Our Christmas fare

Lots of people around the world celebrate Christmas and/or the New Year with a feast or at least a special meal, usually involving a family gathering. It's a time to take stock: to reminisce about what has happened in the year just ending, and to make plans for the year ahead.

I thought it might be interesting for readers from other parts of the world to hear a bit about what we consider to be our traditional Christmas fare.

Our main Christmas meal is eaten on Christmas Day itself, in the middle of the day. We usually eat a bit later than our normal lunchtime, simply because it takes a fair old while to prepare and cook the food - especially if you are having a big fowl or joint of meat which will need several hours of cooking (and who wants to get up at the crack of dawn to put the turkey in the oven??)

This is what's the Christmas lunch menu in our home:-

Beforehand
Champagne
Selection of "nibbles", including home-made spiced nuts: peanuts, almonds, macadamias and cashews briskly fried with salt and smoked paprika

Main course
Roast turkey
Pork sausages wrapped in bacon
Sage-and-onion stuffing
Roast potatoes and boiled potatoes
Brussels sprouts with chestnuts
Carrots and peas
Cranberry sauce and cranberry relish (the relish is spicier and less sweet)
Bread sauce
Gravy (must be home-made!)
Choice of various red and white wines

Dessert
Christmas pudding with cream
Home-made Rum-and-Raisin ice cream
Mince pies with Brandy butter


Home-made Mince Pies

And then, later on (if anyone has room...)
Christmas cake (a very rich fruit cake, made weeks in advance and "fed" at intervals with brandy)
Dried fruit (dates, figs etc)
Nuts (walnuts, brazils, hazelnuts, almonds, pecans etc)
Clementines / Satsumas or equivalent
Chocolates and Turkish Delight
Accompanied by our home-made Spiced Vodka

The traditional Christmas cake is covered with marzipan and royal icing, but we don't like the marzipan and icing, so we leave ours plain. To be honest, not much of it gets eaten on Christmas day, because we are usually too full of other things, but we enjoy the cake later on. It's especially nice served the Yorkshire way - with a piece of Wensleydale cheese.

Throughout the Christmas period we usually have other treats that we generally don't eat much of at other times - for instance there's always a tin of chocolate biscuits on the go, into which we dip whenever we feel like it, and probably a big tin of Quality Street or similar chocolates and toffees. The bowl of nuts is available throughout.

Another essential feature of Christmas in our household is the presence of some bags of chocolate coins.

In our family, tradition also dictates that on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas Day) our main meal is based around a joint of roasted gammon ham, served with Cumberland sauce (made with port wine and redcurrant jelly). Usually Jane cooks a massive piece of meat, only a small proportion of which will be consumed on Boxing Day. The remainder will supply us with cold ham for several days afterwards - and some of it may even get made into a turkey and ham pie... I'll probably be too busy to photograph the finished item, so here it is in its raw state.

Our 4kg piece of gammon

Looking forward to hearing what other people eat for their special meals...

The Mystery Object identified

Some of you tried (unsuccessfully!) to identify the mystery object pictured in my post of 20th December. Thanks for having a go. I feel that the time has now come to reveal its true identity.

It is used for DRINKING millet beer

It comes from NEPAL

It is called a TONGBA

Actually, the alcoholic drink made from fermented millet, correctly known as "Jaand", has itself come to be called "Tongba", and I don't think I ever heard anyone use the word "Jaand". This is a bit like the way in which British people refer to beer as "a pint", after the vessel in which the beer is drunk.

The way it is used is basically this: a lump of fermented millet "mash" is placed in the wooden container and hot water is added. The lid is replaced and the assembly is left to stand for a few minutes. After this the liquid is sucked up through a hollow bamboo "straw" about 30cm long, inserted through a hole in the lid. You can see the bamboo straw in my picture. You can keep adding more hot water until all the alcohol (and taste) has been exhausted.

