Paul's Christmas Post - part 1

Hi Guys,

This week there really is no escaping the fact that Christmas is upon us. Hopefully you are all organised in terms of what food you are cooking and serving. I am pretty sorted, although I don't actually have that much that anyone wants me to do! This year we will be staying with Esther's family over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day before visiting my Aunty Lyn on Boxing Day and my Cousin on the 27th. My "Christmas Day" with my Grandparents, Parents and my Sister isn't until the 28th (yes that is 5 solid days of Christmas!) and we are going alternative, so I'll be coking a beautiful lamb rogan josh with fluffy rice and making some fantastic lime pickle and a few other bits and pieces. Apart from a retro pale ale fondue that has been requested for a late evening Boxing Day treat, the only other cooking that I'll be doing will be any desserts that might be requested from me (there usually is!) and of course I will be available as a sous-chef for anyone who needs any help.
I can't wait for Esther and I to be able to host a proper Christmas Day, as I usually end up lugging half of my kitchen around with us and when you live in a second floor flat, it is a nightmare going up and down the stairs so many times! I love it really!
I also want to be able to start some proper Christmas Day traditions, things like a good breakfast and a little homemade alcoholic drink to get you started, that sort of thing. It would also be nice to be able to do a few "get ahead" recipes and keep them in the fridge. Anyone who saw Jamie's Christmas with Bells On on Wednesday will know what I mean by that. There are loads of jobs you can do in advance of Christmas Day to tick off your list and leave you free to enjoy yourself instead of being a slave to the kitchen. This includes a fabulous "get ahead" gravy and brilliant stuffing recipe. You can find these recipes on the channel 4 website if you are interested, and believe me you should check them out as they are genius!

While I am on the subject of Christmas food on TV this week, I have to write a bit about Jimmy's Grow Your Own Christmas Dinner which was also on channel 4. I love Jimmy Doherty and think he is brilliant. This week he decided to try to grow all the components of a traditional Christmas dinner and compare them to ones that most people would buy from a supermarket. This meant that he would be cooking 2 Christmas dinners at the same time . . . . . . Jimmy has always been a bit crazy!
The other thing Jimmy has always been is a really fair person, and he told the stories of both his homegrown and the supermarket produce in a very non-biased way, even when he was in a Bernhard Matthews turkey farm, something he should be commended for.
Along with rearing his own free range turkey, he grew sprouts, carrots and a really traditional variety of potato that sadly we don't see very much anymore. He also made his own Christmas pudding using a very old recipe using suet. This looked incredible and is definitely something I will be doing next year.
I love programmes like this, they get you excited about growing your own stuff (all I need now is a garden and I'll be all over it) but I also now know a lot more about the food I buy in the supermarket.
Jimmy has taught me so much over the years and he really inspires me. In his last series he used heavy duty power tools in his barn to create his own versions of supermarket food, it's pretty easy to understand why I like him so much! I don't think I would be any good at running a farm, but I love visiting the farm shop at his, as he has some amazing meat amongst all the other nice things.
The outcome of the programme really didn't matter that much, as you already know that free range meat tastes better,  allotment grown veg always tastes better and the pudding will be either a "love it" or "hate it"
kind of thing with the suet. What was important was the idea that we should try to preserve some of the traditional varieties of things like potatoes that are being lost. Apples are another example of this and it's astounding to learn how many different varieties of apples there are, but only a few are readily available to the average consumer. I think that is really sad, and something should be done to actively push these things back into our shops.

As the title of this post suggests, there will be another Christmas post coming in the next few days. This hopefully will be a little recipe to try out. I have been experimenting in the kitchen over the last couple of weeks in an attempt to give you something really special to do. Not everything has been as successful as I would have liked and there have been a few disasters, but I'm confident that you'll love what I'll post!

In the meantime get as much of your shopping done as possible. Christmas is the worst time for food shopping and if you can have all the cupboard stuff already so all you need to pick up are the fresh items then you'll be reducing the supermarket stress for yourself big time! Just stay calm and it'll all be fine, I am hoping not to be pushed out of the way by an angry lady looking for parsnips this year - there isn't the need for it to get to that stage!

Happy shopping!