Merry Christmas, everyone!

By now, you’ve almost certainly eaten and drunk too much. This morning is a brief reprieve before the leftovers come out. Traditionally, we had a second Christmas dinner on boxing day using up most of the trimmings from the previous day, and making another dent in the turkey. Not even the twelve days of Christmas are long enough to get through the leftover turkey, though.

On our first Christmas in the new house, our dinner was relatively low key. Roast ham was still on the menu, but the main bird was duck in the form of Gressingham duck breasts. Breakfast was first up. I baked my first loaf of wheaten bread on the mainland against all odds, unavailability of soda bread flour, and weird buttermilk pots. The freshly baked bread was topped with cream cheese, smoked salmon, and a dash of lumpfish caviar.

Wait, caviar?! What kind of upper class fantasy is this?! Not quite, as lumpfish caviar is about £3 a jar and not quite as decadent as the sturgeon/Beluga variety. Smoked scrambled eggs were also on the menu, for a bit of Christmas flourish.

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Bellini’s were in evidence, too. A simple cocktail made of peach nectar or purée and prosecco, and a great accompaniment for smoked salmon.

The main meal was the aforementioned duck and ham with plum and cranberry sauce, goose fat (and duck fat) roasted potatoes, mash, candied parsnips, bacon-wrapped cocktail sausages, chestnut and sage stuffing, carrots, braised red cabbage and sprouts.

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Timings were a slight challenge as we kept remembering components that we had forgotten. It all came together eventually – not bad for the first Christmas dinner of the house.

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Now I better get back to watching Star Wars and playing PS4. Resident Evil 2 is asking to be played… (Sorry Shenmue 3, I still haven’t even opened you!)