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HELLO 2018


Well, I'm glad I got that out of the way.  We're just going back to our pre-festive ways of eating and drinking, with me hitting the smoothies again.

Unbelievably, we  managed to see in the New Year last night instead of our usual 'off to bed before the countdown'.  This was due to the fact that we found the series Travellers on Netflix and binge watched  to keep us awake for a special anniversary. Twenty years ago, at about a quarter to midnight, we met for the first time.  Twenty wonderful and amazing years with my gorgeous, kind, sweethearted man. I feel blessed. We were going to open some bubbly, but were too knackered, so hit the hay instead. Yep, we're definitely twenty years older!

Yesterday morning, I made the turkey soup, which Mr. confessed to be the best yet. To be honest, and I know you shouldn't blow your own trumpet, but I think it was.


My recipe is another memory recipe, but one essential ingredient is to use turkey dripping (fat) when frying off the onions and celery.  I also used half of the jelly in the bowl below, after I'd added the rest of the veggies, together with a litre of turkey stock.


First you sautee off one large onion, one stick of celery for a couple of minutes in the turkey dripping, then add one medium potato, 4 to 5 carrots, depending on size, a small to medium parsnip and the green part of one large leek, all finely chopped. Add a good pinch of dry thyme, ground back pepper and sea salt. Add the jelly and stock, bring to the boil and then pop in the oven for one hour. Take it out and add two big handfuls of chopped turkey meat and pop back in the oven for ten minutes.  Remove from the oven and whazz with stick blender until a smooth consistency.  Add a good glug of sweet sherry, then taste and add more salt or pepper if needed.  You should just be able to taste a hint of sherry, no more. 

You could cook this soup on the hob it you wanted, but with an Aga, it's best to use the oven as much as possible.

This was the only thing we ate yesterday, with crusty bread and I've been requested to make more today, so I'd better hop to it!

Happy New Year xx



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