Christmas lunch is always fantastic also when it’s on Christmas day 
This year I spent Christmas Day in Sydney with Bron and her sister Lou.
The day itself was fantastic weather-wise. It started warm and sunny and ended with a beautiful lightning show. The thunder wasn’t that good but the rain was glorious. It was also warm and a little muggy. I could feel my skin drinking in the muggy goodness. I love that feeling of perspiration on my brow without doing anything.
So the plan for lunch was for a small turkey (~4.5 kg), stuffing, ham, roast spuds (potatoes for refined readers), roast parsnips, roast carrots, and cauliflower cheese. There was also bread sauce, I didn’t have any. I don’t get bread sauce 
With the sage and walnut (and bacon) stuffing the turkey weighed in at about 5 kg which meant about 200 minutes cooking at 180 °C followed by a covered rest for 60 minutes. The ham was ready straight from the refrigerator but was dressed with cloves for show.
After lunch and during the thunderstorm Bron heated up a Christmas pudding and made vanilla custard from scratch. The custard was perfect.
I over exposed this photograph. The background is blown out. The ham though was very nice and the cloves studs were a nice touch.
I tried to slice the ham thinly but wasn’t very successful. Who cares, everyone likes thick cut ham don’t they? 
The turkey looks good out of the oven.
Nothing like a well stuffed bird.
I tried to truss up the bird to keep the stuffing in. My knot work isn’t as good as it used to be 
Regular readers know my favourite piece of any poultry is the cloaca.
I love carving meat. Being able to dissect an animal is so much fun. Unfortunately I didn’t have a sharp carving knife for this job. I did it with a bread knife which meant muscle strands were pulled and the skin was a little ragged. The turkey though was perfectly cooked which made the dissection easy and still very pleasurable.
Plate number one. I didn’t photograph subsequent plates.
I like my pudding swimming in warm luscious freshly made custard with real vanilla in it.
Bron and Lou cooked a fantastic Christmas lunch. It was delicious.
