Snacks first. Clockwise from top left - Roses chocolates, crisps (chips), dry roasted peanuts and the remaining mini sausage roll.

Below are the leftover prawn skewers from last night.

Also on the table, my Mum's joke present to my Dad - Russel Brand's autobiography (Dad hates him) and our mini Christmas tree.

Christmas dinner.
First our little turkey - it looks really grim but I assure you it tasted great.

Then the full meal. On our plates are turkey, roast potatoes, carrots, peas, roast parsnips, brussel sprouts, stuffing balls (shop bought and over-cooked, ahem) bacon wrapped chipolatas and plain chipolatas. Mum forget the yorkshire puddings until after the pic was taken.

We had Christmas pudding with brandy cream for dessert, and you can see the cheeseboard and grapes waiting for after that. Just out of the picture are the biscuits for cheese (crackers?), Turkish Delight and liquer chocolates. And the Grand Marnier.

We're all washed up and done now. I'm off to sit with Diz for a bit in the cool of my room (window open, radiator off) while mes parents gently slip into a doze in the hot living room :)

Looks Yummy SG !!

Lovely!

Yummy!!

Mrs. Dallas has made lasagna and garlic bread for dinner. Five-minute warning . . . .

Get Yew Some Steve !!

Cornish Hen
 

For years I've wanted to try the rotisserie thing on my toaster oven. So this is it.

Looks really good BB! How was it?

Now that does look appetising!
I think I can even smell it...

It was great. Marinated overnite in Allegro hickory smoke marinade.

Wow. Our stuff is bigger. Anybody else notice that the American Cornish Hen is about the same size as that British Turkey?

It was a deliberately small turkey, to be fair. There were only four of us for Christmas dinner (Grandad doesn't like to walk round here any more, so Dad and I took his round to him before we sat down).

It was just enough for the meal, sandwiches and a bit in each cat.

I'm not dissing your turkey, Sundae, really. It looks delicious, just petite by our standards.

I just honestly don't think they come in that size here ... a cow orker who has lived in Glasgow said it has to do more with Brits not shooting their birds up with hormones and force feeding them.

It is illegal to inject or feed steroid hormones to poultry in the US. And I've never heard of force feeding turkeys or chickens, only ducks and geese for foie gras. I think they use less antibiotics over there though.

You get HUGE turkeys here as well.
I remember one year when Mum won one in the work raffle just before Christmas. She was really grumpy about it, "Stupid prize, everyone with any sense would have bought their turkey by now, grumble, grumble." I think she had her eye on the bottle of whisky. I wrote about it on here somewhere (can't be arsed to look).

And we have a terrible record of mistreating our farm animals I'm ashamed to say. Battery hens were reviled throughtout my childhood, but it's only in the last few years that retailers have started to cotton on, beginning to use only free range eggs in their products. I fear we have a long time before I can say the same about chickens. And don't forget which country introduced the world to BSE. That opened a few eyes as to normal practice down on the farm I can tell you. To say nothing of regular outbreaks of foot & mouth.

We're getting better, I'll grant you that. And consumers are far better educated than they used to be - many buying free-range or RSPCA farm inspected products. But I can tell you that there is no duck producer in the country who has RSPCA approval. Not one. I won't buy duck now.