Christmas Dinner Archives

Tag: Christmas Dinner

Pots and Pans and Puzzlements

On December 14, 2022

A simple cold supper for New Year’s Eve at the Hafod at Cae Non

Buying an electric implement for the kitchen will not automatically make you a good cook – or produce tasty food. Do not be fooled!

Every pre-Christmas, I notice that advertisements for electric accessories, tables and chairs and tableware proliferate, as if by owning these items your ability to produce perfect seasonal fare is then assured. Today, I walked into one local supermarket and was presented with a great pile of gravy boats. Do people only eat – or serve – gravy at Christmas? And what happens to all the gravy boats specially purchased other years – do they automatically vanish?

I annually ponder these vexing questions.

However, when I recently read an on-line advertisement from one of the mail order companies I deal with regularly, I actually felt cross. Here were special pans to microwave an omelette (£10), cook rice (£15), bake a pie (£35) or make soup (an eye-watering £70). Advertisers are clever and convince you that you rally cannot cook – or in any way do without – whatever item it is they are trying to sell. In these days of such widespread economic hardship, I find it in appallingly bad taste.

One omelette pan, one large soup pan (with lid!) and a collection of aluminium pie cases saved and washed from pies bought from the chippy or supermarket would produce all this food at a fraction of the cost. Unfortunately, what many are short on is the know-how of what to do in their kitchen.

I fondly remember the time I spent with my mother and uncle out in Sri Lanka when I was a child. We had a wonderful cook, Rajah, who could produce mouth-watering Singhalese and Indian dishes and cordon bleu European cuisine – his main utensils were a large sharp knife, and a medium-sized fork and table spoon. At the end of every day, he would carefully wash and dry them and reverentially lay them out on a clean cloth upon the kitchen table ready for his return the next morning.

Perhaps this is an extreme example in the opposite direction, but worth bearing in mind!

Every good cook is economical and hates waste. Keep it simple. Don’t be seduced into making unnecessary purchases – use what you have got and when you do have to buy new, make sure that it is multifunctional, of reasonable quality and will last a good long time.

For more ideas on how to operate in a kitchen economically, take a peek in either of my free e-booklets, ‘Eat Cheap: Survival Strategies in the Kitchen‘, or ‘Christmas on a Shoestring‘ which can be read on my website or downloaded – you can print them out yourself or order from Amazon if you want a professionally produced paper copy (just be aware that this last will cost you a few pounds).

I feel another book coming on – nothing quite like I have written so far, but one about how to basically run a household. It has already been suggested to me several times and I am beginning to think that maybe I should give it a try.

In the meantime, as far as Christmas Dinner is concerned, don’t get too stressed out… stick to simple, tried and tested… and good luck!

Going Crackers… Again!

By Gillian Monks

On October 2, 2022

In Thoughts From My Fireside

These are quite small crackers and each one contains a ‘prediction’ for the coming year and a sweetie.

The beginning of October and yes, I am already planning my Advent, Midwinter and Christmas celebrations. No, it is most certainly not too early to be doing so. It is only just over two and a half months to the Winter Solstice and Christmas Day, with most of the celebrations actually taking place beforehand in the month of Advent. As I like to make most of my own foods, treats and surprises, it is never too early to make a start.

This autumn many of my ideas are revolving around crackers – the ubiquitous table decoration which frequently yields hoots of derision, laughter or groans of despair as images of paltry plastic tat, brain-cringing jokes and wayward paper hats spring to mind. Yet they are an integral part of our Christmas dinner fun.

Harking back to the original crackers which were developed by Tom Smith back in the 1840’s and 1850’s, crackers can be used for any occasion – not just Christmas – and can contain anything you wish from love letters to very expensive gifts. They can be colour/decoration co-ordinated with your surroundings or with themed contents for lovers of books, the garden and so on.

In the past, I have tried the better type of cracker with nice hats, good jokes and mottos and expensive gifts, but discovered, to my great disappointment, that they were still regarded as no better than the cheap, gaudy ones, and were largely discarded on the dinner table with little thought or consideration.

Now, my focus for Midwinter festivity is always inclusive communal activity and suggestions and encouragement as to how everyone might join in and give rather than passively sit back and simply receive. I make my own crackers and fill them with interactive gifts, suggested activities, impertinent questions to ask fellow diners or philosophical suggestions and sweets. Sometimes there are no hats included; instead, revellers have to make and decorate their own as a pre-dinner activity – and the more sherry consumed the livelier the creations produced!

