Happy New Year!

Well, here I am, back again after two weeks of pure weirdness and some experimental gluten free cooking. Christmas day itself was a bit weird, but nonetheless had some great turkey, spuds and gf stuffing - god bless Mrs. Crimble!

Boxing day was my turn to cook and it didn't help that I forgot to take my recipes with me, so I turned to my trusty iPhone to help me out in my hour of need. I basted the goose in honey and put it in the oven on a low heat for around 3.5 hours. That was the fine part. Making the gravy was another story. I added 250ml of wine to a pan, plus some redcurrent jam. The goose stock, I took as the goose was cooking and all seemed to go well. That is, until I served it. By this time, the wine and jam had created a mush at the bottom of the pan and the only thing runny was pure goose fat/stock. Not one of my finest moments. the profiteroles came next and i couldn't find a piping bag anywhere, so I decided just to do layers of sauce instead. I put 300 ml double cream, 2 tablespoons of golden syrup and 50 grams of butter in a pan and let it come together before I popped in a vanilla pod while it was cooling. For the chocolate sauce, I melted 200g of Green & Black's chocolate (100g dark, 100g milk) in a pan with a dash of cream and a knob of butter. For the actual profiteroles, I used this recipe: waitrose.com/recipe/Chocola... I did, however, change it a little by using 70g gram flour and 70g rice flour, instead of the bread flour. They weren't 'alf bad but I think that next time I shall be beating the eggs before adding them to the mixture, so they are not so heavy. To serve, I placed three profiteroles in a dish, spooned over the caramel sauce and then finished off with the gooey chocolate stuff. Comfort food at its finest!

Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year and I wish you a happy, healthy 2011.