Christmas Treats

We had Christmas dinner at Tabitha and Gareth's place this year, so no massive cooking for me.  But I did make sausage rolls to have as pre-dinner nibblies, and apple slices and vanilla slices for dessert, although we didn't eat them in the end and had them at home on Boxing Day instead.

This is how I made the sausage rolls.

I took a healthy double handful of pork mince and mixed it with slow-caramelised onions, chopped sage leaves, sausage rusk and a little ginger syrup, all scrunched together to make a very slightly damp sausage mix.  I left that to rest for 24 hours.

I then made a rough puff pastry, using Delia's recipe.  I had always thought that making your own flaky or puff pastry would be time consuming and difficult.  Life was too short.  But it isn't - and it isn't!!  It was easy and not too time consuming at all.  And extremely delicious.  Noticeably more delicious than even the best shop bought puff pastry.

After everything had rested and marinated and got itself together, I rolled the pastry out quite thinly then put a roll of sausage meat down the middle.  I egg-washed the edges of the pastry then rolled it all up and cut the sausage rolls into bite sized pieces.  I then egg-washed the top of the sausage rolls and baked in a moderate to high oven until the sausage rolls were fluffy and golden - about 25 minutes in my oven.  They were delicious hot, and equally delicious cold when we had them in the evening.