ but I’m entirely indifferent to Xmas pud or cake these days.
I’ll probably be dipping into the traditional tub of Quality Street in the afternoon, while watching/dozing off to whatever movie my sister and niece decide we’re watching post-dinner.
Panettone bread and butter pudding,
Ooh , interesting, two of my favourite desserts in one. So you just sub the panettone for the bread, it that about it?
PANETTONE BREAD-AND-BUTTER PUDDING
6 round slices of panettone, about 1cm thick
50g butter to spread on panettone
3 large eggs
150g golden caster sugar
300ml creamy milk
150ml double cream
grated zest of an orange
Butter the panettone
Beat eggs, fold in sugar, then milk and cream.
Add zest of orange
Pour over panettone
Bake in BAIN MARIE on 160oF ( mark 3 ) for 45 minutes
Reap praise from family members. Be remembered in wills by distant aunts.
We have a birrova Brunch tradition here in our extended family on Christmas Day and we are hosting this year. Looking forward to Barbecued bacon and mushrooms and ice cold bottles of beer – many of which will be thrown dahhn me Gregory well before midday, while talking bollocks. In the meantime, about a dozen sugar-rushed kids will be splashing around outside in our pool, which is now looking nice and sparkly. We have a lovely leg of lamb for the big meal which will be at around 4ish.
Will have a house of very fussy eaters (including me). This does mean though that I’m the only person who eats the mince pies, pudding, cream and custard, hooray. *burps*
Usual tin of Quality Street for the afternoon, cranberry cheese and crackers for tea.
The traditional New Year’s Eve posh crisps (don’t normally eat them but they go well with a film or two).
Well, I awake to am empty house on Christmas morning, cook myself a hearty breakfast and meander slowly to Manchester to catch a plane to the son’s in sun drenched Mallorca. Mrs F is already there. If any afterworders are at the Aerodrome, please make yourself known. In the bar, terminal2.
Has anyone flown on Christmas Day? In hoping that security might be a bit lax so I can smuggle a couple of pints of Guinness on board. My bottles of Taylor’s Landlord will be in the hold.
I’m with @pencilsqueezer here, whisky is my treat at Christmas – not that I don’t drink it otherwise, but I just tend to drink more of it. I have a thrillingly Goth looking bottle of Talisker Superstition sitting on the cupboard. Otherwise I love Christmas dinner, and turkey and stuffing buttie followed by warm mince pies for tea. Oh, and Buck’s Fizz at 12 on Christmas Day is nice.
Vacherin de Mont D’Or
Wonderfully smelly and gooey cheese.
The mildness of the season means it will be rotting gently in the garage.
That’s sublime!
Cheese footballs, however ridiculous by contrast.
Baked in the oven, with a splash of wine on it? Bits of bread and veg to dip in? Mmmm. . .
My God! This is the correct answer. I was introduced to this delight when I was taken to a Michelin starred restaurant (in Birkenhead) for my 50th. This particularly version was washed in brandy, which worked with the inherent earthiness in a remarkable way. I was trying to explain to the assembled diners how good it was, but it just came out as ‘fucking extraordinary’.
If only it was in season, I would bring some to Shrewsbury next year!
Second year in a row I am cooking goose – last year it was the best ever Christmas meal. But to be honest it’s the unfettered grazing of Cheese & Onion crisps: I have a self-imposed ban on crisps the rest of the year cos I will devour them all within two minutes of arriving home. Tyrrells Cheddar & Chives now amazingly available in our local supermarket – them French know a thing or two about good food.
A Merry Xmas
Mr Crisp
I have an unopened bottle of G’Vine gin. It will be opened on Christmas Eve.
I love the Malteser sweets in Celebrations – the family can have the other types. And we may have bought about 3kg total weight in various cheeses yesterday which will be eaten whilst enjoying a sweet shiraz wine we bought half a case of in Menorca in the summer – it’s like port but designed for people like me that get a headache if they even think about looking at a glass of port. I have warned my arteries.
I’ve never tried heating up cheese footballs!
I’ll get back to you.
The vacherin is usually in such a state of righteous decay, or fucking runny, as an otherwise non-sweary friend alludes,that it needs no added prompting, but the unpasteurised and well past sell date camembert will be punished in that very way.
Cholesterol?
Overated in my book, or at least this week or two.
I balance it with garlic.
(Truism: garlic is good to lower cholesterol
Truth: if you eat 6 raw heads (not cloves, note) per day.
Response: I do my best.)
In a tradition that’s only a decade or so old, my beloved will make Welsh Cakes on Christmas morning.
The smell of griddle-fresh Welsh Cakes, with the leisurely second coffee of the day (the first is just a rushed caffeine fix), signals the definitive arrival of the holiday.
I’ve just made a Bondi Harvest Apple Custard Cake. It’s in the oven as I speak.
Recipe here:
https://bondiharvest.com/portfolio/how-to-make-amazing-apple-custard-cake/
Is it a Christmas dish? Erm … not really. But it tastes yummy, and we’re having it at Christmas, so I think it counts.
As we are away for Christmas, the family Christmas dinner happened on Sunday. Finished the last piece of home made Christmas pudding last night. We had eaten a shop bought one earlier, found at the back of the cupboard.
Been eating Christmas porridge, a spoonful of mincemeat stirred into the porridge.
Waistline, what waistline?
Determined not to break my diet too much but Christmas cake with a wedge of Wensleydale and shortbread dunked in scotch will both figure prominently.
Like @moose-the-mooche I love roast turkey so we’ve got a huge one this year and I intend to make curries and soup on boxing day.
Well, no pud for a start – can’t stand the stuff, but have gone large on almond cantuccini, baci chocs, macaroons plus prosecco. I’m hoping the roasties won’t be finished so can tuck into them on boxing day
This is what we’ll be gradually eating over the next week or so. We’ll probably cut our first slices tonight, and enjoy it with a glass of something extra special from Scotland or Ireland:
Already cooked and in the fridge: my Xmas pud to family recipe (cook two, one goes to parents – time was they gave me one and cooked two); ms moles Xmas cake; stollen to a fabulous Guardian recipe we have now done for 5 yrs or so.
But a traditional chocolate pudding, done to a German Jewish recipe now on its fourth generation if you count the minimoles, is always the highlight. Endless debate about ‘is it chocolatey enough’ or whether it’s best hot when it’s definitely a pudding, or cold the next day when it can be sliced like a super-dense cake.
And on Xmas morning a Mattesons smoked pork sausage for breakfast with mustard, with champagne. No idea, but another family tradition.
We’re sitting down Christmas Day at my sister’s, with a turkey, a joint of pork, and a duck (that’s from us).
But looking forward to Boxing Day, when the GLW and I are planning to tuck into a couple Lidl lobsters.
And between that I intend to indulge in lots of Dundee cake and stilton, washed down a gallon or so of port.
Have you alerted the authorities? They will need time to establish a thirty-mile exclusion zone for the 27th.