Lessons Learned

I hope Santa was good to you.  He was good to me, although apparently one particular gift which Santa thought best to send registered post did not make it on time, but that just means another surprise later on this week.  Santa did give me the entire DVD collection of McLeod's Daughters, very Rural Dreaming indeed.  

And did you have a good Christmas Day?  Ours was interesting.  It was our first ever Christmas that we had in our new place and was a VERY good trial run for next year when both families will be coming over.  It was Hubby and I and his parents.  We made Buttermilk Pancakes for breakfast which worked out really well.  I then spent over 3 hours slaving away getting lunch ready in the kitchen.  I was so prepared, I had the recipes and every single ingredient ready to go and I followed it all to The T.  By 2:30pm people were getting hungry and I still wasn't happy with the lamb.  But I took it out and hoped the veggies would start to crisp up soon.  I didn't want to serve this any later than 3pm (at the start of the day I had planned for 1pm).  Hubby was in the kitchen trying to help me and it was at this time as we were trying our best to put a bodged up meal together he pointed out to me that the oven was set to grill, not oven.  I laughed, I had to, I was just over it.

Lunch was served and everyone raved about the potato bake.  That turned out great as I squeezed it onto the top shelf of the oven so that was cooked really well on the grill setting.  As for the veggies, they were cooked but not crispy and the lamb, well it was a little pink and my MIL has a thing about pink meat, if it isn't leather she won't touch it.  They were very polite and told me that the flavours were all there, which is a nice way of saying, "You tried and failed".  I redeemed myself with dessert, it was a store bought pudding but I made home made custard and I made it fresh as the pudding was cooking.  MIL told me I should have just bought custard from the shops and my FIL told me the custard wasn't ready as it wasn't thick enough.  I told them I was making it from scratch, so my FIL told me to add more custard powder.  I gave him a funny look and asked what was custard powder.  Skeptical as they were once they had a mouthful they swore they could never go back to store bought custard again.

So, at the end of the day, what did I learn from all this:

1) Perhaps Hubby and I should have a quite one next year with just the two of us (maybe three he joked - not funny).

2) When a recipe says to put the oven onto 170, check the oven is on the correct setting before moving onto step 2 of the recipe.

3) Find a better gravy recipe, red wine makes it purple.

4) When you are in the kitchen all day and your guests say that you shouldn't have gone to so much trouble (little late now isn't it?) and that you should have just bought everything from the shops and reheated it and that next year just have everyone bring a dish, take a deep breathe, walk away for a minute and remember that it is not personal, it is not about you.  It is not a criticism.

5) Seriously re-think next years plan that a merge of the two families means a merge of "Foodies" vs "Just add more custard powder" and exactly how will I manage that.