Alternative Christmas Dinner

For the first year (I think ever) we didn't have turkey for our christmas dinner. We bought a beautiful joint of sirloin fore-rib of beef to have with a parsnip, shallot and sausage mixture, roast potatoes, green veg and red cabbage.

For the beef we placed a few roughly chopped carrots, onions, celery and garlic in the bottom of a roasting tin and then placed the seasoned beef on top with a good slug of olive oil. To roast it we put it in the oven at 230C for 20 mins before turning it down to 180C for 18 mins for every 500g. This resulted in roast beef which was medium rare. Once it was down we took it out of the roasting tin and wrapped it in foil and covered it in tea towels to rest.




To make the gravy take the roasting tin with the veg and the meat juices in and carefully spoon off most of the fat and discard or put to one side for beef dripping. Put the whole tin on the hob, stir in a couple of spoonfuls of flour and get it nice and hot before pouring in a large glass of red wine. Now use a potato masher to mush all of the veg up scraping all of the yummy goodness from the bottom of the pan as you do. Add some boiling water to thin the stock to the right consistency and simmer for about 5 mins. To finish sieve out all of the vegetables and other lumps and you'll be left with a yummy gravy. Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste. This is probably vaguely a Jamie Oliver recipe.

Whilst the meat is cooking thinly slice half a red cabbage and half an onion. Place it in a pan with a grated apple, two teaspoons of sugar a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, seasoning and a stick of cinnamon. Cook on a medium to low heat for about an hour until it is nice and soft. This is a recipe I have been given by my mum, which we have been making for years (it originally used malt vinegar but I tend to use balsamic vinegar now).



For the potatoes we used Jamie Oliver's perfect roast potatoes and had garlic, rosemary and red wine vinegar as our chosen flavour combination. They really are great roast potatoes.



For the shallot, parsnip and sausage mix we took 8 good quality sausages (ours were from a local farm) and twisted each in the middle and cut to make 2 mini sausages. We placed these in the bottom of a roasting tin along with halved parsnips, shallots and sprigs of rosemary and then poured over a mixture of 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar, 1 tbsp of olive oil, 1 tbsp of sweet chilli jam and 2 tbsps of maple syrup and then roasted at 180C for 45 mins, turning every so often. This was adapted from Waitrose Kitchen magazine.



We served all of this with a bowl of mixed greens including some tendersteam broccoli and sugar snap peas. Overall it was a great dinner even if there was no turkey!

A Trio of Mince Pies

Every year I go Christmas shopping to help one of my oldest friends to buy gifts for his family and we always drop in to see his mum on the way home to have a chat and a drink whilst wrapping the presents up. This year I wanted to take her some mince pies and decided to try a couple of recipes I've wanted to try for a while.

The box I had to put them in was the right size for 6 pies so I decided that 3 different pies would be the perfect number.

I made a normal mince pie with a snowflake top. A mince pie with a frangipane topping based on an alternative Christmas pie by @hollybellmummy and finally a filo and puff pastry number that was on a Jamie Oliver Christmas special a couple of years ago, but I'd never got around to trying.

I started by making some short crust pastry. I sometimes put icing sugar in sweet short crust, which is a recipe I think I originally got from Mary Berry, but for mince pies I always use a basic pastry recipe my mum taught when I was very young, which was probably passed down to her from my nan. Whilst the pastry was resting in the fridge I started on the Jamie Oliver alternative mince pies. On a flours surface. I rolled the puff pastry to a thickness of around 3mm and covered with a layer of mincemeat, lemon and clementine zest and dried cranberries. The original recipe also had chestnuts crumbled over but I didn't have any so did without.



I then rolled the puff pastry into a tight 'Swiss roll' from the wider side



I put two overlapping squares of filo pastry in a greased muffin tin. Jamie just pushes the whole sheet into the holes but I thought it'd be neater to cut squares. I always use a bit of doughy off cut of pastry as a 'pusher' to encourage the pastry into the corners without tearing it with my nails.

I then sliced the puff pastry roll into thick slices and placed one in each filo case.



I finished off by brushing both pastries with melted butter and sprinkling the top with flakes almonds and icing sugar and popped in an oven preheated to 180C for about 30 mins. I found the filo started to go brown long before the puff was cooked so I places a piece of tin foil loosely over the top to prevent burnt edges. When they had cooled I finished them with another sprinkle of icing sugar.

Whilst they were baking I made the frangipane topping by creaming together butter and caster sugar, gradually adding the beaten egg and finally stirring through the almonds to make a shiny paste.

I then rolled out the pastry and lined greased muffin tins. I placed a heaped teaspoon of mincemeat in each case and topped half with a pastry lid in the shape of a snowflake (brushed with egg or milk for a shiny finish) and half with a spoonful of frangipane topping and three flaked almonds. I then baked them at 190C for about 20 mins.

Here are the three different mince pies cooling on the rack


And boxed up ready to go




Jamie Oliver's Alternative Mince Pies

INGREDIENTS
100g good-quality mincemeat. I used some I had made using a Delia recipe
25g dried cranberries
Zest of 2 clementines and 1 lemon
250g pack of good puff pastry
1 pack filo pastry
50g melted butter
50g flaked almonds
Icing sugar, to dust

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/400ºF/gas 6.

2. Dust a clean work surface with flour and roll out the puff pastry into a big rectangle about 20x40cm/8x16 inch and 3mm thick. Thinly spread the mincemeat over the pastry, leaving a 1cm/½ inch gap around the edges and sprinkle with the cranberries and zest. Tightly roll up the pastry, lengthways, like a Swiss roll.

3. Take two muffin trays (for 12 cupcakes each) and butter each one lightly with the melted butter. Place two squares of filo pastry in each hole ease the pastry into each hole. Brush with the melted butter, then cover with a second layer of filo pastry. Brush with butter again.

Tip: You can freeze the cooked, cooled mince pies in their trays (just wrap the lot in cling film) or in a plastic container. Just reheat them in a hot oven straight from the freezer.

4. Take the puff pastry roll and, with a sharp knife, cut it into 24 slices. Place each slice, flat-side down, into a filo-lined hole. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle a few flaked almonds on top of each little pie, then pop both trays in the oven for about 25 minutes, until cooked and golden brown.

5. Leave to cool, then crack the individual pies out of the trays. Dust with a little icing sugar before serving.

Adapted from Jamie Oliver Christmas Special

Sweet Crust Pastry
8oz flour (self raising if you like thicker fluffier pastry)
4oz butter or margarine
4oz caster sugar
1 egg

Rub the flour and butter together with your fingers until it resembles bread crumbs. Stir in the caster sugar. Add the beaten egg and gradually incorporate it all together being very light of touch until it forms a ball. Tip the ball of pastry into some cling film and rest in the fridge for about 30 mins.

Recipe from my mum

Frangipane topping
50g caster sugar
50g butter
1 egg
50g ground almonds
A few flaked almonds for decoration

Cream the sugar and butter together. Mix in the beaten egg gradually and then stir in the ground almonds.

Adapted from @hollybellmummy's alternative mince pies