If you are interested in the whole business of making and consuming Tongba, a good place to start is Wikipedia. Here's the link Wikipedia - Tongba

The Tongba in my pictures is one that I bought many years ago when I was touring ("trekking") in Eastern Nepal, paying out pensions to retired Gurkha servicemen from the British Army. I tried drinking Tongba, and my opinion is that it is entirely appropriate in the hills of Nepal - very warming and relaxing after a hard day walking up and down mountains - but probably not something that would be hugely popular in Britain!

As you probably gathered, my Tongba is these days purely ornamental, though it was in active use the day I bought it.

Christmas 2010

Hi Everyone, and a Happy Christmas to you all!

I'm publishing my "Christmas Special" post well in advance, because on Christmas Day itself I expect to be heavily engrossed with family festivities -- and eating & drinking of course! And all of you would be too busy to be browsing other people's blogs anyway...

Actually, some of you will have seen (most of) this post already... A few days ago I accidentally hit the PUBLISH POST button instead of the SAVE AS DRAFT button. Arrrrgggghhhh! I tried to withdraw it straight away, by changing the post's status back to DRAFT but the damage was done - it had escaped into cyberspace. Those of you who use Google Reader will therefore have been able to read the post in its entirety. Before you get all smug, I bet most of you have done this yourselves at some stage, or nearly done it, so don't you gloat!

Something with which to wash down the Christmas lunch

I thought I would make the theme of my post a Review of 2010. A lot has happened for my family this year, for instance:-

1. I started my blog on 15 August. Initially I envisaged this being merely a means of showing friends and family what I had been up to -- mainly in terms of fruit and veg produced in the garden. It has turned out to be much more than this. It has given me a completely new interest (actually two interests, since you have to include not only blogging, but also photography, which I had never seriously indulged in before), and it has given me a wide circle of contacts and friends around the world. Some of these are now my constant "cyber-companions", with whom I interact more-or-less daily. I feel that I should mention a few of them (no offence meant to those not listed here)

David Offut from Chicago, USA

Kelli Boyles from Northern Ireland

Sara from Wales ("Hillwards")

Janet from England ("Plantalicious")

Linda from Scotland ("Slow Growing in Scotland")
Damo from Wiltshire, England ("Two Chances Veg Plot")

Egretta Wells from Florida, USA

Hazel Dene from Australia

Takaeko from Japan

F. Fernandez del Castillo from Mexico, temporarily living in Japan ("Fer")

Becky Whitford from Georgia, USA

Mariza, and Ellada, from Greece

etc, etc

Thank you all for your company!

2. Fiona, our younger daughter,  was married to Juan Fernando Nunez -- twice! Once in an official wedding in March at City Hall in Manhattan, NYC

The official paperwork at City Hall.  Check out that halo!

and then again in a less formal, but bigger affair at Palenville, New York State, in June

The exchange of rings at Palenville

3. Fiona and Juan moved to Geneva, where they acquired a flat with some balcony space for growing things - which ultimately led Fiona to write for me a famously successful guest blogpost entitled Balcony Composting   They also acquired a lovely, but mischievous, cat which they named Voltaire.

Voltaire

4. Lara, our first grandchild, daughter of Emma and Dave, ceased to be a baby and became independently mobile. Her first birthday coincided with Fiona's (June) wedding festivities, which Lara probably thought were laid on just for her. During the Summer she discovered Grandpa's tomatoes, and proceeded to devour them voraciously at all subsequent opportunities.

Lara sampling my tomatoes

5. Emma, Dave and Lara moved to a new house (no picture available at present), where they are even closer to us - about 25 minutes' drive - so we are able to see more of them than we used to. Here's a Family Group showing them with Jane and myself.

Buttons & Willis's

Actually, there is another member of their household I must mention -- their cat Wallace. More mature than Voltaire, but no less cute!

Wallace

6. Jane won a fabulous holiday for us to Vancouver, Canada, and another one to Turkey for herself and our long-time friend Rosemary.

