Christmas - Part II

So, Christmas Eve. I cleaned. All day. Stu cooked. All day. It was a marathon effort.

Stu chopping up rind for the cumberland sauce

We had to buy some Grand Marnier specifically for the sauce.. a tragedy really ;)

After the sauce was done, Stu began work on the ham. We got a gammon ham which is partially smoked, but can still be baked. We baked it for a couple of hours in the dough, and a bit longer for the glaze.

Ham soaking..

Wrapping the ham in dough to keep the juices sealed in (except it burst during cooking)

The dough was like rock when it came out of the oven. We tried several implements to break it open, the most successful being scissors.

Next we score the skin

And put cloves in

Glaze with a mixture of mustard powder and golden syrup, and sprinkle rapadura sugar on top

When finished, it looks a little like this. Stu was annoyed at himself for using the fan forced oven setting, which gave it an overdone look, but it was still fine.

Stu also made a potato salad, using parsley from our herb garden, and a pasta salad with pesto, which we used our own basil for. He also did a delicious caesar salad.

After all this work, we kinda collapsed. We had a couple of beers and watched Carols in the Domain. It was the first time I'd ever watched carols with a little alcomohol in the system, and it was very nice. There was also a full moon rising out the window, so it was all quite special.

We were going to go to church at 11pm but we were just too exhausted. So thought we'd go in the morning, but were too exhausted for that too. Oh well.

The table set for lunch, with lights brought out from the study to decorate the room

Stu's meat platter consisted of his ham, some smoked duck, and a stuffed turkey roll. Also some olives and vine leaves.

So this was Stu's Christmas dinner. A heck of a lot of work, but everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.

Noah brought along a lego plane he got

Scott put on Stu's dork glasses and played the dork

After lunch we migrated to Kerry's for dessert. This was just part of it.

Noah's plane again

As soon as we got home, I cleared the table and began work on the Millenium Falcon. But that is for another post :)