Years ago, I used to always be the one to make Christmas Dinner for the tribe. That is: veggie self, veggie son, son's vegan half-sister plus her current partner, plus son's Dad (if you go back a whole 22 years to before I ;eft him), plus occasional random friends (I'd happily take in anyone who didn't have better plans) . I used to just buy a ready-made nutloaf and throw mysel;f into the accompaniments. Neing clumsy and disorganised, preparauion would take ages and the kitchen would look like a bomb had hit it,; but as one guest remarked "Who would guess that such a delicious meal would emerge from such chaos?"
Since beccoming increasing ill with a metabolic disorder and also developing a shedload of food intolerances, I've been neither up to cooking nor eating anything like a traditional Christmas Dinner. heck i can;'t even make myself busy in the kitchen for longer than about 30 minutes without danger of crashing out for next 3 days. And my speed hasn't increased, but rather the opposite and I'm clumsier than ever. I just gave up. The "step daughter" (for want of a better word, thogh she;'s only 10 years younger than myself, so that's silly, huh?) now skips calling in here for a meal, and just goes straight to her Dad's. Son has grown up and nearly always goes to friends for Christmas, so that only leaves self to cater for. Sorted. I can just sit at the PC all day and munch gluten-free rice puffs or something. Ofc , I don't accept invotations to have my christmas dinner elsewhere , because who the heck would want a teetotal, vegan, gluten intolerant, corn intolerant etceteras at their table? Heck, not even I want me at my table. Not even I know what to do with me.
This year, however, my son was acctually planning to spend the whole of Christmas day with me, and semed to be in a helpful mood, so I said Hhey! shall we make a nut roast between us?" . And so we did. And pretty mcch all the usual trimmmings, Well, it wasn't quite that simple. I had to put a lot of thought , research and shopping into it, reinventeing my old recipes to sidestep my food intolerances, and the nut roast was particularly difficult seeing as I'd never actualkly made one before, and couldn't find an entirely suitable recipe; and tghe infinity of variations on that themne were doing my head in. In the end , I just used those recipes as a rough guide as to quatitities, and invented my own .
The recipe follows. Much to our surprise , it turned out to be the most delicious nutroast we'd ever had. Even this year's random guest thought the same. Ofc, i overdid it in the kitchen, in spite of all that help, and paid the usual price in subsequent days, but it was worth it
400g of
Holland and Barret's "domestic violence nuts" (as we call 'em) futher abused almost to the point iof tuning them into paste (but beuing careful to retan a few crunchy bits)
a few handfuls of pistachios, ditto
about 70 g ground flaxseed, soaked for a few minutes in 3X that much water by volume
a few handfuls of green raisins
1 green pepper , finely chopped
1 onion , finekly chopped
approx. 150g chestnut mushrooms , chopped
half a jar of dried parsley
a bit of rosemary, a bit of thyme
salt and ground black pepper
Method: thoroughly mix that lot together, suff into a large greased tin and bake at medium heat for , umm, 45 minutes? (we forgot to note what time we put it in).
You might nortice I'm not one one for being terribly precise? Well, did a lot of that precision thing in my youth and bored myself silly with it. Chucking in handfuls is more fun
. Besides I have a "tenants cooker" (as I call it) that is : not the sort of cooker that any sane person would buy for their own use; which is why I wrote "medium heat". I long-ago gave up trying to figure out what Gas Mark that's supposed to be exactly (it's not calibrated in any normal way, and half the marks have worn off, anyway) .I'm happy enough if the bloody thing deigns to stay alight for long enough to finish the job.
, and quacks like a 