The seaplane trip in Vancouver

Jane watches the making of flat-breads in Turkey

Here's a view we don't often see -- the Gardener and the Chef both in the same picture (here exchanging some very knowing glances!)

Mutual admiration!

And then there's this one... Me with Fiona's friend and Spanish-teacher Nacho (who was the official photographer at her wedding). By this stage of the proceedings, I think we were both VERY, VERY  drunk! What price the Blues Brothers, eh?

The Blues Brothers ride again...

Finally (I suppose I ought to end on a gardening note),  a picture of the thing that all this blogging is really about - Mark's Veg Plot. Here it is as I imagine it in my dreams - it's High Summer, and the garden is bursting with produce. Roll on Spring-time, I say, so that I can get sowing and planting once more.

My pride and joy - Mark's Veg Plot

Happy Christmas everyone, and best wishes for a successful and productive year in 2011.

Mark.

Snow photography is difficult!

Lots of bloggers in the UK and elsewhere have been photographing snow scenes recently (particularly those who live near our beloved Heathrow airport, maybe??)

I have done a bit of this myself, and I conclude that it is not as easy as it seems at first sight. Getting your camera to focus on the right thing when everything is uniformly monochrome is a challenge. So is achieving the right light level. Have a look at these two photos which demonstrate this point.

The first one is "all wrong" in terms of light level (who has ever seen blue snow?) - though I believe it actually shows the subject matter quite nicely.

Who ever said that pigeons are indecisive?

The second one is more technically correct, but the footprints stand out much less.

I recently posted an arty shot of snow on the roof-tiles making an attractive regular pattern

But you didn't see the contortions I had to go through (hanging out of the bedroom window) to get the shot, which I later cropped.

I also wanted an artistic shot of my long-suffering Tundra cabbages beginning to peek through the thawing snow, but my camera insisted on focussing on the netting that covers them. Nice close-up study of the net though, showing its weave...

I've been trying to get a photo that shows off the beautiful colours of the Dogwood stems, and I thought a snowy background might be appropriate. I've taken a fair few photos, trying (without success) to get one I'm happy with, and now the snow is thawing so my opportunity is fast disappearing. This next photo is the best of the bunch though I'm not really proud of it. I am proud of the Dogwood though - there are stems in every conceivable shade of red, yellow and orange, but the red brick wall in the background makes them hard to appreciate. [BTW: I love that brick wall. It gives me privacy from the road that lies the other side of it!]

Here's evidence that the bulbs are keen to get started. These are dwarf Narcissi "Tete-a-Tete", coming up around the base of my Crab Apple tree. They don't seem to mind the really cold conditions.

I also wanted to show you this next photo. If you have been following my blog you will already have seen a close-up from this sequence - with the cat's footprints highlighted in the gap. In this other photo you can see exactly what that gap is -- it is a "cat-door" that I cut in the bottom of our back gate some years ago when our cats were getting too old to be able to climb over it!

Here's a picture of one of the little dears - Charlie:

Whew - getting through that cat-gate was hard work!

How do you cook your cheese?

There must be millions of ways of cooking cheese -- if only because there are so many different types of cheese available, all with different properties. Thinking about this subject the other day I realised the multiplicity of cheese-related gadgets we own: cheese-knives; cheese-graters; cheese-slicers; cheese-boards; even a lovely Dartington Glass cheese-dome that when inverted can be used as a fruit-bowl!

You all know what cheese-knives look like I expect, so in this post I am going to demonstrate some of the kit we use for cooking cheese. Naturally, many of these devices can be used for cooking things other than cheese, as witness this Kenwood electric tabletop grill:

The complete Kenwood Tabletop Grill

This item has a beautiful simplicity. It has a cooking surface, some of which is ridged (best for cooking meat), and some of which is flat (best for cooking cheese, or veg, or even for frying eggs). This part is made of some sort of cast metal (it's very heavy) with a non-stick coating. It is deliberately designed to be dishwasher-safe. There is a clear glass cover which you can use to stop any splattering.

