It was the night before Christmas Eve, and the oceans were worryingly empty and devoid of life....

I really was hoping to post something well before the Solstice but I on top of the stress and the season (so much drinking but somebody's got to do it, right?) I have been suffering from a cold-like bug that is manifesting itself like a leaden weight within - it is extremely unpleasant but I am soldiering on regardless.

This Solstice we treated our Watford nephew and nieces to a rather delightful Christmas Party held by the firm that I work for in London.  It was such a tremendously good time - our three took one look at the tables laden with confectionery (literally overflowing!!!) and the youngest was heard to exclaim "It's Sweetie Heaven!!!".  We even met Santa, who it turns out is a really nice bloke.

Santa's nice, not naughty!

So I finally made a menu plan for the Festivities - most of the recipes are from Nigella's Christmas.
As for the "Get-Ahead Gravy Recipe" - I did promise to pop the instructions on how to complete this.  Here are the remaining steps which I've pinched from Jamie Oliver's very own website:

1. If frozen, take the gravy out to defrost when your turkey goes into the oven. When the turkey’s perfectly cooked, remove it to a platter to rest for up to 2 hours, covered with a double layer of tin foil and a clean tea towel.
2. Skim away most of the fat from the tray, cool, and place into a jar in the fridge for tasty cooking another day. Pour your Get-Ahead gravy into the tray with the rest of the turkey juices.
3. Bring to the boil over the hob and scrape up all those sticky bits from the base. Have a taste, then stir in some cranberry sauce to balance the flavours.
4. Once your gravy is piping hot, carefully strain through a coarse sieve into a pan, then leave it on the lowest heat until you’re ready to serve.
5. Skim away any fat that rises to the top, and add any extra resting juices from the turkey before serving.

Another dish that has been in the freezer awaiting a defrost is our Christmas Eve meal, Nigella's  Nursery Fish Pie.  I have modified this recipe from her FEAST cookbook, which is very similar to her Christmas Cookbook, apart from all the other holidays she has crammed into this massive tome. 

No, I don't have a dutch version of this book,
I just couldn't find an image of the cover that I own.

Now oddly enough, this recipe is actually from her Funereal section - but I have made this dish many times before for many occasions other than funerals (although I'm certain it would go down a treat at these events, it really is not a requirement at all).  What I wanted for Christmas Eve was a dish that was comforting, but at the same time adhering to some vague tradition of our ancestors (my past life as being a Roman centurion perhaps?).

A fortnight ago both David and I spent a weekend watching John Pilger documentaries with John Pilger at the British Library.  Now this man is truly exceptional.  Unafraid to ask the real questions about how the great wheel of war crushes and affects the most vulnerable of our species - and how often we let that happen.

John Pilger - a brave man not afraid to ask the hard questions

One documentary he introduced (not one he had made) was The End of the Line.  This documentary, since its screening in 2009 has brought much awareness to the plight of our oceans and how we have pushed the ecosystems within our oceans to the brink of collapse - through over fishing and some really ridiculous methods of fishing - it has recently been estimated that industrial fisheries are responsible for dumping 10 million tons of perfectly good fish back into the ocean each year.  This is enough to fill 4,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.  These fish are dead.

Suddenly finding the cheapest source of fish for my pie was not my top priority anymore.  I wanted to ensure that what we were eating was sustainable.  Unfortunately this meant that it could not be from a farm (what, no smoked salmon?) because farmed fish are fed over twice their weight in fishmeal that is made from.... fish caught from the ocean.

Now there is sustainable fish out there - look for the MSC certification below.  Do not fall for the various supermarket's attempts to fool you with their own type of certification, which of course they will try to do.  Also, you're going to have to avoid a tremendous amount of produce that is not certified - and no doubt they will sell these unsustainable sources at reduced prices to try and tempt you back to the dark side.... but do try not to give in.  I know, hard to do when you are on a budget but you do what you can.

