Festive sprout

As it turned out, our most elaborate meal of the holiday period took place in the middle of the day on Christmas Eve.

The first job of the day was the construction of the secondary Christmas tree, the primary tree, a baby blue from Sainsbury's, having already been installed in the extension. After repotting, as the Sainsbury's potter had been rather careless about potting what was otherwise a rather handsome tree. In its pot maybe three feet high and on its stand - day job a bedside locker - maybe five, which is about right these days. 

First job was to cut out a base, with a bit of old window sill proving suitable. Drill hole for six inch nail, drill starter hole in base of sprout tree, push tree onto nail (without disturbing the decorative sprouts) and job done. Done that is apart from wrapping the base, which would have been much easier done before adding the tree, but I was a bit nervous about taking it off.

Second job was the sage and onion stuffing, following the usual recipe. Variation in that to make up the weight, I put some of the crust of the white loaf used for the crumbs through the food mixer. Another variation in that the sage in the garden was not fit for picking and so we made do with two of the pots of rooted sage sold in Waitrose at this time of year. But without, on this occasion, trying to carry on with the plants, which didn't really work the one time that we tried it. For which see reference 1.

However, despite the later warning at reference 1, I did make what I thought was the mistake of adding a couple of tablespoons of cooking oil to the mix. Mistake in that it changed the texture of the cooked stuffing, make it soft & smooth, rather than a little crunchy outside and a little crumbly inside. But it all went fast enough for all that.

The chicken BH had bought (frozen, some weeks if not months previously) came with black feet and some complicated cooking instructions, one of which was to put a small amount of water in the bottom of the roasting dish. I was a bit dubious about this, as when I once tried something of the sort in one of my early attempts at bread making, the oven refused to come to heat. All the heat went into boiling the water off at 100°C, nowhere near hot enough for bread. However the chicken turned out fine. Rather good in fact, so black feet must be a good sign. 

As far as I can make out, no connection at all with the fowling arrangements of the Blackfeet of reference 3.

The small sausages being added to the mix as a concession to the younger members of the party.

Christmas pudding declined, so we settled for a Panettone from Wilko, probably bought on the occasion noticed at reference 2. Wilko had several pallet loads of them in the area in front of the queues for the tills, very reasonably priced, so I gave it a go. Perfectly satisfactory, and would have been even better had they gone for a bit less vanilla flavouring. Possibly a bit less vanilla, but I assume that there would not be too much of that in the Wilko offering.

Small pots of yellow custard for the younger members, taken both with and without sprinkle, with whom they are great favourite. Plenty of vanilla in the custard too.

All followed by a variety of children's games, including a good dose of role play and a fine rendition, with actions, of the song about a partridge in a pear tree.

At the end of the day, just three dead soldiers and one left standing. Fleurie already noticed on several occasions, Rochemorin at reference 1. This one, for some warehousing reason known only to Waitrose, a year older than that one. Perfectly satisfactory for all that.

The chicken was more or less done on its first outing, so having done fairly well on this occasion, we decided to pause the celebrations on Christmas Day proper and have chicken soup. Of which notice in due course.

PS: a few days later the festive sprout was dismantled, with the stand going into the roof against the next occasion. BH was concerned about the (very real) possibility of accidents with an exposed spike, so I cut out a blob of wood to protect it, probably from one of the few remaining bits of timber from our late lamented garden shed. In the course of which I was reminded that it is quite tricky to do a neat job with small pieces of this sort. But at least I got the hole right, with it fitting tight and snug over the nail.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/11/chicken-up.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/12/trolley-550.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackfeet_Nation.