Wednesday 30 December 2015

Changing weather!

I have looked at the weather forecast for the next week or so. Tomorrow, we see a big change from mild to cold. Daytime dropping from 12C to 7C and nights from 8-10C, down to 1-2C. I think we will notice the difference!

DB chopped some logs into big kindling as some of the new logs are a bit hard to keep going. We thought we would have some thinner ones as in between sizes. No doubt we will need the burner on by then.

A large pan of soup was made Monday which has kept us going, the last batch will be today. We had a Turkey crown for when the visitors were here but only ate some on Christmas day. The rest was picked, cut into chunks, open frozen overnight, then bagged. Can't say it had much taste and as it isn't our favourite meat, doubt we shall choose it again.

I only have a few meals left in the freezer so we shall eat those before making small fresh meals to use up Christmas food. If I don't need to do a normal food shop until 7th January, that should help towards getting back to normal from a money point of view.

12 comments:

  1. You are right about turkey. No matter how it is cooked, it is still very bland. Perhaps this is because, over the years, our tastbuds have come to accept much flavoursome food. When I think back to my 1950s childhood when we didn't have pizzas, chilli, curry and so forth (not that I indulge in these all the times and pizzas never enter our house, simply because I don't consider them 'food', they are what we think of as 'snacks') our diet was much blander with salt, pepper and vinegar as being the only condiments (my mother had never heard of nor seen a vinaigrette dressing for a salad, but when I had a holiday in Germany I came back and dressed our salad as they did where I'd stayed, with fresh lemon and a little sugar, but I couldn't quite manage to reconstruct the lovely flavour my German hosts had created!) Of course, we had HP sauce and salad cream and Branston pickle, but that was about it. So maybe that is why we want turkey to taste wonderful, but compared with other meats, it pales into insignificance. The instructions on my turkey were to place it in a roasting tin and them put water in the bottom of the tin and cover the bird with foil, so that it actually steamed in the oven, and then to remove the foil for the last 1/2 hr. I did this and while it was tender, it still tasted bland. But there are turkey legs (cooked) now in the freezer, so eventually they will be turned into turkey curry or, with mushrooms and red wine, into a filling for puff-pastry turkey pies.
    I made a vat of soup from the carcase though. That tastes great but it required a lot of veg and about 6 veggie Oxo cubes (it was a large pan of the stuff) to give it any flavour, plus salt and pepper and herbs.
    Margaret P

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    1. Not sure but it is very bland nonetheless. When small, we used to have Capon which seems impossible to get hold of now. It had more taste than chicken even back then. I think some poultry seems to lead a sorry old life and not able to wander can't pick up the juicy titbits to add flavour.

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    2. Have to disagree a tad 'bout the taste of turkey. My aged parents still source their bird from a farm upon the Clwydian range and it is always full of flavour. I sat down with them for christmas dinner for the first time in years and the flavour was exceptional. Perhaps it is the 'mass produced' fowl that have lost their taste?

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    3. A farm turkey would be better but the nearest farm to us had a starting price of £75, way too much. This was a mass produced one but despite that, we are just not that keen.

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    4. We live in France and usually buy Goose for Xmas but this year we went for the cheaper Capon and found it really tasty.

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  2. I do my turkey 'a la Nigella'. It sits in spiced brine for a couple of days prior to being cooked and is beautiful!
    Done this way it's never at all dry, and is infused with flavour from the herbs/spices/fruit which have sat in the brine alongside it. Basting it with goose/duck fat mixed with maple syrup helps too!
    It's a bit of a 'faff' actually preparing the brine, but it's well worth the effort for a delicious, tasty turkey!
    I made a huge stock pot of soup from the carcass, and used up the last of the cranberry sauce, bread
    sauce, stuffing and veggies in the soup too....it tastes like Christmas dinner in a bowl!
    After dinner this evening, we'll be having the last of the Xmas pudding, sliced, fried in butter and served with the last of the brandy cream!

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    1. Sounds interesting but turkey is our least favourite meat so that will be it now. We will go back to pork, gammon or lamb. Enjoy your fried pud. DB has just had a slice of cake with cheese!

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  3. Turkey is definitely not my favourite meat but the crown we had from Iceland this year was actually very nice. I just oiled the skin and seasoned it with salt and pepper with a sprinkle of thyme. Love Capon and we can get it from the butcher three villages away but it's very expensive and not having visitors on Christmas Day this year we decided just to go with the turkey. I did make stock from the bone in the middle but for some reason it smelt disgusting and I threw it away.

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    1. We had soup from the bone as well, tasted fine. Rest of the meat is cubed and frozen for later use.

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  4. I find gravy helps with the taste of my turkey. I will make q sandwich with the meat but plain turkey no matter what seems bland to me. Cheryl

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    1. We flavoured the turkey with lemon thyme, sage, clementine and butter. Gave a good gravy but added nothing to the meat.

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  5. I know that we need the cold, but brrr!! xx

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