memes

Listography : Christmas

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Kate’s Listography this week asks that we write about five things which make Christmas, Christmas for us. So …

King’s College Carols. The traditional service of Nine Lessons and Carols has been broadcast from King’s College Chapel, Cambridge on Christmas Eve afternoon since before I was born. There will be very few years when I’ve not heard it. For me this is the real start of the Christmas festivities and is always associated in my mind with the smell of baking mince pies!
Fairy Lights. There have to be fairy lights. As a very minimum fairy lights on the tree. But these days we usually indulge in a few more, depending on our fancy at the time. And I like to see twinkly lights anywhere and everywhere at Christmas. Somehow they bring out the spirit of happiness.

Royal Institution Lectures. Every year the Royal Institution in London puts on a series of science lectures for children (really aimed at young teenagers) and over the years just about every respected scientist in the UK has presented them. Each year is a different theme, by a single lecturer. And for many years now they have been televised; I remember some very early televised lectures by Prof. Eric Laithwaite on engineering! This year I’m delighted that they are once again being televised by the BBC; although they are now only three lectures (there used to be five or six) hopefully this means they will have been less dumbed down than of recent years when commercial TV has broadcast them.

Carols. I like carols. I always have done. Yes, I like a good sing, but I also have fond memories of singing carols in the choir at school and of carol singing. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas with out some good carol singing.

Opening presents round the fire on Christmas morning. This is a childhood tradition which Noreen and I have kept. Christmas morning sees us sitting round the fire, usually with a large gin & tonic, opening our main presents. Another present tradition from my childhood which we keep is having small (in size and value) presents under the tree which we open after tea on Christmas Day evening.

These are just some of the essential ingredients of my Christmas.

Happy Christmas, Everyone!
words

Word of the Week : Widdershins

Widdershins

  1. Moving in an anticlockwise direction, contrary to the apparent course of the sun (considered as unlucky or sinister).
  2. In a direction opposite to the usual; the wrong way.

The opposite of deosil or deiseal, in a clockwise or sunwise direction.

food+drink

Pig Cheeks in Cider

We discovered on Friday that our local Waitrose were selling Pig Cheeks. Yes, that’s meat and it is from the head of a pig, just like it says. Now I’ve vaguely taken in that they were fashionable amongst chefs and never having tried them I decide we should. Noreen took a little, but not a lot, of persuading. And then I realised they were ridiculously cheap — like £2.99 a kilo! Even cheap sausages cost more than this! So we bought a complete vacuum pack, which weighed just under 400gm and turned out to contain 7 cheeks. We have just eaten them, thus …

Pig Cheeks Casseroled in Cider

You will need:
2 or 3 Pig Cheeks per person
500ml bottle of dry Cider (more if you’re cooking more than about 8 cheeks)
1 large or 2 medium Onions, roughly chopped
As much Garlic as you like, roughly chopped
A few ripe Tomatoes, quartered (optional)
A few Mushrooms (optional)
Worcester Sauce
Plain Flour seasoned with salt, pepper and herbs
Salt, Black Pepper and Dried Herbs
Olive Oil

And this is what you do:

  1. Take a suitably sized casserole, cast iron is best as you can put it on the hob otherwise you’ll need a frying pan as well.
  2. Pre-heat the oven to about 180°C.
  3. Fry the onion and garlic in a little olive oil in the casserole (or frying pan).
  4. When the onion is beginning to go translucent, toss the pig cheeks in the seasoned flour and add to the casserole. Sear the meat on both sides.
  5. Add the tomatoes and mushrooms followed by about half the cider, pinch of salt, plenty of pepper, a big pinch or two of dried herbs and a good big dash of Worcester Sauce. Bring it all to boiling point.
  6. If using a frying pan, transfer the meat etc. to the casserole at this stage.
  7. Add the rest of the cider and (if on the hob) bring it to the simmer.
  8. Put the casserole in the oven and cook for about 90 minutes.
  9. Do not throw away any remaining seasoned flour, because …
  10. Just before the end of the cooking time decant into a small saucepan some of the liquid from the casserole (it will probably be quite thin) to make a gravy/sauce. Thicken this sauce with some of the remaining seasoned flour (a tablespoon or so will be enough) and cook gently for 5 minutes or so to cook the flour.

By now word will have got round the house because it smells so good.

