and the rest....

Christmas' Eve
I had 14 friends over for dinner and cooking for a crowd can be tricky. It's all about time management to get all the food ready at the same time.
For the past four years, I always have the Christmas turkey on Christmas' Eve. I usually buy the turkey few days before, but my fridge isn't big enough, so I went shopping for fresh turkey early in the morning. And guess what? I was too late. There was no whole fresh turkey left. I decided to get two extra large chicken instead (they're from the same poultry family, right?), and they actually looked like two small turkeys. To be honest, it was a better idea than having one big turkey. With two chickens, I have more cuts to share, more wings, legs, thighs and breast meat.
I roasted the chicken with herb butter, maple syrup and white wine for two hours and the result: super juicy chicken. Oh it was good. The only bad thing was my carving skill. We had the chicken with my country dressing, cranberry sauce and potato gratin. Store-bought New York style cheesecake for dessert.
Played charades and had so much fun.

Christmas Day
I wasn't very happy that day, because my friends came late. I'm just annoyed with people who aren't punctual. I told myself to calm down and after few drinks, I did.
We opened our presents and I'm so pleased with mine. One of my presents is Jamie Oliver's granite pestle and mortar. Yay!
For dinner I made roast leg of lamb with aubergines and onions. If you have Jamie's My Guide to Making You a Better Cook-book, turn to page 168 and you can see the lamb. It was beautiful, but then I have to destroy it with my bad carving. Despite of that the meat was nice and tender and juicy. The aubergine, onion and tomato sauce was very nice as well.
The lamb was served with Jamie's favourite coleslaw (with mayonnaise I made from scratch), and potatoes. Dessert was fifteen chocolate brownies. Yum!
The rest of the evening was spent watching the new TV show, Glee (my favourite programme at the moment), and lots of vodka shots and baileys.

Boxing Day
Woke up at about nine-ish and I went to town for a little bit to check the boxing day sale and I bought the complete series of friends.
I went to the Stadium of Light in the afternoon for the boxing day match. I don't have a lot of knowledge about football, but I do enjoy watching it live. My friend, Julia and Mark invited me to the match and we had lunch at the stadium. I've been to this event few times now and I always had great times. I met some great people (Sunderland legends, current players, etc) and made some new friends.
Food wise, I had the pate to start, roasted duck with plum sauce for the main, which was nice but a little overdone for my liking, and sticky toffee pudding. yuuummmm... and had quite a lot to drink as well. I felt really guilty for not going to the gym.
The match itself was good, Sunderland scored first and it wasn't until the last 15 minutes when Everton scored theirs. I hate that. Come on Sunderland! or should I say ha'way the lads! :)
After the match I met up with some friends and watched Sherlock Holmes.

Today
I went to church in the morning. Got home and started taking off some of the Christmas decorations. I'm gonna start a little bit of packing tonight as well for my London/Oxford trip next week for the New Year.
Made myself all day breakfast salad for lunch. I'm so impressed with my poached egg. My poached egg normally looks like a watery mess, but today it was perfect.
I'm going to a friend's house later and we're gonna watch some more Glee! Good times!

Day 118, Recipe 51

Have a very Happy Christmas and joyful New Year!