Raised Pork Pie and visitors

Had a go again at making a pork and game pie (very small amount of game) adapting a recipe by Hugh Fearnley-Whittenstall. Looks and smells good. Put the jelly (made with leaf gelatine and a pork stock cube) in this morning, none ran out so that hopefully is another good sign. Last time I made one, it was overcooked and very dry inside. I had to cook this one for longer as I put it in a tin and when tested at the normal time, it had red juices running out. It had some sage and thyme chopped into it, along with 1/2 an onion and a chopped plum plus salt and pepper and nutmeg. Here it is before being cut, it measures 6” across. Will post a photograph after it is cut hopefully!

A little thick around the base but quite good and it tasted lovely.
Been busy tidying up and sorting out as DS. FDil. and S. are coming this afternoon for the New Year. Can't wait. We are going to do Christmas Day again on January 1st so we can 'celebrate' it together.

Have any of you 'inherited' customs from the other half's family when you got together. Hubby and his family used to do 1/- Christmas Eve presents and we decided to carry on the tradition.

Generally it goes like this. Everyone present in the household on Christmas Eve (or New Year's Eve for us this year), has to buy two presents, maximum £1 each, for every other person present. So I buy two for hubby, DS. and FDiL. etc. One person is responsible for writing out all the labels (usually me) so you can't guess who has bought what. We often wrap these gifts in left over main present paper. If anyone is a sellotape fiend, they usually have to try and adapt how they wrap them so again, they can't be easily identified.

They all go into a sealed box and we take turns handing one out at a time. The presents MUST be useful and not be anything to eat or drink as let's face it, anyone can do that! I love hunting out treasures for everyone, something that each one likes, taking my time. 

We find the joy of unwrapping these presents is as great if not greater than the main gifts. A final thing we like to do is make personal crackers. They usually don't have a snap in them but if we have the time, will make the hats and again, buy a gift to the value of £2 maximum.