Nigella says to use Haddock - 1 kg of it smoked and 750g of it not.  David managed to find to buy approximately 1 kg of Pollock from Tescos.  This is a really great white fish alternative to Cod and/or Haddock.  I had to pop into Waitrose to purchase 550g of Smoked Haddock (it is essential to have smoked fish in your pie).  The Haddock came from Iceland (the country, not the store) where they obviously still have a supply of the fish (unlike the UK which has fished away its Haddock now to near extinction).  I also picked up 250g Canadian prawns.  All of this was frozen, so overall we spent about £20 to make this, but it is a rather massive dish.

I tried to defrost the fish as much as possible once I got home - then I got distracted with Netflix for a few hours, and suddenly I was making fish pie at 10pm.  I put all the fish (but not the prawns) into a large wok and then poured in about a litre of coconut milk (any type of milk will be fine I'm sure).  Nigella says use 500 ml but I've done this dish enough times to know I want a bit more sauce by the time I come around to making it.  Into this I add 4-5 Bay Leaves (Nigella says 3) and I scatter  white peppercorns liberally into the mix (Nigella says 1 tablespoon).  I do not always do this but this time I threw in a few chopped chillies from our plant that grows in the kitchen.  I bring this to the boil, then turn the heat to low and simmer until the fish is cooked but not mushy - about 20 minutes usually.

I use this time to peel about 1.5 kg of potatoes.  Ours were from the allotment of course, where we still dig up a steady supply for our use.  I chop them into same size pieces and then microwave them until tender, adding a little boiling water prior to popping them in the microwave.  However you cook them, once they are tender, drain, add about 100g butter and a dash of milk or cream and mash till fluffy.  Then season to taste and set aside.

Using a fabulous item I purchased in Mumbai, I scoop out the fish from its fishy milk (the coconut milk often separates and it looks pretty manky but worry not, once your sauce is made you will be delighted at its texture and its look).  I pop the fish to one side on a plate.  It is usually really hot but I often use this time to peel off any skin from the fish, as it does come off nice and easily when it is steaming.  Unfortunately I pretend to have asbestos fingers but I really do not, so I'm often heard exclaiming obscenities around this time.

I then discard the Bay Leaves, and strain the milk through my mesh scooper from Mumbai.  It allows all the peppercorns to remain, which is what I want.  Nigella says to discard them but I just love biting into a peppercorn when I'm eating the pie, so in they stay.  I also do not care if the chilli pieces end up in there either.

I use the same wok that I cooked the fish in to make the sauce - maybe give it a wipe but after that I throw in about 100g of butter and then I add about five tablespoons of all purpose gluten free flour.  I stir this into the melted butter, and then gradually add the fishy milk mixture (a little at the time and always whisking the mixture in the wok as you do - I often remove the wok from the heat while I whisk out any lumps that may be trying to form).

Once you have added all the milk and the sauce is nice and thick and silky smooth, stir in as much grated cheese as you want (Nigella recommends 75-100g, I tend to double this...).  Stir it until it is all melted and the sauce tastes delicious.  I often sprinkle in a little salt at this point, but sometimes I find it is not necessary - I think it really depends on how much smoked fish you have in the mix.

Now it is time to construct the pie.  Layer your fish in the dish (I split this into one really big casserole dish which I intended to freeze for Christmas Eve and one smaller one that we were going to eat the following evening for supper).  I mix in the prawns and some frozen peas (Nigella says to defrost them first, 125g of them).  You want the fish in small chunks but not too flaky. Then you pour the sauce over it and then you spread the potato mash over the top, sealing it all nicely.

If your fish is going into the oven, sprinkle over more grated cheese first and cook for 20-40 minutes (depending on if it's going in warm or cold).

Do you recognise Nigella's hands?

We snapped the lid on the large dish once it had cooled (no sense in adding grated cheese if your freezing the pie first) and into the freezer it went.  On Sunday we will defrost it in the morning, grate over a tremendous amount of goats cheese, maybe toss over some gluten free breadcrumbs to give it some extra crunchiness, and then cook it Gas Mark 5 (190 degrees) for 40 minutes.

