Christmas done and dusted. Now you can play
- rosemary
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
"We can now all admit that the thing we really love about the festivities is the time after the day itself" Yotam Ottolenghi
And the leftovers. For my son this is turkey sandwiches and - well - me too. And yesterday, that was what Christmas Day was almost all about. Well apart from being with family, the presents - not such a big deal now that there are no small children involved - the big thing was the leftovers and the opportunity to make sandwiches such as this one - mine from a layer of stuffing, braised cabbage, squashed roast potatoes, turkey and ham. But I could have added all manner of other bits and pieces. This was just my choice. And all just warmed a little. It was delicious.
However, my son had indeed carted off virtually all of the leftovers that I am usually left to deal with. The top of the page is what I was left with - well the creamy dessert, is now turning into icecream in the freezer, and I have eaten all of the leftover prawns. There is some smoked trout - quiche, risotto. salad ...? To come. Today I have to try and find enough meat left on that carcass plus some ham and some vegetables from the fridge and freezer to make into vol-au-vents - which has become a bit of a David and Rosemary Christmas tradition. The ham, of course is a gift that keeps on giving and the rest of the turkey carcass will become stock.
So this year I do not have so many leftovers to deal with and I am just a little bit sad about it. I was worried my turkey would not be big enough. Well it was, but really only just, because there were really only enough leftovers for that Christmas Day lunch.
However, today being my day of relaxation, I got around to reading last week's Guardian Feast Newsletter and there were a few more ideas for things I had almost forgotten about.
Mince pies. Fortunately I didn't make a lot of mince pies, because I actually forgot to (a) put them out on Christmas Eve and then (b) forgot to take them with me to our Christmas Day with son and family. So I have twelve mince pies, and possibly, some left from the Christmas dinner we had with our other son and family before they decamped to Italy and Greece for the school holidays.
In fact it had never occurred to me that you could do anything with leftover mince pies - leftover mincemeat yes, but the pies themselves no. You just had to eat them. Which, of course, is not a hardship, and they don't go off quickly, but not good for you, especially if you have lots.
But today I learnt that you can - beginning with this Christmas pudding tiffin from Felicity Cloake, and yes, I know it says Christmas pudding but she says it works for mince pies too - plus any nuts and chocolates - though not too many squidgy ones as well. Fundamentally it's a fridge cake of this and that all bound together with chocolate. So if David and I don't manage to eat our way through the mince pies, then I might have a go at this.
Or - some other ideas I saw were to crumble them into or on top of ice cream - separate the filling and the pastry and put the filling into the fruit part of a crumble, and use the pastry - crumbled as the topping - although I guess you could add other stuff in with that. Or in similar fashion a bread and butter pudding in which the crumbled mince pies are spread between the buttered bread, with some sliced clementines (mandarins/oranges?) on top. Cookies, brownies ... Maybe you could make a sweet kind of smoothie ... ?
Cheese We had bought extra cheese for a cheese course, but of course by the time we got to the cheese course, everybody was too full for it, so it was ignored. Now cheese doesn't go off that quickly and of course, we can just eat our way through it over time, and use it in this and that.
But I did find a couple of really tempting ideas: Leftover cheeseboard gratin with a cracker crumble - Yotam Ottolenghi. I was particularly attracted to this because of the cracker crumble. You see I have a couple of ends of cracker packets in my pantry, and also a few chips - which I also forgot to take with me yesterday; so a mix of all of these would very satisfyingly get rid of them all. I wonder could you make a kind of pastry of them by crumbling them and mixing with melted butter - or oil?
Not to mention the cheese underneath. However it's really designed to use up the leftover potatoes and other root vegetables as well and I don't have any of them. Although, of course, I could just roast a few anyway. He suggests chestnuts too, but maybe the couple of mushrooms I have left would substitute for them. Really however, it's for those annoying little bits of cheese you have left - although I won't be offering up my Wensleydale which I bought as a Christmas treat.
Still on cheese, Rosie Birkett, gives us a Lazy cheeseboard tart, which she accompanies with a kale salad topped with those leftover potatoes that I don't have. But that's alright a tart on it's own with just a plain green salad is fine. It's got cornichons and capers and Worcestershire sauce in there as well for a bit of tang, dried tarragon, celery and onion as well. Worth making at any time I think, because we've probably all got bits and pieces of cheese in the fridge most of the time. Particularly those frustrating bits of brie that are past their best as an eating cheese.
James Martin, for me anyway, gets the prize for the supreme leftover, over the top, truly decadent dish however - Large leftovers Christmas toastie. It's almost obscene and probably best eaten with a beer in the open air. On a plate - surely you couldn't eat it with your hands? You would need a bib for that. For this you get a loaf - slice it almost through to the bottom, pour between the slices a cheesy creamy sauce and then add slices of ham, turkey and bits of vegetables. He even adds in sausages and cranberry sauce. Decadent but probably the kind of thing that many of us would just love.
And just a lazy recipe - Boxing Day fried rice with garlic and spring onion sauce from Yotam Ottolenghi, which I'm including because of the sauce, which is made with spring onions and garlic. Why? Because I got sucked into buying two bunches of spring onions at Colonial Fresh for the price of one bunch in Coles next door. David's enthusiasm for bargains, has alas wormed it's way into me over the years. Well I do like bargains, but like to think I'm a bit more sensible about them. Alas, not on this occasion. The recipe got into the article about Boxing Day leftovers because of the ham. Well I do have a lot of ham, but no leftover rice - although he does say that you could use a packet of microwave rice. What's that?
It's almost time to tackle my vol-au-vents and turkey stock and maybe munch on some mince pies with a coffee after dinner, so I will end there. I do hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and that you are now enjoying the downtime of the aftermath. Maybe tomorrow I'll think about one of those cheesey solutions.
YEARS GONE BY
December 26
2024 - Some post-Christmas thoughts
2022 - Nothing
2020 - Missing
2019 - Muslin or cheesecloth?
2018 - Pandoro di Verona
2016 - An apple
Left Overs post Christmas is a special event sort of time. Much to be enjoyed!