5 roasts in 1 day & other Prep for Xmas

Dearest readers, please excuse my absence...I am having technical difficulties with my Internet, email and computer as a whole...sure they are fantastic when they are working, but have one break down on you repeatedly...and your in for a whole lot of trouble......like me at the moment. I won't be changing anything on my blog just yet....as time with an internet connection is valuable I would much rather write a post for my wonderful readers.


5 roasts in 1 day
I bet your thinking I'm mad,.....no, just organised.....lol.....For those who are planning ahead these festive holidays....you will understand my need for cooking ahead. I have great news, my husband is going to be home for the Christmas period, and I don't plan to be stuck in the kitchen half the time, preparing meals. I like to serve up cold meats, and salads.
Today's events in the kitchen went something like this.......

I planned on cooking roasts of Lamb, Pork and Silverside.....It's easy really....


*Prep two legs of Lamb and pop in the oven first.....I basted the legs of Lamb with my soup starter...It really is an all rounder...and you will see me use it quite often in my kitchen.

 *Then prep and put the two silverside's in the crock-pot........

*Then brown the Leg of Pork on the stove to kick-start the cooking of the crackling.......

rub a small amount of salt into the cut skin...
in a really hot pan, place the pork
turn until brown all over.

Almost ready to place in the oven.......

When the juice runs almost clear in the Legs of Lamb.....bring them out of the oven and let them finish cooking in their own heat...............I bake mine in oven bags. I find the meat stays lovely and moist.

Rub some of the herby soup starter all over the crackling of the pork you browned earlier......

*Now turn the heat up on the oven to about 210 degrees Celsius for about 45 minutes to set the crackling nice and crispy...but don't forget to turn it back down.......
*Remove from the oven when the juice runs almost clear, like the Lamb....cut away the crackling and allow it to cool. When cool, store the crackling in an airtight container. If you are partial to the odd bit of crackling it wont keep until Christmas...but it would if you didn't eat it. Crackling stores pretty well. Now wrap the leg of pork in foil to finish cooking and cooling....
Ok, I confess, we had ours with tea tonight..but I will buy extra skin and make more crackling for the big day....I'm sure to have the oven on again before then.


We enjoyed half of one leg of lamb tonight for tea...and I put one in the freezer along with the Leg of Pork....Marked clearly of-course........

*At tea time I turned the crock-pot off and left the silverside's to cool overnight in the cooking liquor.....This makes the silverside lovely and moist for eating as a cold meat. In the morning, I will remove them from the pot, then wrap them separately and pop them into the freezer too.

And now I have 5 roasts cooked in one day! Told you it was easy....... 

*I also made herbed butter..using my "soup starter"......

One for the fridge to use now,
and one for the freezer to use later

Butter and my Soup Starter
blended well.

*I had to make a new batch of soup starter today too, so I made a huge batch which you can see in the very first photo. I picked bunches and bunches of herbs from the garden today for it too along with 3 bunches of spring onions. The soup starter gets used for almost everything these days....

*The herbed butter makes a deliciously yummy spread for salad sandwiches too....or use the starter straight to top savoury biscuits with homegrown tomatoes....A big Thanks for the red ones Rose.......Yummmmmm

I also popped some soup starter on the top.
A lovely flavour and another great way to use my soup starter.

*I pureed a huge Papaya I got from the markets over the weekend....2 for $5 was a good price, even though they had a bad spot on them. This will be lovely added to any fruit beverages I prepare.

Here are some other foods I have been preparing ahead of time and popping in the freezer:

*Mini quiches...in the same rectangular mini muffin/bread trays (above).....I plan on using these as a side dish or sliced in sandwiches. Sorry no photos, but I will take one if anyone wants to see them.

*I also have a batch of Beetroot and Chocolate Cupcakes which I had to hide in the freezer quickly before they all got eaten..........

*I've roasted 3 trays of sweet capsicums and de-seeded them before storing in Olive Oil in the fridge....these are delicious on a piece of toasted bread, or mashed into a dressing.....I wouldn't be bothered with a recipe if it called for them, but when I have them already roasted and bottled...Yep! you betcha I'll use them.

I learnt a valuable lesson here....prepare the sweet chillies before roasting them, it will be so much quicker and cleaner....after roasting, all I would need to do, is slice them possible in half and remove the skin. But nope...I did it the long way around.....but I learnt for next time which is what is important.

Roasted sweet chillies ready to add to Olive Oil
and pop in the fridge.

*I've also got biscuits ready to pop in the oven...Make a double batch...roll them all out into balls until you have no batter left....then pop them in the freezer. Once frozen, remove them from the tray and place in a plastic bag. Back into the freezer until you want a really quick batch of biscuits....They bake up just fine, but you haven't had the trouble of making the batter up.

There's plenty more where they came from....

Other things I would like to prepare...so my holiday is a holiday and I only have minimal salad prep to do in the kitchen include:

*I would also like to get another lot of Steamed Xmas Puddings into the freezer for those last minute gifts....there's only a few left in the freezer for now.

* Some more mini quiche...I think they will be very popular...so add eggs to the next shopping trip.

* I want to have a go at rising bread dough then freezing it....so again, most of the prep is done...Lovely fresh ly baked bread rolls in the oven on Christmas Day with half the effort....It can't get much better than that.

* I also need to prep my Ham, I'm doing Nigella's Christmas Coke Ham...It's delicious....but I plan on looking for a recipe for coke on the internet....so I don't buy the horribly sweet fizzy soda.

* I also need to buy my Turkey legs...we don't bother with the whole huge bird coming to the table...I'd rather have the meat off the bone long before that...and have it all bagged up, in the freezer....and thawed in small amounts at my convenience.

That's all I can think of at the moment...Oh I still have a container of that delicious Apricot Delight I made....so add that to the goodies too.


Are you doing any prep for the big day? Or do you like to prep for a few days or even a week or more, like I do? 
If you like something you have seen, or can offer me some great advice along these lines...even recipe ideas....I'd love to hear from you.....
Please leave a comment..........................