Making your own crackers can be a communal activity – just leave one end open to be filled and sealed later so that only you know what is actually contained within them. Crackers can be a little fiddly but are not difficult to make. Nor need they be expensive – you can make crackers form sheets of discarded newspaper (a ball of colourful Christmas twine and a length of tinsel cut up to make glittery pompoms completes the decoration) and fill them with jokes downloaded from the internet (or copied out of books from the library – get you kids to help you with that one!). If you really aren’t that ‘craftily’ inclined, buy a box of crackers and carefully open the end of each and insert a better gift and extra jokes. One of my favourite inclusions in crackers for any dinner table is a question to ask your neighbour – or to ask the assembled company as a whole – this can stimulate lots of interesting discussion and laughter and is a good ice-breaker for multi-generations of one family or people who don’t already know one another.

Crackers can be made and used for any season or occasion throughout the year – try making them from pale yellow or green crepe paper and decorating them with silk flowers for your Easter Sunday lunch table, or similarly themed for summer… try deep yellow, brown and red for autumn decorated with bunches of berries – real or synthetic – and filled appropriately, or orange and black ones for Hallowe’en… the possibilities are endless.

The key tip here is to make them well in advance, while you have the time to feel inspired and enjoy the process, then pack them away well covered and protected until they are needed so that they don’t become damaged, dusty or tired-looking in the meantime. It is absolutely no pleasure to anyone if you have all these wonderful ideas and then leave them until the last minute when they can become a horrendous chore to all concerned.

Have fun! Planning and plotting surprises and joy for others doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy ourselves too. If something doesn’t bring you some measure of satisfaction and pleasure, then don’t do it – find something (or someone!) else instead. Living our lives should be as nourishing and enjoyable as possible – why not? But that is a topic for another post another day!

If you would like to know more about the history of the cracker, click on the link below to read an excellent article produced by the Victoria and Albert Museum.

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/the-christmas-cracker#:~:text=The%20Christmas%20cracker%20was%20invented,a%20twist%20of%20tissue%20paper.

Please note, ‘cracks’ for crackers can easily be purchased on the internet, and although they might initially cost you several pounds for the old measure of a gross (144), kept somewhere dry they will last for many years.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

By Gillian Monks

On December 31, 2019

In Uncategorized

Advent candlelight in the dining room

I hope that you have all had/are having a wonderful Midwinter/Christmas?

This Advent got off to a cracking and early start with my trip to Germany and the amazing Christmas markets – not to mention lots of time spent with Holger’s family. I have also been invited to more Christmas parties and gatherings than ever before. It saddens me a little that everyone celebrates Christmas in Advent and then, after we get to Christmas Day, there is nothing left to do. All the lovely carols and Christmas music played on Classic FM radio stops abruptly after Boxing Day and people start to talk about taking down their decorations. Some of our decorations were only put up in the last days before the Solstice. Perhaps it is because many put their decorations up so early – end of November and early December? That is what I mean about people celebrating Advent rather than Christmas.

Despite my great love of Christmas, this was actually the first time I have seen a Christmas tree lit with real candles – and I have to say that it was utterly enchanting! Holger and I attended a seasonal gathering for all employees and their families where he works at Trigonos and one of the directors had supplied her own living tree, with presents waiting beneath it for all the children. In true traditional custom, there was delicious food to eat, games to play which generated much laughter and good-natured silliness, and story-telling to quieten us down again. Then, in time honoured fashion, just before everyone went home, the lights were dimmed, everyone came to sit expectantly around the tree and the children were allowed to come, one by one, to light a candle each upon the living tree. It was magical and the children’s faces were a real picture… as I expect mine was too!

This is what over ninety mince pies really looks like… and I made four dozen mini pies as well!

So far, I have to say that this Midwinter and Christmas has been as near perfect as is possible… and a very welcome break from the outside world into the bargain. With my last blog/Facebook post wishing everyone a happy Christmas, I stepped back from my computer and slipped into the wholehearted loving embrace of my immediate family.

Our Solstice cake, lighter fruit cake made in a wheel shape and decorated with fruits and holly leaves fashioned from marzipan.

We had some of our friends from the druid grove here for the Solstice on the 22nd and walked up the valley into the woods which have grown up around the old quarry and gathered among the trees there. As the daylight faded, we lit a small fire and held sparklers in our hands, sharing chocolate Yule log cake and beakers of hot, mulled wine. There is always something particularly special about this one time of late afternoon and dusk. There is something particularly magical about being present in the silent woods as the daylight fades and we find our way home in near darkness, singing and laughing, slipping and sloshing through mud and puddles as we approach the welcome lights of the village. this year, two owls accompanied our festivities with their haunting cries from one side of the valley to the other. Well, we are the Cylch Blodeuwedd after all!

