Christmas dinner!

I did all the prep for Christmas dinner the day before so I could lounge about, open prezzies, snuggle, drink champagne and tea etc. on the day with maximum ease. A little final bit and bob with help from MrTOTKat (chief sprout chopper) and the total intervention on the day was about 30 minutes including carving the turkey when it was cooked and rested.

From top left ring: sliced red cabbage and onion, sautéed in duck fat and with a dollop of cranberry sauce and cider vinegar; smoked bacon lardons, searing in salted butter, ready for the chopped brussels; finely diced red onion, fresh thyme, fresh rosemary and turkey giblets, fried in duck fat and topped up with water to then reduce for gravy.

Not an excessive amount of implements in use, even if you do count the glass of champagne.

And, hello turkey crown!  Basted in duck fat and sprinkled with sea salt, thyme and rosemary.

Hidden celeriac and turnip gratins bubbling away under the turkey.

Aaaand the turkey is done!  Rest for 30 minutes and carve.

Finish off the sprouts with a few walnuts...

And serve!

After a starter of salmon mousse, wrapped in smoked salmon slices and served with cherry tomatoes dressed in olive oil, black pepper and sea salt.

 The main course; sprouts with bacon and walnuts, celeriac and turnip gratin, red cabbage with cranberry sauce, roast turkey, turkey gravy, and horseradish cream.

Main course demolished!

Um. I got a bit squiffy at this point and missed the tiramisu dessert.  And we didn't have the cheese board and nut crackers in the end.  The tiramisu looked a bit like this...

But that's egg nog from Boxing Day, so, er...

Yes.

And then for supper there was a Heston delight - Hidden Clementine Christmas Pudding - with Abel and Cole custard.  We were doing pretty well until that point :o)  The whole 3 course dinner, including dessert, but without wine, was 33g carbs.  Heston's pudding, per portion, by itself, without custard, was 65g carbs!  But it was bloody lovely, so I don't care.  The whole day, including blow-out amounts of wine, scrambled eggs and smoked salmon parcels for brekkie, and a mince pie earlier in the day came to 175g carbs.  That's no more than a "normal" day earlier in the year (and we used to eat lower carb than most normal people anyway).

And 2 days later.  I have ketones back in my urine again, so I think that in the grand scheme of things, that was barely a "carb binge" (not to be had all the time, but we'll see in a few months about a VO2 or steady state gas analysis again and if there's a difference).

Curry for one (or two) - it's quick!

Curry from scratch does not need to take ages.  It tastes fabulous, you don't need jars of paste or sauce and you know exactly what you've put in it...

First, make sure you have cooked base protein.  In this case some Abel and Cole cubed buffalo, onion, tomato and courgette:-

Mr TOTKat cooked this in a batch a while ago.  Sweat a chopped onion, add 500g cubed buffalo (or beef or lamb), once browned, add the chopped tomato (a couple of large ones) and (a couple of medium) courgette and cook the meat through.  Divide up into (4) portions and chill/freeze.

You could use pretty much any meat or poultry, fish won't work so well but you could try some chunky white fish.  Big, meaty Portobello mushrooms, chick peas, butter beans or tofu can be used in place of the meat.  As it's not a creamy curry, nuts would probably not be very nice.  Veg could be lots of different things; courgettes, peppers, onion, cauliflower, tomatoes, aubergine, squashes, sweet potato, carrot... probably not cabbage or any softish leafy vegetables though pak choi or chard may work, it's worth a try. I can't imagine swede or parsnip would work so well though.

Then you need to make your paste (this makes enough for 2 people and you can keep it in the fridge for a day or three in a sealed container.

• 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
• 1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
• 3 tbsp tomato puree
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 red onion
• 1 red chilli
• a chunk of ginger to taste
• 2 tsps light oil

Roughly chop the onion.

Toast the seeds in a dry frying pan, then crush in a pestle and mortar with some salt crystals until you have a fineish powder.

Roughly chop the chilli and put all the paste ingredients into a container and blend into a paste with a hand blender.

Heat the paste in a non-stick pan.

I decided to add some extra tomato; chopped up a couple and blended them to a smoothish paste.  Then added that to the curry paste.  Cook for a little while and add slugs of water if it starts to get too thick or stick.

Add the pre-cooked meat and veg, add a little water if needed and make sure the whole thing is heated thorougly.

Serve and eat with rice, toasted pitta, curried potato or just by itself.  (By itself, 455kcals, 62g protein, 28.5g carbs, 11.5g fat, 7g fibre and 6.2 portions of fruit and veg - 600kcals with a toasted wholemeal pitta bread).

Start to finish, that took about 35 minutes including 10 minutes preparation time.