Weezl and friends Phase 3 - sitting pretty with Kitty

Bigjenny

Hi Life in turmoil

Very pleased that you tested and enjoyed the christmas meal, well done and thank you for your comments.

The stuffing balls have been added to the list of edits to be done.

Jenny

nopot2pin

life_in_termoil wrote: »

Mushroom soup
Great success and we all enjoyed it, please dont change it its fab as it is. 10/10

Thats what I thought
Blooming lovely soup

life_in_termoil wrote: »

Stuffing
This was lovely and although I didnt shape into balls It wasnt a drama. Mixture was abit dry but thats because my breadcrumbs were on the slightly large size lol. Next time I may cook my onions in abit of water first to soften and also add the cooking water to the mixture which would make it easier to mould into balls 8/10

Deffo going to be making this soon, as I love stuffing...and alot of recipes for stuffing have sausage meat in them

life_in_termoil wrote: »

Yorkies
Im rubbish at making yorkies no matter what the recipe BUT these went down well with us all although not on the same par as Aunt B I will deffo make these again. Do these freeze well? 9/10

I have successfully frozen yorkshire puddings before. I haven't tried this recipe yet, but I will be having a bash at freezing them, when I do get round to trying it

Very useful feedback

life_in_termoil

OK last question for tonight and seen as though im now in xmas mode.......how much of the xmas day menu could you make in advance, freeze and warm up on the day?......hummmmmm

life_in_termoil

Forgot to say that i have more mushroom soup than required for tomorrows wraps so I have frozen whats left. Will probably have this for my lunch 1 day next week so will let you know if it defrosted ok.

Night all xxx

nopot2pin

life_in_termoil wrote: »

OK last question for tonight and seen as though im now in xmas mode.......how much of the xmas day menu could you make in advance, freeze and warm up on the day?......hummmmmm

This is a wee list of what I would prepare in advance and freeze, for that week:

Waffles and fruity pancakes - both on the menu 3 times in the week - I would batch cook, then freeze - reheat in toaster or microwave

French onion soup - this is on the mealplan 3 times in the week, again, I would batch cook, and freeze into 3.

I would make the mushroom soup in advance and freeze.
And the gravy.

Like I said before, I am not sure how well the yorkshires would freeze, as I haven't tried them yet, but I normally freeze yorkshires, so they should be okay.
Same for the stuffing.

The timings show that the xmas pudding is prepared on Christmas eve... so, thats another thing less to worry about on the day

The only other thing I would batch cook, and freeze from the xmas week, is the caramelised onion houmous.... the other recipes, for me, dont freeze too well, so I would prep/cook as required.
Others may have futher hints/tips

Hope this helps

Allegra

Wow What a great feedback, life in termoil ! I'm looking forward to testing it out now even more than I was before, and that's saying something ! I have not switched my brain on yet, so can't answer the freezing question with any degree of confidence as yet, but will come back to it soon.

I know what you mean about the turkey - that's how I feel about it, too. In a similar vein, we went to do some shopping in Sainsbury's yesterday (out of basics tissues and handcream), and they had large gammon joints for £3.99 p/kg (half price), so I was considering getting one... But they were all so large that we decided to pass - we like ham, but we don't really want to be spending £10 on a joint that will essentially feed only two of us, and we don't want to still be eating it six months into the new year (I still have some goose stock from last year's Christmas roast - sometimes it just gets silly, and now is the time to stop that).

Anyway, as promised last night - a piccie of brownies.



DD gives them a high score too, and she doesn't actually like brownies !

hornetgirl

Ok, I'm just off round to Allegra's. Those brownies look scrummy

weezl74

life in termoil, many thanks for your feedback, I'm sooooo pleased these new recipes are working out ok for you and your family, i'm sorry cos you've probably already said, but how many/how old are the family group you are feeding? Not to be nosey but it is a v v useful indicator of whether my portion sizes are ok

hello HG do make them! they are 6p each!:T:T:T:T

allegra, swapping some dark choc for milk was my way to try to reduce the sugar needed so i was heartened to see they are sweet! can they lose a leeetle bit more sugar successfully?

i hope everyone is having a nice sunday.

lots and lots of thanks to you all for still being willing to be involved in this project, it means the world of motivation to me personally.

weezl74

nopot2pin wrote: »

This is a wee list of what I would prepare in advance and freeze, for that week:

Waffles and fruity pancakes - both on the menu 3 times in the week - I would batch cook, then freeze - reheat in toaster or microwave

French onion soup - this is on the mealplan 3 times in the week, again, I would batch cook, and freeze into 3.

I would make the mushroom soup in advance and freeze.
And the gravy.

Like I said before, I am not sure how well the yorkshires would freeze, as I haven't tried them yet, but I normally freeze yorkshires, so they should be okay.
Same for the stuffing.

The timings show that the xmas pudding is prepared on Christmas eve... so, thats another thing less to worry about on the day

The only other thing I would batch cook, and freeze from the xmas week, is the caramelised onion houmous.... the other recipes, for me, dont freeze too well, so I would prep/cook as required.
Others may have futher hints/tips

Hope this helps

potty I think I will add this list of tips to the site. Thank you for those thoughts, they'll really help.

If anyone has anymore do PLEASE say!

weezl74

it will probably have become clear to regular readers that this project has gathered too much momentum and energy now to all be held in the head of one person (me!) and so you'll have seen us all take on different parts of the task, some people have a clearly defined role, and if you'd like to, you are very welcome to talk directly about things which fall into that person's area.


for issues relating to the nutrition calculations, lesley and I (lesley is also a skilful cook and keen gardener!)

for adding to the list of suggested changes to the recipes and additions to the site, Jenny and Shanks are keeping me up to date with lists and checking

for emails we have sian

for facebook we have aless, who i think is interested in out thoughts on how to publicise the christmas planner via facebook

for articles about fishing, we have allegra holding the ideas of those and keeping us motivated, and hayley has also volunteered to write some of them up for us

for technical support we have the fabulous Mr Arty

In addition we have a goodly gang of testers all able to help with making the recipe methods better, avocet, LIT, potty, HG, MDW to name but a tiny few.

The above list is in no way meant to be an exhaustive list of who is around and the strengths they bring, that list would be enormous, because you are a talented bunch! But hopefully it will help people to have a clearer idea of who does what