Everybody Must Get Sconed

Before you ask, I didn't make scones just so I could use that as a title. I am not like the oily Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice, who stored up delicate compliments and witticisms in the hopes of being able to drop them in the conversation at some stage...Ah, who am I kidding.

Outrageous Fortune is about to start and I'm blatantly not going to finish this by 9:30 - I guess I will have to dash back in the ads. If Judd doesn't come back, or worse, if Cheryl pashes Gary I wouldn't even try reading any further because it probaby won't be coherent.

There is much to be excited about this week: David Beckham, old Goldenballs himself, is gracing our fair shores and the entire Team Hadfield (plus some ring-ins) are going to see him and LA Galaxy playing the Phoenix team this Saturday. Then on Sunday is the annual Hadfield Christmas Dinner (well, we had one last year, which is as good as a tradition to us fickle youth.)

The menu will run thusly, and you will be finding out about all this later on in the week.

Dinner:

Fully Festive Ham (From Nigella's Feast)

2 Roast Chickens

Roast potatoes, pumpkin (if I can find someone to chop it for me) and kumara

A big green salad

Boiled peas.

I may attempt bread sauce. Am also toying with the idea of making challah, but don't want to end up a gibbering wreck and not enjoying myself at all.

Dessert:

Lemon Prosset

Platter of Chocolate Truffles, Rugelach (a Hanukkah treat also from Feast) and Malteaser traybake, a recipe I found on Nigella.com which I am quite wild to try out.

I have already booked my slab o' piggy from the butcher and will be picking it up on Saturday morning. I need to do a big grocery shop though - especially since Tim and I are still living off what was in our cupboards before we went up home last week. Like Santa, I will be making a list, and checking it twice. Last night's dinner, by the way, was a vegetable curry with brown rice - the curry consisted of cauliflour, carrot, and parsnip, and although it tasted good the parsnip gave it an odd sweetness.

Above: Vege curry, brown rice, retro plate! To beef it up (ironically), I added some baked cauliflour on the side - it is a Nigella suggestion to dust them with ground cumin, which I didn't have, so I used some garam masala instead. I prefer cumin, but it is a fine substitution. I realise the word 'cauliflour' doesn't exactly make one's knees quiver with excitement, but this is a great way of cooking it.

Above: It wasn't Salute to Cauliflour Day or anything...I just had a lot of the stuff. Just bake florets, dusted in cumin, in a hot oven for about 20 minutes.

The scones I made quickly, without a recipe in fact, not because of some smug sense of self-importance, but because I wanted it done quickly. I do realise that a recipe gives you more chance of success, but I've never been one to roll out the dough and stamp out rounds - I prefer it more free-form, which also means you don't handle the dough so much.

Above: "They'll scone you when you're at the breakfast table..." Once baked, the warm scones were eaten while we watched Knocked Up on DVD, a movie which is not for the faint-hearted but seriously, intensely funny.

Outrageous Fortune update: Loretta, don't give away your baby! Cheryl, don't go near Gary! And once more, Judd! Come back! Only two more episodes till the season ends which means only two things: things will get even more fraught on the show, and there will be a black hole in our Tuesday evenings till Season 4 starts.