Thursday: Boxing Day

Good morning.  I hope everyone is feeling good and has had a lovely Christmas.  We were lucky with the weather - quite a lot of sun and the really strong winds seem to have more or less missed us out, although I gather the night of the 23rd/24th was quite bad.  However, once my hearing aids are out I hear very little so no problems there!  I hope none of my readers has been too troubled by the storm.

Yesterday started very early because I didn't sleep all that well so decided to come down and make better use of the time.  I took the turkey out of the fridge for its two hours of 'coming up to room temperature' and arranged everything into a sensible order in the kitchen.  After a lot of mental faffing around I decided to put the turkey in an hour earlier, 'just in case', allowing for an hour's resting time at the end.  Well, the poor bird ended up with two hours resting time, didn't it!!!

I've never had such an easy time with a turkey.  A cut up onion, orange and lemon inside and that was it.  No stuffing, no trussing, no rubbing over with anything, no bacon over the breast to keep it moist.
It went into mum's roasting dish (none of mine are big enough and it seems very silly to buy a big dish for one day in the year) upside down and into the hottest oven I  could get which was then immediately turned down to 180C.  Two and a half hours later I turned it over and that was the hardest part of the whole process.

 Half an hour after that it was done.  I frantically prodded all over with the thermometer to check but all was good so it went under a huge pile of towels to rest.  As I said, it's never been so easy and so trouble free and I may reconsider my decision not to get a KellyBronze next year, just so I can repeat the experience - I can save up for it!  It was also delicious, which is the main thing, and the stock that came off it was wonderful.  Being the kind it is, there's also a lot of turkey dripping which I, for one, am going to have on my toast this morning with a bit of salt sprinkled over.  Not healthy but once a year won't hurt.

There's loads left over so we shall have turkey again for dinner tonight and then tomorrow I will do the necessary with the stock pot!  Turkey hotpot - mmmmmmmmmmm.  Beth has also laid claim to bits for her cats who go crazy for it.

After dinner us golden oldies were shoo-ed out of the kitchen and the younger generation did all the clearing, tidying washing up and so on, for which I was hugely grateful.  I daresay I shall be finding things in odd places for the next little while but I don't care two hoots, it was so lovely of them.

The rest of the day passed in a bit of a haze, although we had a good game of Scrabble and then they had another game while I went into the kitchen to prepare a buffet tea.  I thought no-one would eat much but I was surprised, most of it went and the teenager's place was piled high.

Today I have seven for lunch but that will be another buffet which is very easy to do.  Dinner this evening is just three and most of that is already done as it will be leftovers.  I just have to cook a vegetable and I think it will be broccoli.  Yesterday's roasted root vegetables will heat up a treat, as will the gravy (which worked out fine) and everything else!

I'm hoping I can rest a bit today and, if I can, I will snuggle under my gift from Beth, a beautiful, double layered fleece blanket with cute owls on one side and a lovely deep fawn colour the other side.  It's so cosy and just perfect for the cold days when I'm not bustling around and keeping myself warm.  If my hands are cold I can use the owly hand warmers Alex gave me!

I've waffled on for long enough.  If you've managed to get to the end, well done.  Have a good day!