The metal (dishwasherable) cooking surface

You can see that there are some holes in the cooking surface. These allow any fat from meat you are cooking to drain away into an aluminium tray which is positoned underneath. You don't need to use any added fat for cooking. The "electrics" part slots into a socket at the end of the metal grill, and is removed before washing takes place. It has an adjustable temperature control.

The aluminium drip-tray, and electrical heating element

The whole thing is surrounded by a thick plastic base that guards against the danger of anyone getting burned. We give this one a 9/10 rating. Highly recommended.

We used it earlier this week to cook Halloumi cheese, polenta and tomatoes. Most often we use it for our version of Korean barbecue or Bulgogi, which is predominantly thinly-sliced meat marinated in oriental spices, soy sauce and sesame oil.

Next on the list is our Raclette machine - described by Severin, its German manufacturers, as a Raclette-Party-Grill.

This one is a two-tier affair. It has a circular electrical element that heats from underneath a flat upper cooking surface and at the same time provides overhead heat to melt Raclette or similar cheese over the items you put in a series of removable individual pans placed underneath.

The Raclette-Party-Grill fully assembled

The top (non-stick) surface is suitable for cooking - for instance vegetables and thinly-sliced meat - but the pans down below are really only suitable for melting the cheese and heating ready-cooked ingredients, such as ham, or things you don't mind eating raw or lightly-cooked, such as sliced mushrooms or chopped onions.



Disassembled, showing components


The beauty of this one is that everyone can eat something different if they like, and can be in charge of their own cooking.

Now an item that used to be incredibly trendy back in the 1970's but is probably less frequently encountered today (except in tourist venues in Switzerland maybe) - the Fondue set.

Le Creuset Fondue set

Ours is a sturdy cast-iron one made by Le Creuset. Actually, a fondue set does need to be heavily-built. A thin one often leads to burnt cheese.
The concept of the fondue is to melt cheese (normally Swiss Gruyere or something like that), along with some other flavour- and texture-enhancers (a little Kirsch liqueur is good - and traditional) in the bowl, which is then kept warm by a small spirit-burner underneath. You each use a long fork with barbed prongs to dip into the cheese small pieces of bread or vegetables. Tradition dictates that anyone who loses their piece of bread in the cheese is subject to a forfeit or penalty (You decide what this should be according to the type of company present!)

Showing more detail of the burner, with its cover removed.

Then there is the ceramic Brie-baker, recently acquired on our holiday in Vancouver. I have posted about this one before -- see http://marksvegplot.blogspot.com/2010/10/brie-baker-inaugurated.html  -- so I won't write any more about it here, other than to say that this method of cooking is highly recommended and could hardly be easier!

Cheese about to be baked with honey and thyme

So, does anyone else have any interesting cheese-cooking gadgets they could tell us about?

New bird sighting -- the Blackcap

Today I saw in my garden a type of bird I've never seen before - here or elsewhere. It was a male Blackcap. Unfortunately I was not able to photograph it, so the best I can do is show you a nice picture I found on someone else's website (Yes, I have checked the Copyright situation). This one comes from http://www.naturephoto-cz.com/  Fantastic photo, Jan!

Male Blackcap - This one looks a bit stroppy!

You might also like to follow the link below to the relevant entry on the RSPB's website, which says that only about 3000 of these birds over-winter in the UK. I feel truly honoured to have one visit my garden.

RSPB - Blackcap

Identify the mystery object

Can any of you identify this object?

I challenge you to tell me:-

• What is its purpose?
• Where does it come from?
• What is the name for this type of object?

It normally sits on the top of the sideboard in my Dining Room as an ornament, but I have to say that its original purpose is not ornamental...

So, what do you think it is...?