Christmas shortcuts

Today is Christmas eve - preparation day. Although I'm not cooking Christmas this year I've promised to contribute a few things for the table.

I hope I never become a fretter about cooking Christmas dinner. I've only ever cooked the whole thing once in my life but had a big helping hand for many other years and I've always loved getting involved. For me, to avoid fretting, shortcuts are the answer. I'm not talking Delia and her tin of stagg mince in a cottage pie (what happened Delia?) but just adding a bit of sparkle to Christmas food staples by personalising your dishes. 

I've already got my easy peasy braised red cabbage in the oven. Although it's done from scratch it's an easy, stress free, leave-it-alone-for-two-hours feast. Next up though I'm making a Christmas stuffing and some mince pies. 

Bulked out mince pies
For my mince pies I'm going to tip a jar of mincemeat into a bowl and just add stuff. Cranberries, walnuts, diced apple, sherry...whatever I can find to jazz it up and make it my own. I'm not mashing suet or finely slicing candied peel - I'm treating the mincemeat as the raw ingredient, a base for something altogether more special and tasty.

2 in 1 stuffing
Next up, the stuffing. Growing up I didn't trust anything except Paxo. It was only when I was older - realising I actually needed to try things to decide whether I liked them - that I sampled my mum's homemade apricot and bacon stuffing. It was a thing of wonder and now my eldest sister won't sit down to eat Christmas dinner unless mum supplies it. 

So here I learned a valuable lesson in flavours other than sage and onion. But while my sister gorged solely on a good helping of mum's star stuffing, I still always had to have Paxo at the table. Years later I've discovered a compromise. I use Paxo (other non-brand sagey oniony stuffings are just as good) as purely a base for my perfect stuffing. 

In a pan, I soften finely chopped onions in butter, add sliced celery for crunch, chop in some streaky bacon, diced apple and - for christmas - a few cranberry quarters. I then bind these ingredients with the paxo and cook as usual. It's stress-free and rolls my two stuffing loves into one. 

Back to the kitchen. Happy Christmas!

N.x