These days I'm fairly traditional with Xmas dinner veg. Plain brussels, broc  & carrots. Roast potatoes and honeyed Parsnips. In past younger years I used to experiment,  I had more enthusiasm in those days.  I'm not keen on chestnuts with anything let alone brussels . I'm going to try a recipe for roasted brussels in a balsamic and honey glaze but perhaps before Xmas day. At 8p a packet, there's nothing to lose. Vichy carrots were nice as was cabbage and bacon, but there's only so much two can eat.

As for traditions in baking, there's mince pies to my mum's recipe; orange pastry, with a dollop of cream cheese on top of the mincemeat, under the top crust. Homemade sausage rolls, cheese sablés and Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without smoked salmon or gravadlax open sandwiches and asparagus rolls for tea. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to get tinned green asparagus tips. They're very 60's and so out of fashion these days.

What if any traditions do you follow every Christmas.  All except Veggie who probably does a ritual rummage in the freezer.

I know we have vegetarians,piscatarians and possibly vegans on the forum so just wondered how different the Christmas dinners willbe for all? Will it be a traditional Turkey dinner with all the trimmings or some other version?

I personally class myself as carnivore but can vear towards ketovore at times like Christmas and other festive periods. I do usually draw the line at carbs,seed oils and ultra processed food though.

This year my plan is to have duck. I will also purchase a soup pack consisting of a tiny swede (chopped,boiled and mashed with butter and white pepper) carrots (glased in some way) Parsnip (cooked in the duck fat) and maybe a few roasties (also cooked in duck fat)

I am also partial to Christmas pudding even though its  carb rich (soddit it's Christmas!  along with a healthy serving of double cream!

Some very interesting low cloud cover today.

                     

I've just received 71 random packets of seed from Chiltern Seeds - 51 veg and 20 flowers. Normally, I would file them away, with similar seeds eg All cabbage seed packets together. When I want to sow cabbage seeds, I usually sow the oldest ones first, which  is stoopid really as their germination rate will be worse than the fresh seeds. 
This year, I'm going to do it differently - sow some of all the fresh seeds first. Not just that, but I'm going to try to grow every new seed that I acquire - all 71 of the Chiltern seeds and the 11 that I received from SC & JJB in the Seed Swap. That's 82 different seeds I will sow next year.

That's my Challenge to me but you're all welcome to join me.

I just had to show you  the eggs I get from the farm  

The farm is a couple of miles from where I live so iit is a pleasant walk there and back for me and Kato. The honesty box hasn't always got eggs  in it, but the majority of the time it has. We sometimes go on a longer walk and call at the farm on the way home to save carrying eggs for miles!
The eggs are always freshly laid that day and at £1.50 for half a dozn they are a bargaina as far as I am concerned.

All my jackets permanently hold three one pound coins and a 50p coin so that I can either get a dozen,or only half a dozen if that's all there is!

I used to keep chickens which were quite tying so this is a great alternative for locally produced free range eggs.

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Last year we worked out way through the alphabet listing the things we'd like to find behind our Advent calendar windows and doors. https://gardenandgossip.org/showthread.p...ght=advent
For a change, let's list the items we would NOT like to find in our calendar. 

Starting with A, of course.

I need inspiration and who better to ask than the brainy/nutty people here.

As you know, I'm trying to garden, using a 3 week rotation plan - Wk 1 = Roots & Shoots; Wk 2 = Fruits & Wk 3 = Leaves. I'm getting ready for 2025 and some sort of diary/action plan is needed. Conventional diaries are in months of 4 weeks which doesn't adapt easily to my 3 week rotation.

I'm looking for a word to describe an interval of "3 weeks". There are 17 of these "3 weeks" in a year. The year starts on the first Monday and ends on the last Sunday. The odd days at the  end and beginning of the year are "rest" days.

Needless to say, it doesn't have to be a "real" word.  Something like:-

Threeks
Trims
Triplans
Triplots
Trill
Trio
Tricks
Trickles

I've picked up another random selection of FREE food from the Prawn Lady so I thought I'd ask you for suggestions on how you would use it! Quite challenging today. 

Avocado x 9
Celery heads x 2
Lemons x 9
Herbs - Mint, Dill, Parsley
Rainbow carrots
Small pots of Sage butter (for pasta) x 4
Wholemeal loaf.

PS I'm not a big fan of celery!

..............as the title says!

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