Saturday: that's it for another year.

All that work, all the planning, preparation, expectation.  All over now for another year.  Was it worth it?  Well, of course it was.  If we didn't have Christmas we would have something else.  It is part of being human, this 'need' to celebrate the passing of time one way and another and this is a goodie, a huge promise of hope and deliverence, perched on the end of the year when nature is at her darkest with one week before the change of the year and its shift of focus from the past to the future.  It's a bit of a no-man's- land, these coming days before New Year's Day and another opportunity to make merry, an opportunity to take breath and take stock.

I was extremely energetic yesterday and 'dealt' with the turkey, blessing my pressure cooker as I did so.  I had a pressure cooker as a young wife and mother but was always a bit nervous of it and didn't use it as much as I should.  It was only this year that I took a deep breath and shelled out on one and I have used it so much since then.

It made an easy and speedy task of boiling up all the remains after I had stripped off the easiest bits.  I had a whole side of breast that came off in a chunk to be sliced the Paul Kelly way plus oodles of brown meat, the tastiest meat and yet the most ignored.  I also have a lot of stock and today I shall be boiling most of that down into a thick jelly for freezing.

Dinner yesterday was, of course, easy.  I did cook more sprouts as I had some peeled and prepared (but not cooked) on The Day itself so the broccoli had to wait.  Everything else was simply heated up and it was absolutely delicious!
There's still a few vegetable leftovers so today I am definitely mushing them together to make patties (I didn't yesterday after all) and that, with some more turkey and gravy, will make a jolly good dinner just for me.  Or I might include the turkey in the mushing and just have some nice, crunchy patties with gravy.  After all, I can't honestly say I'm hungry, even first thing in the morning, so that will be more than enough.

My visitors will be going home today.  Sad, but true.  It's been a lovely four days but there you go.  Part of me is looking forward to a day doing very little and I shall make the most of that.  I do have to pop down to the shops to get some fresh veg for the turkey hotpot - not a traditional hotpot, more a chunky soup/stew, but we have always called it 'hotpot' and it is part of our post-Christmas tradition.

The last thing I intend to make with the leftovers of meat is a curry.  Just a curry, nothing special, just warm and spicy and flavoursome.  That, I think, will feed me next week, so the freezer will come into play once again.

Now - any ideas what I can make with left over custard?