Weezl and friends Phase 3 - sitting pretty with Kitty

poohbear59

I have just looked at the planner for Christmas. My family will love it. Particularly DS1 who complains that we never have pork:D
You even have my favourite for Christmas eve, smoked salmon pasta. Mine varies in that I use creme fraiche and sometimes cherry tomatoes if they are on offer.

Allegra

hornetgirl wrote: »

I'm going to make the pasta tomorrow. That's a great tip about the courgette Lesley. I'll grate it and mix it in. It does get rather hard to think of new things to do with them at this time of year.

Allegra, please could we have a link to the Christmas recipes in your early post which also links to Kitty (or somewhere similar), where it will be much easier to find.

I have done it on the front page as soon as it was live today, HG - it links from the "We are now also testing Christmas recipes" - is it not obvious enough that it's a linkie ? Should I change the text to "please click to view Christmas recipes we are now testing" or something similar ?

I have done my freezer challenge mealplan today - and, true story, this - using the already cooked meals and the meat I have in the freezer, it takes me right up to and including Thu 28th October. Which means I can actually test out the Christmas week starting on Friday 29th October, with Mockmas already scheduled for Sunday the 31st ! Must be fate, eh ? :T

BTW, if anyone is actually able to test out the week in full to test all the food and methods, please, please consider doing so. And if anyone reads or posts on the Old Style, and sees a thread that could benefit from the Christmas planner, please post the linkie. Or if you identify a poster that could benefit from it, ditto.

Mooloo, what a faboulous idea about the piccies ! I always used food pics cut out from mags to decorate my kitchen, and if I had a decent enough printer, I'd do the same with the CFR pics

poohbear59

Allegra

DSs have asked for pork on the last Sunday that they are all here together before they all disappear to uni. Just happens it is this Sunday coming. I will presume this Sunday is Christmas day and try out the planner as much as I can in the following week too. It means I get to have my favourite pasta too.

We don't eat Christmas pud in this house so won't be testing it so maybe someone who loves it could give it a try.

ETA I have just noticed the toad in the hole. DH's favourite meal. We haven't cooked it this year! He will think it is Christmas.

Allegra

Awww. Poohbear, you are an angel :A

weezl74

sian,

I got your email!

Wow yay! I'm so thrilled!:j:j:j:j:j

I'm trying to work out what to say!!!!!!

Hello lovely mooloo really nice to see you.

And mega yay for poohbear being willing to do testing! How exciting :T:T:T:T:T:T:T

and hello everyone else

System

We've just had the saag aloo, and it was very nice (although the quantity was massively overwhelming). It goes very well with brown rice and a dollop of yoghurt. The ginger is lovely in it, and I will definitely make it again. High praise from someone who hates potatoes! :-)

On the downside, though, I'm afraid I couldn't find an appropriately sized Swiss Roll tin on my brief shopping excursion today, so I'll have to bow out of making the Yule Log this weekend. I do have tins that would accommodate about 50% extra, but I don't really want to make 9 eggs' worth and 450g-of-chocolate's worth of cake for no particular special event. Especially since I can't buy chocolate at anything approaching the SmartPrice price listed in the shopping list. I'll keep an eye out for a suitable tin over the next few weeks, though, and if I find something suitable I'll give it a go. The basic roulade bit is a perfectly standard recipe, so I can't see that there would be a problem with it (unless there is a problem related to the specific brand/type of chocolate used, which I wouldn't be able to test anyway).

But Weezl, I think you should re-word the method for the Yule Log, to avoid copyright infringement. The standard advice for recipes is that you are allowed to use the ingredients list from published recipes, but you have to phrase the method in your own words. Some things are impossible to rephrase, but others are so idiosyncratic that they are immediately identifiable (as is the case here, as you will see if you do a Google search on "Tear the chocolate into small jagged pieces": the only two results are for the original version of this recipe on the Channel 4 and Delicious websites). The only differences between your write-up and the one that is copyright to Delicious magazine (acknowledged on the Channel 4 website) is the different filling that you are using and the omission of the finishing sprinkling of icing sugar. You omit "Mix the Nutella and mascarpone together until smooth. Gradually mix in the brandy." and " Dust with icing sugar to serve.", and you add "Whisk the cream and sugar together.", but apart from that, the recipe is identical. This is potentially a copyright issue, unless you have permission from Delicious to use their recipe and you acknowledge the source (especially since you claim the copyright for yourself, at the foot of the page).
http://www.channel4.com/food/recipes/occasions/christmas/chocolate-yule-log-recipe_p_1.html
http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/chocolate-yule-log

weezl74

ok avocet will do.

I think we'd agreed to simplify the recipe hugely anyway since I made it and said it was the 9 bowl affair, and I was hoping we would be able to do that together.

MSE says something completely different to that about recipe copywrite so i didn't know that (what you said). I've been following their summary of the rules on it, but I'll happily look into it some more now you've said.

Obviously, big apologies to anyone offended by this, a good faith error I assure you all.

weezl74

p.s addressing your point about asserting copyright over the page, I do, as it is my layout, photography and formatting. From MSEs summary of the rules this was the only part of a recipe I understood can be copyrighted.

I am certainly not attempting to pass off work as my own.

When we first discussed it I think I said that good food had a very complex method which i was hoping we could simplify.

Allegra

weezl74 wrote: »

When we first discussed it I think I said that good food had a very complex method which i was hoping we could simplify.

And that's what we shall do before the planner is linkied from the main site It will, by then, hopefully, be a completely different recipe - as this is how these things have worked thus far - and all concerns about plagiarism will be duly addressed :T

System

Sorry -- I thought you said you had already cut it down from nine bowls? I can only see four! But then I always have trouble seeing the washing up -- that way someone else has to deal with it! ;-)

You can't really cut down the number of bowls from that current version:
~ Melting the chocolate -- you need to do this in a bowl, or you will get very sticky! The recipe uses a saucepan as a bain marie, which you could get rid of if you microwaved the chocolate instead.
~ The egg yolks and sugar have to be whisked separately from the egg whites, or else the recipe won't work. Two bowls are unavoidable.
~ A baking tin for baking the roulade is unavoidable.
~ At some later time, when you come to fill the cake, a bowl to whip the cream in is unavoidable, as is a bowl to melt the next batch of chocolate (although you can omit the pan if you use a microwave, as before). HOWEVER... If you plan on making up the Yule Log on the same day as you are baking it, you could reuse the first chocolate bowl without having to wash it up (did I mention that I hate washing up?). I suppose if you were really mucky, you could use the chocolate bowl for whipping the cream as well, because a little bit of chocolate residue probably won't hurt the cream too much. But you will still need a separate baking tray for spreading out the chocolate to cool, because your first tray will be full of flourless sponge.

So, apart from possible economies of scale in reusing the chocolate-melting bowl (if assembling the cake on the same day) and in replacing a pan of water with a microwave, I can't see how to reduce this further. That's the problem with flourless sponges, and probably a major reason why people don't make them very often!