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Christmas dinner yesterday turned out really well. I made eight vegetables plus stuffing. I started at noon and finished around 5:30pm so I had a couple of hours' sit-down before shoving things in oven, reheating, last-minute frying and steaming etc. I didn't get stressed at all, and I hardly employed my kitchen slaves. I think all they did was squeeze lemons, open a can of tomatoes, wash the sprouts, take the compost out and make me gin and tonics. There was pretty much no cleaning up to be done afterwards either; I just wiped up the spillages from dishing up, and stuck pans, plates and things in the dishwasher. That sounds like a miracle but it was really pretty simple. I made a plan before I started and wrote down every step that needed doing. Then I started doing the steps in whatever order I felt like at the time and cleaned up completely in between each one - I washed up, dried and put away everything I'd used. It worked very well. I always knew that the thing I needed next was ready to use, and I always knew where to find it. I didn't have to remember what had been on the chopping board last to avoid transferring flavours, since I'd cleaned it. I didn't have to negotiate piles of stacked washing-up or draining dishes. I crossed off every little step as I did it. As dishes reached the stage where they just needed to be ovened or reheated, I moved them into the utility room so I could put them out of my head. I went through two hand towels, four tea towels, and five G&Ts. Here's the menu - shout if you want to see the full plan. * brussels sprouts with chestnuts and bacon (thanks Emily) * roast parsnips with parmesan (thanks Simon) * cauliflower cheese (thanks other Simon) * steamed carrots with cumin and cardamom (thanks Tom) * baked leeks with stilton * sweet and sour cabbage * sage, onion and barley stuffing * roast peppers in tomato and cinnamon sauce (thanks Marna and Tom) * mashed squash with cream Someone else did not quite enough roast potatoes. The meat was lamb with apricot, cranberry and rosemary stuffing. Its chef had drunk seven pints of beer (during the rugby) before he started, but it turned out really well. He'd had trouble finding lamb, so he bought some already stuffed with garlic butter, undid the string, threw away the garlic butter, stuffed them, and retied them. One of the kitchen slaves helped him with this, but it was the one who'd also watched the rugby, and drunk eight pints of beer, so this bit was really quite funny. "Slip me another length" (of string) was one of the more printable comments from this part of the afternoon. Kake
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