This ENTIRELY LATE food-related post shows the result of a four-day period in which a traditional Christmas dinner was prepared, using recipes written by the renowned Delia Smith (except for the Christmas starter), plus a day before used to make another festive treat.  Over this period, a significant number of items had to be made, each one requiring a significant amount of time to prepare and cook – the longest time it took an item to be made was about five and a half hours.  With so many ingredients needed, it goes without question that this was the biggest challenge I had to face in 2009.

In fact, it was so big, it needed a schedule.  And a spreadsheet.

So, I’d like to present the results of the hard work I put into making this, starting with the turkey itself:

The turkey was stuffed with a traditional pork and sage stuffing, pictured below.  Putting it onto its serving dish was the hardest part of the process.

The stuffing was left to chill in the fridge on Christmas Eve, and was cooked inside the turkey.

The roast potatoes (front) were roasted using some of the fat of the turkey (of which there was an incredible amount).  The Stir-Fried Chestnuts and Brussels were one of the easier things to make (it felt good to enter a bit of familiar territory here).

This was the Melba toast prepared for the smoked salmon starter.  Here the crusts were cut off slices of bread once they were lightly toasted.  The bread was then cut into triangluar pieces and toasted again on one side.  The crusts, meanwhile, made up a light and tasty snack.

These roasted parsnips came in two varieties: with a parmesan coating, or without.  Both kinds came out really well.

The turkey was covered with the bacon slices pictured above before it went in the oven.  Once they were ready to come off, they were further cooked in the oven with the sausages.

The Cranberry and Orange Relish (front) was prepared earlier in the week, and remained in the fridge before it was ready to serve on Christmas Day.  The gravy (back) was prepared with a homemade turkey stock, which in turn was made using the neck and giblets of the turkey.  Yum.

Making the traditional bread sauce was a 4-stage process that was carried out throughout the week.

The English Trifle was very fun to make on Christmas Eve.  The custard and fruit filling were made from scratch.  Flaked almonds decorate its creamy surface.

And then there were the Not-Pork Pies, a vegetarian treat made at the very beginning of the week:

Getting that turkey on the serving dish could not compare to the what went into these pies.  Seeing all 12 of them lined up on the rack though made it very worthwhile though.

Overall I thought this was a fantastic accomplishment.  I’m going to find it difficult to top it this year.