(Brockhampton nr Cheltenham Christmas Day 2010)
So Christmas eve it was down to Bristol, then back towards the Cotswolds delivering Christmas lunches. Then Christmas Day it was 2 Christmas lunches - Gill doing one and me doing the other. The fact that it was also the coldest December since records began and we were deluged with snow was not so amusing - but luckily we have a good sense of adventure.Florence (right) who greeted us & kept us company in the kitchen was a cutie!
Game terrine (Overbury Estate pheasant and venison). With my Kenwood blown up & at the repair shop and the borrowed one too new for my ancient Kenwood attachments, it was back to the vintage mincer to make the game terrine. Another inheritance from Nana's old kitchen - so probably dates back to the 40's or 50's. This was the mincer that once made the old luncheon meat pie.....I had made a fig, lemon and lavender chutney (adding figs to old recipe) and there was a little winter vegetable salad to go with it. What a feast!
These grilled prawns were for another delivery. Back in the summer I had tried out the Donal Skehan mohito chicken recipe on the barbecue and had throught it would be great with prawns too. I halved the marinade and used some of it to marinade the prawns and the rest to make a dressing to go with it. I had pre-grilled the prawns to get the grill flavour on the outside and then they just needed to be heated in the oven on the day.This went with some of the veg salad as above. Nice take on a prawn cocktail!
So a few days before Christmas I finally found out how much I am worth (see left) - I had thought it would be a bit more though :(After de-boning the Home Farm turkeys (see how to do that here) I spread the skins with butter, orange zest, lemon thyme and ras-el-hanout. That should give it a flavour injection as it cooks!
Gingerbread house on the side table at the house I cooked at on Christmas Day. The clients had left their mugs in the kitchen ;o)
With all the festive food filling their fridge, they had gone into overspill outside. At -12 oC it was far colder than keeping it in the fridge anyway. Of more concern was it icing up!
The cold didn't dissuade all the guests from going out in the garden and firing off fireworks & setting off chinese lanterns. What a lovely way to end Christmas Day!
Christmas Day menu
Related posts:
Christmas 2007
Christmas Day 2008
Christmas Day 2009
Sunday lunch in the Cotswolds
Turkey ballottine
Mince piesGloucestershire Echo article, Christmas 2007
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