That’s it. Done. The cathartic moment when the turkey carcass stops leering at me from the fridge and enters its rightful place: the bin. I’m not going to bother with stock from its bones, for one thing I haven’t got a pan big enough to hold it in its entirety and I’m not spending my morning wrestling it into small pieces (have you ever tried to hack through a turkey’s back bone? No? Don’t waste your time: it will win).
So this is not a poem but a list of all the things we have picked at, eaten with relish, shoved to the back of the fridge in disgust, nibbled and spat out since Christmas Eve (not counting cups of tea and packets of Kettle Chips).
Pheasant x 2 (browned in butter, flamed with brandy and braised with apple juice and stock)
Celeriac, carrots, Jerusalem artichokes (apt)
Mashed potatoes (butter’s a main ingredient)
Chocolate Brazils
Mince pies (sweet shortcrust, home made mincemeat – thanks Delia – extra brandy)
Crumpets
Smoked salmon and thin thin brown bread
Champagne…for breakfast…for elevenses…for lunch…
More chocolate Brazils and a celadon green tin of Fortnum’s Explorers biscuits
Turkey, legs removed, boned, snipped of its ligaments and stuffed with….
Sausagemeat, chestnuts, lemon, sage
Butter, butter….more butter
Streaky bacon and thin sausages
Braised red cabbage (Viennese style)
Ubiquitous sprouts
Parsnips and spuds roasted in goose fat (I could just have had these alone)
Gravygravygravy
The Hub’s cranberry sauce. Orangey. Sinus hurting.
Pauillac, Pinot Noir, Sauternes
Blue-flamed pudding (the one we forgot to take to Scotland last year)
Brandy sauce
No cheese..that’s tomorrow
Sloe gin, Drambuie
More crumpets
GLORIOUS LEFTOVERS (and a ham: scored, cloved, burnished and too darned big)
Stichleton
Berkswell
Fennel crackers
Thick nubbly fan shaped oat cakes
Chocolate ginger
Turmeric yellow Piccadilly Piccalilli (it must stain your insides)
And cake, cake…..Christmas Cake (the best I’ve made – thanks to Nigella and a tin of chestnut puree)
Today, 28th December. We’re having salad.
Hope you all had a lovely Christmas!