Cool Yule

My Family, originally uploaded by Ambling Sheep.

Merry Christmas everyone. Well, of course it's only Christmas Eve but, tomorrow is a working day here in China (and will presumably continue to be one for a long time).

As the only British person over the age of 1 in my house, it fell to me to prepare Christmas dinner which took a fair bit of planning. As expected, I'm pretty sure the only person who really enjoyed the meal was me but I think the others fared reasonably well. About the only thing missing were crackers but you can't have everything.

Despite being in China, with the help of the City Supermarket in Shanghai and two hotels I managed to put on a fair imitation of Christmas dinner. I do have an oven but only as part of a combination Microwave so I can only cook one thing at a time, as long as its small but the biggest limitation was the size and design of the average kitchen in China so that I have a two-ring hob and four square feet of ultra-low (back-breaking) worktop to work on. As, rather than preparing one-dish-at-a-time Chinese cuisine, I was aiming for the simultaneous presentation of...

Turkey (OK, this came from a hotel as per previous article)
Sausages wrapped in bacon
Roast Potatoes
Mashed Potatoes
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Brussels Sprouts with bacon
Turkey Gravy
Bread Sauce (made from bread that I baked)
Cranberry Sauce
Garlic and Chilli Mushrooms
Sage and Onion Stuffing
Chestnut Stuffing

As you can imagine, this leads to an awful lot of juggling of plates, cooking and reheating and, at the end of the day, it all kinda worked out.

Everything was done properly - full use of tablecloths, the entire set of cutlery, and napkins. I even managed to persuade everyone that it was the ideal time to turn the TV off and listen to some light music. The whole thing was all very Christmassy - we even had trifle for dessert. Shame Frankie doesn't know what's going on yet, but next Christmas should be more fun!.

Probably the greatest irony of this Christmas is that I finally arrived at my target weight - 87.7kg - yesterday and was, officially, no longer overweight. Shame that.

Happy Bloomin' Christmas, originally uploaded by Ambling Sheep.