Day 348 - chestnuts burning on an open fire

Did you wear your Christmas jumper today for Christmas Jumper Day? They were everywhere, but not in my office. The celebration was in aid of Save The Children although I read an article suggesting that people spend more money on their jumpers than they donate. That suggests that you only wear the jumper for one day, who would do that? I've been looking for a jumper in charity shops but haven't found anything that jumps out at me so I didn't actually have anything for today, I couldn't have taken part even if I'd remembered.

One celebration I did manage though was Biscuits And Gravy Day. This is a repeat of a celebration from earlier in the year which I didn't manage so it seemed right to give it a go this time around. The name sounds like a mixture of rich tea and bisto which would be wrong. It's actually an American thing, the biscuits are like scones and the gravy is a mixture of sausage meat and thickened milk. I think it's meant to be a breakfast thing but I had it for tea. I found a recipe online but mistook 3/4 cup for 3/4 pint. The dough was sloppy so I had to add flour. The biscuits came out of the oven a little underdone but I think with the right quantities they could be quite tasty. The sausage mush was good too, I put some sprouts in there for good measure. Overall it wasn't bad, the sprouts made it.

Unfortunately my second culinary effort didn't go quite so well. Roasting chestnuts is supposed to be christmassy but who does that anymore? We used to have a chestnut roaster but it went rusty from underuse. Instead I used two sheets of tin foil to make a pan and roasted them in the wood burner. Here's a hint, if roasting chestnuts, don't try a tin foil pan. After twenty minutes there was a huge he in the middle and every nut was burnt to cinders. So that went well then. Maybe next Roast Chestnuts Day I'll just buy some.

It was also Panto Day today but I'm going to panto tomorrow so that's no use is it? Apparently they have a 3D scene which my son is excited about. And there I was thinking that the whole thing would be 3D. Silly me.