We May Have Overdosed On...........

Professional Masterchef!

Fish Starter

We decided to go away for Christmas Day - well sort of.  We moved into the gite for the day and had our Christmas lunch in there.  There was a variety of reasons for this. Firstly, our house is in the process of having works done on it and has cables etc. hanging down everywhere.  Secondly we do not have a proper living room, whereas the gite does, and lastly it seemed a good idea and keeps the gite in use.

A Christmas tree and decorations were put up, the fire lit and off we went.  There was a little to-ing and fro-ing with presents, dishes and bottles but overall it was excellent.  I had somehow volunteered to cook the lunch this year (anything to get out of the washing up) and set to.  I must admit I did have help from Rosie and Sally in the cooking of some of the dishes and the preparation of vegetables etc.

Our menu was;

 

Fish Gourmand Starter

Trou Normande (Apple Sorbet with Calvados)

Roast Chicken 

Roast & Fresh Vegetables

Chestnut Stuffing & Bread Sauce

Christmas Gourmand

Christmas Gourmand

I must admit that most of the starter was bought but the desert was mainly home made. All of us find that after a big roast dinner eating Christmas Pudding is too much and I hit on the idea of having some form of Christmas Gourmand.  Café Gourmand is a common desert in restaurants here, and is usually made up of a coffee, crème caramel, a tart and cream.  Our Christmas Gourmand consisted of a small Christmas Pudding and a filo mince tart, a glass of fromage blanc and strawberry sauce, a skewer of fresh fruit (all made by Rosie), a little chocolate and a squirt of crème - with a choice of coffee, tea or hot chocolate. It worked a treat and made a very pleasant end to our meal.

The boys gave me good marks for my presentation but some of the flavours let me down.  On well - better luck next year.  And the slates plates - well we had ours before they appeared on Masterchef.  In fact I was going to use roof slates but we then found them on sell in various shops - it looks like they are a bit in fashion at the moment.

We hope you all had a good Christmas and wish you all the best for 2012.