I love Christmas! The only thing that used to disappoint me about this wonderful time of year was all of the travelling we had to do on Christmas day, leaving no time to really relax and enjoy the time as a little family. We have now rectified this situation, calling Christmas eve our own little Christmas day, complete with presents, Christmas carols, eggnog and all day pyjamas.
Trev makes the eggnog and it truly is spectacular. Of course there are usually two batches made, one sans brandy for the kids. We had to giggle at the first lot he put together, which was suspiciously devoid of egg. We dubbed this failure "nog". Once the egg was added we were once again in eggnog heaven.
This year I decided to up the Christmas ante and bought my very first turkey to cook for our dinner. While I realise we did not need an enormous bird for the four of us, I was keen to have a go at cooking up a monster and so purchased a seven and a half kilogram whopper.
I have had many people over the years refer to cooking turkey when justifying a larger oven choice. We installed a 600mm oven a number of years ago and I have not once regretted my purchase. I was wondering if the cooking of this massive bird might have me rethinking this decision...until I popped it in and realised that not only did I have plenty of room for it, but space for my vegetables too! Fabulous. I am fairly sure this is because my oven is free standing, as the sides are much thinner than those of a built-in model. It is also electric, but I am not sure if this alters the capacity. All I know is that I still adore my oven and boy, has it served me well!
This Christmas recipe is from the original, orange edition of The Cook's Companion, back when the chapter was entitled, "Chicken and the Christmas turkey". Interestingly, this recipe does not appear in the third, or even the second version. I am so pleased I decided to finish the recipes from all three books as this one would have been disappointing to miss!
The stuffing was filled with pork, bacon and herbs and was simply amazing.
There it is folks, another wonderful festive season done and dusted. I am now looking forward to the post-Christmas glow, complete with presents, possibly more champagne and (lots of) leftover turkey.
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