Today is my penultimate instalment of the Christmas Dinner Diary.
I’ve finally got over the minor chicken disaster of the Trial Run a week ago and have subsequently been practising Yorkshire Pudding recipes all week. I’ve made a batch of 12 nearly every night. The end result is somewhat a hybrid of a Yorkshire Pudding and a Muffin – nicknamed a Yorkshire Puffin in our house.
I’ve changed the pans, the amount of oil, the temperature of the oven, the quantities of ingredients and suddenly realised my mistake. I was using the wrong flour (and it was a very smug other half who realised this). I’ve been using Self Raising instead of Plain Flour. Some may swear by Self Raising, but not me, such a rookie mistake. I’ll be doing another batch tonight. We’ve certainly had plenty of Yorkies to dunk in our Soups this week!
Chrsitmas Dinner Plates
Good news, I’ve got Christmas Dinner Plates. At the rate I was going one of the guest (or myself) would have been eating out of a pasta dish for Christmas Dinner. I scoured the shops over the weekend, but all the festive ones were over the top in colour or pattern and none of the plain ones were worth the money. By luck, while shopping in Morrisons, I spotted their Christmas Plates and Dishes. A lovely plain design, with a simple Gold and Silver tree in the middle and a light gold trim round the edge. Not quite the silver or blue to match the rest of the theme, but the design is subtle enough to go with my white table cloth, silver table runner and Allium Blue Coasters and Placemats. We got 6 plates (even though there is 5 of us I am accident prone, and who knows we might have 6 to feed next year), but we decided against matching bowls as we have enough Denby bowls and breakfast bowls to do. However, I may surprise and treat my other half, who is way more Christmassy and Festive than me, to the matching bowls this week for the Christmas Pudding and hide them in a cupboard so he doesn’t see them.
Paw Print Oven Gloves
I promised, in the last article of my Christmas Diary, that I’d share my Christmas Dinner Roast Potato recipe. It’s not so much a recipe but a few tips. Firstly only boil the tatties for 5-8 minutes so they are part cooked. Make sure your turkey fat is heating up in the oven while you boil the potatoes. Then once boiled, drain, add a pinch of salt and pepper and put the lid back on the pan. Give a good shake to fluff up the edges, which makes them crispier when roasting. Get the heated roasting dish out the oven, make sure you protect your hands with some lovely oven gloves (I’ve got the paw print ones on Roman at Home) and pop your potatoes in the pan, while spooning or basting over the potatoes with the juices from the turkey and oil. Give another season and pop in the oven for 40-45 minutes to roast until golden.
The last instalment, with all my ups and downs of Christmas Day will be published on our return from Winter Break on the 3rd of January… but keep up-to-date with the preparations by following us on Twitter @romanathome.
If you’ve missed any of the instalments, then check out our Christmas Diary Article Collection here.
