Alternative Christmas Day

It's no secret that I love Christmas but I can find that some years work and life take over and I don't get into the festivities early enough and don't make the most of Christmas spirit. I also find that most years the last few weekends running up to Christmas are spent running around the country visiting people and dropping off presents, to then spend Christmas Day just with family and not spending enough quality time with close friends. As enjoyable this is, by the time I make it to Christmas Day, I'm exhausted! So this year I decided to bring the mountain to Mohammad and start the festivities nice and early to get me in the spirit! 

So on the 1st December I hosted a full Christmas Day for my close friends and their children. Having 20+, including 5 little people, in my relatively small house was total chaos but we all had a fab time and I think it might have to become a new tradition. We all shared out the responsibilities so I only cooked the main meal, people brought starters, nibbles, puddings, chocolates and drinks with them. The day started with breakfast from 'Christmas Eve' and then more people started to arrive so we soon moved on to presents followed by Christmas lunch and an afternoon of Christmas films. We were all so busy enjoying ourselves we never got onto the board games!

I love traditions and as I get older I'm finding more and more I like to create my own, so maybe this will become a regular thing!

So the main event was of course the turkey. I used Nigella Lawson's brining method, after trying this for the first time about 5 years ago I'd never cook a turkey again without brining it. From this point on I just co the turkey in the way my nan and mum did when we were growing up. In the bottom of the roasting tin I put 6 chopped onions, the orange segments from the brine and a glass of water (normally I'd use wine but unfortunately at the moment I can't have alcohol). I then placed the turkey, breast side up, on top of the onions and carefully prised the turkey skin away from each breast. As I needed it to be dairy free I used lard but you can also use butter. You need a whole block of your chosen fat - 250g - mixed with plenty of chopped herbs, seasoning and orange and lemon zest (garlic too if you wish). I used thyme, parsley, sage and rosemary. Carefully push the herb lard/butter under the skin on top of each breast and spread out as best you can. Add additional seasoning sprinkled all over the skin of the turkey and drizzle with oil.





Cover the whole roasting tin with tin foil and put it into a hot oven pre-heated to 240 C, after 10 minutes turn the overnight down to 180C and cook the turkey according to the butcher/packages instructions (this will vary according to size and type of turkey (eg Kelly's Bronze tend to need less time). You can baste the turkey with the juices from the tin every 30 mins or so, but be carefully to carefully reseal the foil. About 30 minutes before it is due to be cooked remove the foil to allow the skin to crisp up. The turkey is cooked when the juices run clear, particularly from the leg/thigh which will taken longer to cook than the breast. Cover the turkey in tin foil and clean tea towels and allow to rest.

I also cooked a gammon. Again I brined this using the same brining recipe I used for the turkey above and then cooked it according to this recipe from Nigella. If I do say so myself it was delicious! I was very pleased to have leftovers that's for sure. I left the garlic and onion out of the cooking water as I'm not able to eat these at the moment.

This was served with spiced red cabbage, roasted root vegetables with sausages, braised bacon brussel sprouts (without the basil), the best ever roast potatoes, cranberry sauce and stuffing made by scooping the onions that cooked under the turkey into a frying pan, adding some additional sage and a packet of Paxo's sage and onion stuffing, you could easily make your own with bread crumbs but this is how my nan always made it and old habits die hard!

As I'm fairly limited in what I can eat at the moment I roasted a few of the carrots and parsnips separately for me and cooked some kale as I can't eat cabbage and sprouts. Instead of gravy I just had a little homemade chicken stock poured over my meat. A good low FODMAP alternative for those who are limited.








For pudding we had a massive selection, unfortunately I don't have a photo of everything
- a profiterole wreath filled with cream and served with a toffee sauce
- a banoffee pie
- Tom Kerridge's bread and butter pudding
- alternative mince pies
- Christmas cookies

Gluten Free Treats

I made these cakes sometime ago for a family get together, but didn't write a post at the time. My cousin's child is coeliac and I thought I'd be nice to make some treats that we could all eat so he didn't feel left out.

These are two of my favourite gluten free cakes. They are obviously no good for people with nut allergies, but that wasn't an issue here.

The first is a lemon drizzle cake and the result is quite similar to my 'normal' recipe

It has been adapted from Harry Eastwood's beautiful book. She goes as far to say her cakes, which use vegetables to reduce/remove the sugar and butter content and rice flour, are better than the standard recipe. Now after trying quite a few of her recipes I don't agree completely but they are a very good gluten free alternative, particularly with a few tweaks.

I personally don't like the slightly fragrant taste of rice flour so would recommend trying your favourite gluten free flour.

The second cake is one which doesn't have any grandiose allergy free claims and just sits quietly alongside some other chocolate cakes in Nigella Lawson's Feast book, but it doesn't have any wheat flour in it at all and most baking powders are gluten free. It is an unusual recipe and the batter is very thin, but don't panic as it creates a wonderful, moist, almost torte like cake which can be eaten cold or served warm with pouring cream for a pudding. It also tastes scarily like Terry's chocolate orange. I served it plain but it can be dusted with icing sugar or cocoa or sprinkled with grated dark chocolate or strips of orange zest.





I unfortunately didn't take any better pictures, but this will give you an idea. As normal I used the fabulous Lakeland cake tin liners as neither of the cakes needed sandwiching or cutting in anyway.

Here are the recipes:

Lemon drizzle cake

200g swede, peeled and diced into 2cm cubes
120g clear honey
2 medium eggs
Zest of one lemon
60g white rice flour
60g ground almonds
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

For drizzle:
3tbsp golden caster sugar
2tbsp water
Juice of one lemon

Preheat oven to 180C
Line base of 2 litre loaf tin and grease sides with a little oil

Place swede in a bowl with a splash of water and cover with cling film. Cook in micro for 7 mins, blend to a fine purée and leave to cool a little

Whisk honey with eggs for 2 mins until bubbly

Add lemon zest, flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt and whisk. Add swede and whisk again.

Pour mixture into tin and bake for 30mins

Whilst cake is baking dissolve the sugar in the water by heating slowly in a small pan. Cool and add the lemon juice.

Remove cake from oven and whilst still in the tin pierce the cake all over with a skewer and pour over the syrup. Leave to cool in the tin. To serve sprinkle with golden granulated sugar

Adapted from Harry Eastwood's Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache

Flourless Chocolate Orange Cake

2 small thin-skinned oranges approx. 375g total weight (or 1 large)
6 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
200 g ground almonds
250 g caster sugar
50 g cocoa
Directions:

1 Put the whole orange or oranges in a pan with some cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 2 hours or until soft.
2 Drain, and when cool, cut the oranges in half and remove any big pips.
3 Then pulp everything - pith, peel and all - in a food processor.
4 Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C Butter and line a 20cm spring form tin.
5 Add the eggs, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, almonds, sugar and cocoa to the orange in the food processor. Run the motor until you have a cohesive cake mixture, but slightly knobbly with the flecks of puréed orange.
6 Pour and scrape into the cake tin and bake for an hour, by which time a cake tester should come out pretty well clean. Check after 45 minutes because you may have to cover with foil to prevent the cake burning before it is cooked through, or indeed it may need a little less than an hour; it all depends on your oven.
7 Leave the cake to get cool in the tin, on a cooling rack. When the cake is cold you can take it out of the tin. Decorate with strips of orange peel or coarsely grated zest if you so wish, but it is darkly beautiful in its plain, unadorned state.

From Nigella Lawson’s Feast