Gifts wrapped in recyclable brown paper and decorated naturally.

Just two days later, on Christmas Eve, we gathered around the dining room hearth to share a German afternoon tea with sugary stollen and fragrant spice cakes and chocolate treats of every kind – the fire blazed and the thirty or so candles in the pyramids, flying buttresses and holders cast shadows from all the decorations. We had just paused in our carol singing and were pouring cups of tea while Dafydd was roasting chestnuts on the fire, when a new neighbour dropped in with a card and gift and I suddenly saw us as we must have appeared to him… almost a scene from Victorian days or a Dickens novel, ha! ha!

This year, more than ever, I have really tried to follow my own growing beliefs about the preparation for Midwinter and Christmas celebration, although seem to have had even less time in which to do so. I made my own crackers for the Christmas lunch table (in which I placed sweeties and questions to ask one another around the dinner table rather than silly gifts which no one wants). I have made some ‘fortune crackers’ for our New Year’s dinner table too, in which I have written ‘words of wisdom’ for 2020 and jokes to give us all a laugh and start us off on a jolly note! I made some of my own gifts too – hideously late finishing them and the evening of the 23rd saw me sat with my sewing basket expeditiously stitching away.

One of the winter fake fur hats and scarves I managed to complete.

I didn’t get everything made that I would have liked to, but at least I completed everything that I had started and everyone received something from me. We also tried out having a ‘pledge box’ for the first time ever and ended up opening it as a completely separate activity on Boxing Day (26th December) while we were having afternoon tea. Some very interesting and worthwhile pledges came out of that little box which was decorated and left in a prominent place in the hall a few days before the Solstice. It also struck me as so appropriate to open a pledge box on Boxing Day, when the apprentices and poor of the parish used to be given tips or alms for the year in boxes which had to be broken open.

As a family, we celebrate most of the twelve days of Christmas, which only come to an end with Epiphany on the 5th January. We actually only had our official Christmas Dinner on the 27th December, when close family and friends could join us and we could all celebrate together. I actually opted for the longer version of the meal this year, although as I juggled seven pans across the top of my aga and four roasting tins inside the ovens, I began to seriously wonder if I had finally bitten off more than I could sensibly chew! We began with chicken liver pate (with an avocado pate option for the vegetarians among us), followed by squash, coconut and ginger soup. The main course was roast turkey, sausages and chicken rolls with sage and onion stuffing, bread sauce and red currant jelly with all the vegetables and two kinds of gravy – vegetarian and non-vegetarian. The vegetarian main was a selection of winter vegetables from the garden, roasted and then folded with cheese into a wreath shape made from triangles of croissant dough, which is the lightest and butteryest dough imaginable! There was Christmas pudding to follow, served

Our (smaller) Winter Tree in the drawing room

with sweet white sauce and dollops of rum butter. Dafydd ‘fired’ the pudding with ethanol from his herbal dispensary… pretty blue flames licked around the dark fruity globe upon the china platter until the tall sprig of holly stuck in the top also caught fire and everything then had to be quickly extinguished! A cheese board, mince pies, fruit, candied fruits and chocolates followed along with a tray of coffee, but these we took with us into the drawing room and gradually picked away at as we opened even more gifts from beneath our Winter Tree… in fact, we were still grazing among the remnants of our ‘Lunch’ at eight o’clock that evening!

This past few days, the games cupboard has also been raided and Holger and I have challenged each other to some games of draughts which I used to play with my father when I was a child but haven’t played for well over fifty years. I no longer had my original board and set so earlier this year I ordered a new one over the Internet – the toy shop in Caernarfon could only supply me with cardboard and plastic – so I found a lovely wooden board which folds into a box in which to keep the wooden draughts, chess and backgammon pieces. Needless to say, Holger won most of the games! Holger and I went to the cinema one evening to see the new Star Wars film, ‘The Rise of Skywalker’, which I thoroughly enjoyed but found FAR too loud and had to watch some battle scenes with my finger stuffed in my ears!!!

And no, life isn’t quite so perfect… we found that mice had found their way up the wisteria into our loft and chewed a few of our seasonal decorations – the tallest section of wisteria was immediately removed! And our oldest feline member of the family (just turned twenty!) chose this Midwinter to make her journey and pass over into the Summerlands. But these are all a part of on-going life too…

Now it is New Year’s Eve. We might have a small bonfire out in the garden this evening to celebrate, weather depending. Wherever you are and however you might be celebrating this incoming new decade, I hope that you are well, comfortable and at peace with yourself and the world around you.