The 12 days of Old Style recipes

glendam

Brilliant thread you certainly have a way with words julieq.
How do you vote for a post.

Glenda

purpleivy

This thread is just keeping me soooo cheerful, dash to it when anyone has posted. Maybe I should get out more...or maybe not. 'Out' has nothing to recommend it at the moment.

Friend and her dd coming for manicure and pedicure in a while, so that will occupy me for a while. And then I get paid :j immediately!:D Still trying to get my leaflet together so will have to work out what to charge. :cool:

JulieQ, if you have new rings, maybe you should come over for a manicure, it would set off the new jewellery sooooo well. A nice Christmassy red maybe? You would have to remember to wear gloves though for all that bird feeding stuff in order to keep your hands looking nice.

I do massage too, you must be aching after all that feeding birds, heaving parcels and mucking out. I could do you a package maybe. Regarding payment, I'd take a selection pack of game if that would suit you better.

LameWolf

I was thinking about all this, and being something of an inventor, I have come up with LameWolf's Patent Automatic Bird Wash with Optional Drying and Feather-Fluffing Attachment.

No more Dirty Birds, folks.:D:D:D

Tabatha_Kitten

glendam wrote: »

Brilliant thread you certainly have a way with words julieq.
How do you vote for a post.

Glenda

I want to vote too. But only if Julie updates us all on todays story !
And puts the prize money towards my bird sanctury idea !!

julieq

I'm sorry, it's really more than my life's worth to tell you what came today (apart from the Elvis Moose) or who I was having lunch with as a result. But it certainly was an improvement on budgies .

I did manage to pop into the local Asian supermarket though and picked up some tandoori powder, which I thought would be an interesting thing to try. You mix it with yoghurt, add a couple of cloves of garlic and coat chicken with it, so I'm attempting a Chicken Tikka Remoska as we speak.

Hopefully that will be enough to bring the OH out of what appears to be post traumatic stress syndrome after he accidentally put his hand into a pot of bird viscera while looking for his hammer in the garage. Obviously I've reserved the livers for pate (washed down with a nice Chianti), and cubed the hearts to add to stews, they're frozen in a pot for later.

Penelope_Penguin

glendam wrote: »

How do you vote for a post.

Glenda

You don't vote - a thread is Nominated This thread has already been nominated here

Penny. x

Penelope_Penguin

julieq wrote: »

I'm sorry, it's really more than my life's worth to tell you what came today (apart from the Elvis Moose) or who I was having lunch with as a result. But it certainly was an improvement on budgies .

Sorry - not good enough - you have to tell us now - promise we won't let on

Penny x

Tabatha_Kitten

Yes. Please tell ??
Promise Tabatha will keep her mouth shut and not jump in with all four paws again !!

greenbee

Well today's gift obviously made an impression... I take it OH isn't in on the secret . Hopefully he's enjoying his chicken tikka remoska... is this a little bit of a treat from someone with a guilty conscience by any chance ???

julieq

Well, any good a certain someone MIGHT have done to his cause yesterday has been completely undone today.

I mean have some people never heard of oven ready?

Let's put this in some sort of perspective. Yes, I like geese, I like jewellery, I like budgies (delicious, as I now know, fried until crispy with a little garlic and ginger and served with strips of cucumber with hoi-sin sauce, wrapped in Chinese pancakes), I like chicken, I like pigeon and whatever other birds come to hand. I am even enjoying living in the centre of what is now becoming one of the largest pear forests in Western Europe.

But it's Christmas Eve. I want spend Christmas Eve stretched out in front of a fire, gin and tonic in one hand, port and lemon in the other, TV on, in close proximity to a fridge full of tempting finger food and delicious gourmet treats, hinting at just enough ominous latent annoyance to terrify my OH into running around and doing my bidding without question. If I had wanted to spend Christmas Eve in the middle of large sloppy piles of bird entrails and mounds of feathers I'd have run away as a child and joined a chicken processing plant.

One goose, as the saying goes, is never enough. Two geese is starting to get there. Five is UTTERLY ridiculous. Still, you can't really knock Goose. It wouldn't be my first choice for Christmas dinner, but let's not look a gift horse in the mouth (this is NOT a request for horses in the post, can we please be quite clear on that). It really has to be roasted, simply, and I'll be serving baby sprouts lightly braised in red wine with lardons, Delia standard roast potatoes, parsnips roasted in a little butter, carrots, Mrs Beeton's sage and onion stuffing, and pigs in blankets for the OH. We'll start with a selection of hors d'oeuvres including pigeon, herb and chestnut pate, chicken livers lightly fried and served on a mound of rocket with a sharp vinagrette, pear smoked goujons of game bird with puy lentils, and budgie en croute.

As for the remaining 3 birds, I'm rendering them today and cooking them in sections to preserve as confit. Confit d'Oie (Goose) is a traditional French preserve, and wonderful with cassoulet (just as a completely unrelated aside, the French have a word for a colour, "couleur caca d'oie", from which our word "khaki" is derived: literally it translates as the "colour of goose !!!!!!", which for some reason has made me chuckle ever since I found out about it).

Of course some of the goose fat will be used to roast the potatoes, and the livers will be reserved for a rich smooth pate involving Armagnac.

And then we have the Goose down which is wonderful for cushions and pillows.

So a busy morning in prospect, but I think I'm probably looking frightening enough to get a great deal of help.

I don't know what you all think, but for me, Christmas Eve is the best part of the Christmas period, a time of magic and anticipation, of unexpected but welcome guests, of impromptu visits and last minute gifts and cards, of being gathered into the bosom of your family far away from the demands of daily life. Then, with the preparations finished for the day, it's delightful to to take a little time out late in the evening, to pull on your coat and walk out into the chill starry night air and make your way to join the throng packing that one place where you can just for a moment forget the frenzied preparations and stress of a modern Christmas, and lose yourself in the true meaning of the day.

Yes, it's late night Christmas Eve Tescos whoopsy time again. See you all there (but the 12p bread is MINE).