Lili Wilkinson's Blog, page 18

Potatoes!

You can't have Christmas dinner without some good roast veg. Potatoes are a must, and a little roast pumpkin and onion and garlic won't go astray either.
I also steam some green beans, just so there's something in the meal that isn't totally artery-clogging.
Let's start with potatoes. I par-boil them first (just peel and boil them in salty water for about 10 minutes). Then drain, and bash them around a bit in the pot with some salt, rosemary and a little semolina.
Now, there are two options.
1...

Stuffing

As I mentioned in the turkey post, I don't put stuffing in my bird. But that doesn't mean there is no stuffing. WHAT A TERRIBLE THOUGHT.
My stuffing recipe is pretty flexible and changes every year. But it usually goes a bit like this:
Fry an onion (or two), some garlic, and 3-4 finely chopped celery stalks in butter, in a reasonable sized pot. Then add:-pepper-salt-lots of parsley-lots of sage-a bit of rosemary and/or thyme if you have any-more butter-bacon, if you feel like it-1 egg...

Bread sauce is one of those awesome traditional dishes th...

Bread sauce is one of those awesome traditional dishes that sounds disgusting until you actually eat it, and then it is the best thing ever. This is my grandma's recipe, spruced up a bit with additions from Nigella.
You will need about 800g stale white bread, so make sure you leave the bread out overnight if you've brought it fresh. Then cut or tear it into rough cubes (about 1-2cm square)
Then on the day, heat a pan containing 1/2 a litre of full-fat milk, and 1/2 a litre of chicken stock...

TURKEY

Roasting a Christmas Turkey is a daunting task, but it's really not that hard. It just takes a bit of planning. So here are my tips.
1. Buy a turkey. A good one, free-range. It will make all the difference.
2. Brine your turkey for 24 hours before you cook it. This is this totally complicated scientific thing that I don't quite understand, but soaking a raw bird in salt water makes it retain its moisture and juiciness when it's cooked. Plus it's a good opportunity to add some FLAVOUR.
To Brine...

Counting Down to Christmas

I totally stole this idea from Moonstitches, but I'm too lazy to post them every day. But maybe later in the month I'll get more speedy. But here's everything to today.

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The Words We Found

Be! You are the winner of last week's giveaway! Send me an email at liliATliliwilkinson.com with your address and I'll post you your shiny copy of The Words We Found.
Hurrah!

Christmas noms!

I'm not much of a baker from January-November, but come December, I'm all over it.
Last year I blogged my recipes for mince pies and Christmas pudding, and now here's my recipe for Christmas gingerbread cookies. And when I say "my recipe for Christmas gingerbread cookies", I of course mean "Nigella's recipe for Christmas gingerbread cookies.
(makes 35-40)
Mix:300g plain flourpinch of salt1 tsp baking powder1 tsp cinnamon1/4 tsp ground cloves2 tsps freshly ground black pepper(1 tsp ground ginger ...

NaNoWriMo - finished

!

So I finished NaNoWriMo, with only two crying tantrums (thanks to friends and loved ones for hugs and patience) and most of my sanity intact. November is a hard time of year, particularly in Australia, when things are warming up and everyone is racing towards the end of term. I had about a zillion other things to do this month, and they all (more or less) got done.

I'm pretty happy with my 50 077 words. I mean, they're all rubbish, but it's a rubbish first draft that I think I can probably wr...

Voiceworks, The Words We Found + a COMPETITION

A lot of people ask me how I first got published.

It happened when I was twelve. My mum bought me a copy of Voiceworks magazine. Voiceworks (in case you are unfortunate enough not to know) is Australia's literary journal for under 25s, published by Express Media. It's awesome.

Well, I wrote a poem and sent it off to Voiceworks, and to my utter joy it was accepted, and soon afterwards I received a cheque for $40 and a shining copy of the magazine. My first publication.

That was in 1994 (I think)....

NaNoWriMo: Half way

So yesterday was the half-way mark for NaNoWriMo.

I'm on track, with 27 000 words under my belt. It's certainly the most I've ever written in such a short time. I'm not sure if any of it's any good, but I think some of it will be salvagable. I'll need to put it in a drawer for a month or so and then spend some serious time reworking it, but as I always say, it's much easier to turn a crappy story into a great story than it is to turn a blank page into a great story.

But I have to say I'm kind o...