Christmas

Boxing Day turkey sandwiches, or how to dent the turkey mountain

December 26, 2010 Food & drink

Cooking a turkey on Christmas Day is a faintly ridiculous idea. If you take an average bird of, say, 6kg in weight, you can comfortably feed at least a dozen people and probably an awful lot more than that. A bird of such colossal size pushes the physical limits of a lot of smaller domestic [...]

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American turkey stuffing

December 22, 2010 Food & drink

It’s getting close to Christmas now, and it’s about this sort of time that I start to panic about stupid things like deciding which type of stuffing to make. I’ll spend an hour or so scattering cookbooks around the dining room, looking for something new and different to cook on the stuffing front. There’ll be [...]

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Turkey and stuffing croquettes

December 26, 2009 Food & drink

My son just asked why everything he’d eaten over the past two days had turkey in it. It was a good question. We told him that it’s traditional to cram an entire year’s worth of turkey consumption into a single week at the end of December, and that there was plenty more to come over [...]

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Interflora’s Christmas biscuit box

November 23, 2009 Food & drink

What is it? It’s a box of biscuits. Hand-made, hand-decorated biscuits, in a nice tin box. OK, why? This is Interflora’s new idea. Instead of sending a bunch of flowers, you now get the chance to send a box of biscuits instead. It’s a good idea. Gives people options. That box looks very Christmassy… Indeed [...]

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Leftover turkey and leek pie

December 28, 2008 Food & drink

Coming up with something new to do with leftover turkey is one of the great cooking challenges of Christmas. This pie should help. As this is a ‘leftovers’ recipe, all quantities are flexible, depending on what you’ve got left over. Chop some bacon, maybe six rashers and fry in a large frying pan until it [...]

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Pickles & Potter, Queens Arcade, Leeds

December 15, 2008 Eating out

I took a break from Christmas shopping yesterday for a sandwich at Pickles & Potter’s deli in Leeds’ Queens Arcade. This is the first time I’ve eaten there, as each time I’ve walked past, the queue has snaked out of the door. The place looks fantastic – a bit purposefully shabby and hippy-ish, with chalkboards [...]

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Christmas mincemeat for mince pies

November 24, 2008 Food & drink

This is my kitchen brigade. Despite their youth, they’re a skilled, enthusiastic and highly trained crew, excellent at pouring, measuring, stirring and rolling out. They’d be at home in the world’s best kitchens. They also like to listen to Iggy and the Stooges whilst cooking. This weekend, we made a batch of mincemeat for Christmas [...]

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