Christmas recipes?

This is the outcome...not bad at all!

We are cooking a goose this year.  Found a recipe to braise it (cook it in a covered crock in the oven) which we might try.  And apparently chateauneuf du pape is the right wine to drink with goose.  We've got plenty of those.

Mmmm, goose. I will try goose one day, it is getting more popular in the UK by all accounts.

Enjoy that wine Bart.

Jason.

p.s. what are you stuffing it with?

My mother-in law makes the sausage rolls on Christmas Eve and always has to make a second batch as they go very quickly. I'll try and get the recipe. I know she makes her own short pastry with a little cheese in it and adds onion and parsley to the sausage meat. They are simple but delicious hot or cold.

Honestly Scooot, microwaves for losers.  

But, while cooking I was listening to AVRO Klassiek 24/7 on IRadio @ MP3 256 kbs, very good sound.

Jason.

How wierd. Woke up this morning with a craving for a sausage roll for breakfast (not a blues intro),  which I duly satiated in town on an early morning shopping trip!

First one I've eaten for years!

Then I open this thread....

G

Home made mince pies, straight from the oven. Yummy!!!!

Puff pastry

Mincemeat

1 egg

Plain flour

Icing sugar

Simples!

Topic moved.

Tony, they look rocking! And very Christmasy with the snow topping.

Jason.

It's Christmas - the time when we gather to make

A truly remarkable once-a-year cake.

The recipe's written in letters of gold

By a family witch who is terribly old.

The rule of this cake is it has to be made

In a wheelbarrow (stirred with a shovel or spade)

At Christmas, the season of love and good will.

Other times of the year it might make you feel ill.

You must nail it together or stick it with glue,

Then hammer it flat with the heel of your shoe

You must stretch it out thin, you must tie it in knots,

Then get out your paint box and paint it with spots.

What a taste! What a flavour! It's certain to please.

It's rather like ice-cream with pickles and cheese.

In June it would taste like spaghetti and mud,

While its taste in September would curdle your blood.

Oh, what a cake! It looks simply delicious.

Now get out the carving knife, get out the dishes!

Be careful! Be careful! This cake might explode,

And blow up the kitchen and part of the road.

Oh dear! It's exploded! I thought that it might

It's not very often we get it just right.

Let's comfort the baby, revive Uncle Dan,

And we'll start it all over as soon as we can.

For Christmas - that gypsy day - comes and goes

Far sooner than ever we dare to suppose.

Once more in December we'll gather to make

That truly remarkable once-a-year cake.

The Remarkable Cake  ~  Margaret Mahy

Made me laugh. Thanks for posting, Debs.

Have a great Xmas.

Tony

We tried goose for the first time about 6 years ago, and have never gone back to turkey which tastes of precisely nothing by comparison. Slight downside is that geese haven't been selectively bred like turkeys, so 'only' have a genetically feasible amount of meat on them, rather than being two souped-up breasts on legs (don't s****** at the back) which is all your average unfortunate turkey is these days. So, you can't feed more than about 6-8 people with a goose. They don't fit the average oven that easily either, so you might need to take a hacksaw to it to shorten the legs.

I'm not sure cooking a covered crock would be that good an idea - geese are preposterously fatty, and you might find yourself with a flooded oven. We just roast ours as you would a rather large chicken; you just have to remember to check it and pour off the fat every 45 minutes or so. Get several containers ready to pour the fat into, keep it in the fridge and use it to roast your potatoes and parsnips in over the coming year: the taste is fantastic. Quality goose fat retails for about £15 per kg, so you're (sort of) saving a small fortune in the process.

Someone asked about stuffing (I've told you before at the back) - being fatty, it doesn't really need it but we have used a potato/onion/apple recipe we found somewhere on the web, which worked nicely.

Mark

Nice posts, Debs and Ebor.

Jason.