First Christmas at home

This is the first Christmas we’ve ever spent at home, not at Sam’s parents’ or mine. Both are just too far away, it wasn’t right to travel and the stress would have been unreal.

Because of that, this is the first time we’ve had a tree. We’ve accumulated ornaments over the years but they’re all packed away, so we decorated with an origami star, popcorn garland, red ribbon, and dried orange slices. Cadbury chocolate ornaments were an added bonus when a box arrived from Sam’s folks. We missed family and friends, NYE could not have been more different from last year, but it was a lovely quiet time.

We did a pretty traditional British Christmas dinner with turkey, gravy, roasted potatoes, glazed carrots, roasted sprouts, bread sauce, Yorkshire pud, and Sam’s mom’s sticky toffee pudding.

Also made a big batch of Cumberland sausage meat for pigs in blankets and then sausage rolls in the new year. We used this recipe for the sausage meat, but just used 20% fat minced pork instead of mincing our own. If I do it again, I’ll just buy dry toasted breadcrumbs instead of making our own. It was crazy simple though since we weren’t planning on stuffing sausage skins or anything. Would definitely make it again, though we’re trying to reduce the amount of meat we’re eating in the new year.

One big Yorkshire pudding

These are guidelines to make one big Yorkshire pudding in a round cake tin. You can use cast iron, or lots of individual tins (could probably use a muffin tin…), but a round cake tin was all I had a the time. For more guidance, I think that this Serious Eats article is pretty strong.

If you can, make your batter the night before and let it rest in the fridge. If you can’t, just make sure you let it rest for at least 30 minutes before you plan to stick it in the oven.

To make the batter, whisk together 2 c (250 g) all purpose flour, 150mL milk*, 4 eggs, and a good pinch of salt in a big bowl. Don’t over-whisk it, you want to treat it like you would a pancake batter.

When you’re ready to bake it, preheat the oven to 4450 / 230C. Pour a good amount of veg oil or goose fat in to a circular cake pan, then heat the pan and fat in the oven until it’s super hot. When everything’s preheated, open the oven door and quickly pour in your batter. It should sizzle and start to puff immediately. Close the door and DO NOT OPEN IT until the Yorkshire pudding is done, around 15–20 minutes.

* You can use milk substitute for this, I use oat milk and it works great. Just don’t use a substitute that is sweetened or flavored.