When planning to light up a wood fired brick oven, you really start thinking about fuel efficiencies... how much wood you're going to be using and the tangible outputs gained from burning...lighting a pizza oven is not for the faint hearted. Its no wonder firing up an oven leads to parties on a large scale - cooking up 2 pizzas for a weekday family dinner just doesnt make sense when your burning a wheelbarrow load or two of wood to get it hot enough to bake the base and melt the cheese. So when you're looking at a firing, you plan ahead and think B.I.G. Just like old times.
We are 'celebrating' Christmas this monday. The kids hate missing Christmas with us -apparently its not really christmas without my Christmas stockings! (especially when filled with treats from overseas) so we planned to build it up for a week after their return and so tomorrow is 'Christmas Eve' with lunch with family and friends on Monday. Instead of a christmas tree, today i made a huge wreath of stems of laurel and holly from the garden and suspended it from the ceiling and B1 helped decorate with baubles and candles, to be lit for dinner on Christmas eve (that's Simons tradition and I love it, so im not arguing). Its a 'tree' born of necessity; its Bean proof. Its not shaping up to be a 'traditional' Christmas by any means.
So with a firing in mind, i am preparing the baking schedule for the day. It's looking busy but hopefully lots of communal fun and not too stressful. In cooking order:
Pizza
Bread - soudough loaves
Roasted Wild Goat and garden vegetables
Russel Jeavons chocolate cakes*
Nectarine and red currant tarts with almond pastry*
Meringue kisses*
Roasted hazelnuts and walnuts from last years crop
Dried local fruits (cherries and nectarines) and garden herbs
*thank you Veggie Gnome for the luscious eggs and red currants
Im planning and preparing all i can ahead of time, the kids are getting excited, its very sweet to see after their very sad and dissapointing time with their dad , so here's cheers to a very merry christmas!
5 comments:
Have a great day! Sounds fantastic! Please take a lot of pictures of all the baked goods.
Merry Christmas to you and your family!
HI Kel
Hope it's a great day for you all. The menu sounds terrific; I'm drooling already. xx
that top photo is absolutely beautiful!!!
veggie - thanks we had a really lovelly day, your red currants were a huge hit !! only about 5 cups to go!!
nature witch - thanks, we had fun and really enjoyed each others company - menu was hard work but tasty!
NFTFT- thank you- it does look really magical when its lit.
This is days after the fact but the wreath is so beautiful I had to say so.
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