Call me a Christmas Whore, but I will happily cheat on Nigella with Jamie Oliver

It's all Festive JOY at the fabulous gay apartment for 2017 this year, and David and I are hosting a small banquet (or as I like to think of it, a mini feast).

Now this inevitably brings out the Nigella Christmas Cookbook.  There are Four Nigella Cookbooks any self respecting Queer will own (honestly you can Major in Nigella cooking at Gay School, no joke!).  I own three of them.  After the Christmas Cookbook I then was gifted "Feast" by David for a birthday present, and just last month I borrowed "How to Eat" from my local library and within minutes of opening it I knew I had to own a copy - so a second hand paperback from my favourite love2hate second hand bookshop online purchase was made (however it is a paperback version so I fear I will get reduced marks for this assignment) and delivered within days.

I don't own the fourth book mainly because of the whole gluten free thang - from a bakery perspective, in you're gluten-free, gluten intolerant or celiac then Phil Vickery wins hands down here, and I'm sure I'll get around to posting about him at some point so that's enough about him and baking.

We love Phil

The one Nigella Cookbook every Queer should own, but I don't own

It's the Zero of Advent so of course that means that anything done regarding Christmas should be low key and unobtrusive to ensure you do not receive a mockery meme of Batman slapping Robin across the face for daring to sing a Christmas Carol in October, before Hallowe'en (although, I have to admit it, quite right too).  Celebrate the seasons knobhead!  Don't go getting ahead of yourself too much, too soon.  It spoils the overall celebration if you start it too early.

Now one thing that apparently can be done (some traditions say directly after Bonfire Night, or Bonfire Night Sunday - there is so such a thing!) is stir up the Christmas Pudding.  I needed to make a few small adjustments to the recipe Nigella gives in her tome, in order to gluten-free it, but in general it's pretty much identical to how she makes it.  I did have to search vigorously online for Vegetarian Suet (and I now have too much of this stuff in my cupboard for my liking - the use by date is June 2018 so I'm already destined to throw some of the five and half remaining packets away) but most of the other stuff I already had.  Especially the Rum.  We always end up with a bottle of that in our house every other month.

Now the reason that you make the Christmas Pudding ahead of time is so that you feed it Rum - the earlier you make it, the more rum gets to get drizzled over it.  As we've had a few evenings celebrating in the Gay Apartment of late (when you get a couple of lads who are half your age staying, the alcohol consumption levels do tend to go up a few floors) I've ensured that every bottle gets to feed it at least once. 

David "feeding" our Christmas Pudding with
Ashton's gift of Havana Special Reserve Rum

Another thing you can make well ahead of time is the Gravy.  When I saw this recipe idea from flipping through Jamie Oliver's Christmas Cookbook in my local library (it's my browsing space of late - I cannot just purchase cookbooks like I used to because (a) I don't have the space to house them and (b) there are just waaaaay too many duds out there and once I've got a copy, I'm very unlikely to let it go, even if it is a terrible celebrity rip-off that may only have one or two recipes in it that I may want to use).

Jamie's book is surprisingly upper middle class in comparison to Nigella's - this is ironic considering his roots and the glam that Nigella brings to the table.  For example, Nigella's fish pie is deliciously simple in her cookbooks (she even calls it "Nursery Fish Pie" in her FEAST cookbook).  Now I'm certain she never intentionally wanted me to use frozen fish but I've made this very pie using pollock and smoked haddock from the freezer compartment and it is still pretty scrummy - and because the quantity is quite humongous you can end up eating this again and again.  Having said that, I now feel I do have to recount when I sent David out with a shopping list for ingredients for this comfort dish, and in my head I assumed that he would translate the fish as being frozen from Nigella's list of ingredients - predictably of course he did not (and why would he?) and so the price tag went up a notch, but using fresh fish did add a certain "wow" factor to the dish once cooked and eaten, we can now attest.

