Don't Trim the Trimmings

I wrote a post the other day about a sprout not being just for Christmas, and this one is along the same lines - why should bread sauce only appear on December 25th, never to be seen again for the rest of the year?

I'm not sure if this is about leftovers - though the crumbs now waiting to be added to steeping milk were from a roll past its best - or about making the ordinary special with a bit of forethought. Today's main meal is to be roast chicken, with a few if not all the trimmings: gravy made from the meat juices, stuffing (cooked on its own not in the bird), and the bread sauce. I'll make roast potatoes too, with the fat skimmed off some beef stock as part of the cooking medium.

There is a pleasing continuity in this, with that beef stock and thus fat made from a previous roast; the use of the ageing roll; and the promise of chicken and bread sauce sandwiches tomorrow if as expected neither element is finished today.

Of course there is nothing wrong with throwing together a stir-fry when time is tight, or if it takes your fancy. But when as on a cold January Sunday one has time aplenty why not think ahead? A case in point is the milk brought to a near boil with a quartered onion and four bay-leaves, plus a chip or two of nutmeg (my bread sauce favours those flavours over the more traditional cloves) and some peppercorns, then removed from the heat to infuse for several hours. There will be glazed carrots, started a good hour before we sit down to eat. And the roast spuds, parboiled to near-doneness well before they are to be finished in a super-hot oven as the chicken rests.

Our Sunday is far from empty - two of us working, one doing homework, and various leisure pursuits pursued. Some in that position would rather graze, trying to fit more activities into an amorphous day (and avoiding others in the house). A Torygraph article yesterday (I became a convert to their crossword if not their politics during the MPs' expenses scandal) also made once more the obvious point that those eating together are likely to be healthier - grazing fodder not famed for its balance and nutrition. Sitting down together over our main meal (as we already did over brunch) punctuates the day, provides structure, and is in itself leisure. And we eat well.