I served mine with roughly mashed potato and parsnip, steamed sprout tops, apple sauce, gravy and a bottle of robust red wine (although obviously cider would be good too). The meat is just so tender it really does melt in the mouth.

And, no, I didn’t photograph it — you all know what casserole looks like!

personal

Reasons to be Grateful 5

Experiment, week 5. This week’s five things which have made me happy or for which I’m grateful.

  1. Parakeets. Ring-Neck Parakeets to be precise. Not going to write more here as I posted about them earlier in the week.
  2. Pine Cones. I love pine cones; indeed I love pine trees. We always have a basket of pine cones by the fire over Christmas as part of the decorations. But even better … Some years ago I bought, in different years, a couple of mini-Christmas Trees in pots; one certainly came from M&S. After their Christmas duty they were planted out at the far end of the garden. Both are now well established, one being as high as the house; the other not far behind it. We were delighted this week, in clearing lots of overgrowth, to find that both have a good crop of pine cones. I think the trees are probably Norway Spruce as the cones look like those pictured.
  3. Small Potted Christmas Trees. Last year Waitrose sold small potted Christmas Trees (about 12-15 inches high, plus pot), complete with some decorations attached. I bought one, so now we have yet another to plant out when it’s bit bigger — we’re getting quite a little copse in our suburban garden, and the birds love it. I wondered if Waitrose would sell these small trees again this year and was thinking I’d not seen them; but on Friday there they were amongst the cut flowers. And not just with decorations, but also with a small set of battery driven LED lights. All for £14.99. A much better investment than something that’s hacked off at the ground as after its festive duty it can be planted out with the others — or kept potted and used again next year.
  4. Oxtail. We’ve not had oxtail in years, but Noreen bought some from our favourite butchers, Hiltons in Pinner, last week. It was casseroled. And our stomachs said it was good.
  5. Biscotti. I’ve been making batches of biscotti in the last few days. Yes, I like them, but I also like making them ‘cos they’re quick and easy. And they always seem to be appreciated as presents. My recipe is here.
amusements, beliefs

Anti-Carol

Just for further amusement at this time of great mirth and sadness at the tills, here are two anti-carols, again stolen from friends on Facebook.

O Sing, choirs of children,
Sing in expectation,
Sing all ye shareholders of M&S.
Give to our Family, glory in the Mostest;
O come, let us spend Money,
O come, let us spend Money,
O come, let us spend Money,
Christ I’m Bored.

God rest ye Unitarians, let nothing you dismay,
Remember there’s no evidence there was a Christmas Day,
When Christ was born just is not known, no matter what men say.

Glad tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact.

There was no star of Bethlehem, there was no angel song,
There could have been no wise men for the journey was too long,
The stories in the Bible are historically wrong.

Glad tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact.

Much of our Christmas custom comes from Persia and from Greece,
From solstice celebrations of the ancient middle east,
We know our so-called holiday is but a pagan feast.

Glad tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact.

links

Weekly Links

This week’s collection of items you may have missed but which, in the interests of public service, we didn’t.

First let’s get the boring bit out of the way. CERN’s Large Hadron Collider might have spotted the first glimpse of the elusive Higgs Boson. Maybe. Maybe not.

Talking of glimpses, how doctors die shows they have a different approach to their glimpse of the afterlife than the rest of us.

Which may be related to why we invented monsters (aka. dragons).

From something scary to something scary? Why peach fuzz makes it harder for parasites.

And if you’re male you can now be really scared. Apparently donating sperm can be scary. Seems like all in a day’s work for the average male to me. 😉

Of course then there are plastic carrier bags.

Everything you ever wanted to know (and more) about … shoelaces!

And finally just to prove that cat’s can’t think outside the box.

Happy Christmas, Everyone!
amusements, memes

Amusing Meme

One of my Facebook contacts has posted a curious and amusing little meme. It may be an old one, but I’ve not seen it before. It goes like this …

  1. Your real name: Keith Marshall
  2. Your detective name (favourite colour and favourite animal): Yellow Cat
  3. Your soap opera name (middle name and street you live on): Cullingworth Ennismore
  4. Your Star Wars name (first 3 letters of last name, first 2 of middle name, first 2 of first, last 3 of last): Marcu Keall
  5. Superhero name (Colour of your shirt and first item to your right): Null Mouse
  6. Goth name (black and name of one of your pets): Black Harry

Well the last three work fairly well; I have reservations about the rest.

Anyone else dare to try this and post the results?