Christmas dinner

[monicatholic]

i cooked a goose once. no one was thrilled with the results. i cooked a duck once, too. if your a fan of anything floating in a lake of grease, then duck is the meal for you.

no. no foul for us this year. the turkey was plenty, thanks.

but because i have scottish band players in our family (bagpiper and scottish drummer) we like to do a celtic sort of dinner every coupla years. this year is that year.

i’m making fisherman’s pie, and the dreaded haggis. we don’t actually eat tha haggis, we just laugh at it then give it to the neighbor’s dog.

for dessert, tea, scones and clotted cream.

 

[Galilea]

Our family recepies are all pretty complicated, but being an Army wife I learned to do other simple side dishes for the two of us. So here is one I really like, Spanish yellow rice, it comes boxed with all the ingredients already in it, all you have to do is add the water and a bit of olive oil. I love cooking and I’m not to fond of boxed food, but when I first tried this rice I was really surprised at how great it tastes and how easy it is to prepare. Get a couple of boxes, it is too easy to prepare and it will make for a great side dish.

 

[BeeSweet]

Good to know! I knew it looked a lot skinnier, but didn’t realize the cavity was bigger too. Should be a small crowd this year, so probably enough, just no leftovers.

I’m thinking I’ll brine it like a turkey to keep it moister, then add some butter or olive oil when baking. Mmmmm!

I think the cavity inside is bigger to compensate for larger lungs. It’s a long cylindrical cavity as opposed to kind of a heart shaped cavity you find in a chicken or a turkey. Neither chickens or turkeys fly long migrations like ducks and geese do, so that’s why I’m guessing the extra space is for larger lungs. It’s nice to stuff with large chunks of fruit, the aroma is absolutely fabulous when you do that (especially if you add some mulling spice), and the steam let off from the fruit packed inside the bird keeps it moist as well. The wings can be problematic, since they’re long and lanky, they can dry out pretty easily. Actually, the way my mom does it, we usually end up with goose jerky on the wings… So you might want to hunt down a process for keeping the wings moist. Or do like us and save the wing meat for the puppy dogs…