Now in comparison, Jamie lists his Fish Pie in his Christmas Cookbook as requiring Lobster.  I'm sure it's delicious, but this is slightly out of my league this year (and most years!).  But even some of the other recipes have a certain whiff of the elite amongst them.  I have noted a few recipes of course:  the Roast Chicken with the four "smearing" butters; the Salmon En Croute; the Hasselback Potatoes; his Veggie Stuffing; a Turkey Risotto, Turkey Pie and Turkey Falafel (you really cannot have enough leftover turkey recipes on hand for Boxing Day and thereafter) - some desserts (including a Jaffa Cake recipe, for Jarra, our daughter and mother of our three grandchildren - yep, we got another one!) but overall I couldn't justify buying this as a purchase.  It just felt a little bloaty, especially with the full page images (so impossible to recreate in such glory you BASTARD Jamie) of every recipe.

And there just isn't enough chat.  Nigella luxuriously describes why she includes her recipes - even her slutty cookbooks have this in them.  Jamie sort of adds a couple of sentences as an introduction and I can't help feeling it's just not personal enough.

However his Make Ahead Gravy truly is a genius idea, and here we, on a Cold December's night before the First of Advent, making our gravy ahead of the actual day.  For this alone I can recommend this book.

Here's how we do in the Fabulous Gay Apartment:

You get a couple of onions, a couple of carrots and a few sticks of celery.  All roughly chopped.  You can peel the onions but just wash the carrots.  Get some fresh herbs - Jamie suggests Rosemary and Sage so I sent David off to the allotment to grab these the other day - a few sprigs of each.  I added four Bay leaves (they were store bought) whereas Jamie suggests only two.

Over this I sprinkled some amazing Canadian smokey salts that a lovely couple from Canada sent us (as a "thankyou" for hosting them for an impromptu Bonfire Night celebration one year) in a most splendid surprise parcel that arrived with all sorts of goodies and geeky foodery gifts.  We love them.  Sometimes people are so beautiful it almost knocks the wind out of you with joy.  Jamie suggests bacon, but bacon is a big no-no for me because, well, it's a pig and I really really like pigs.  You will not eat one in front of me without me grimacing, even if just a little.

Then you add the chicken wings.  Jamie said use 10, the pack I bought had 9 so I'm not worried this isn't going to work out.  David bashed them with a rolling pin, quite aggressively.  You want to break them up a little bit so ALL the flavours seep out.  Then I drizzled olive oil (ala Nigella, you know the way, where she says add two tablespoons and then proceeds to drizzle over a large portion of the bottle.  I added more oil than I normally would because David pointed out the lack of bacon - we can add smokey salts to emulate the flavour but the only way to replace the fat is to add more fat.  I then liberally sprinkled over coarsely ground black pepper - lots of it.

This then goes into the oven for an hour at 180 degrees Celsius. 

Ready for the oven - the oven gloves being yet
another fabulous gift from the parcel that I lurrrve.

Once that's done (and I can smell it now, it is nearing it's completion) Jamie says to transfer to a hob but leave in the baking dish and bash it with a potato masher (you'll want a sturdy metal one) until everything is super mushy.  We transferred this to a very large saucepan on the hob - same thing, mishy-mash it all up, but just not in the tray - our hob doesn't really accommodate a massive tray, so a change in the process was required.  Then you "brown" the gravy - you keep frying until you've got your desired level of brownyness - the longer it's on the hob, the darker the gravy will be.  Ours will be dark.  As dark as the night this time of year (or should I say late afternoon?).

At this stage your mush will begin to resemble the regurgitated innards of a small dinosaur.  Resist the urge to empty your own stomach and persevere.

Then you add some port - a small glass will go into this mix (the rest is for David and Me), some flour (four tablespoons Jamie says, I added five of an all purpose gluten-free plain flour mix, it's mostly starch in these store bought mixes, but I always add more when I'm replacing with gluten free) then pour in two litres of water boiled from the kettle.  Simmer for 30 minutes (ours is still simmering, an hour on) stirring occasionally.  Once this has thickened and reduced to your liking, cool, strain and transfer to bags and pop in the fridge (or freezer, if, like us, you're making this four weeks before the actual day).