It’s coming up to the end of September and at work this means only one thing: it is time to start organising the Christmas party. In years gone by (when I have not been with the company) the Christmas do has been a thing of legend.
The other day, my boss (aka the Boss – he looks nothing like Bruce Springsteen but for obvious reasons, I will use the name regardless) boasted that last year’s Christmas party had cost a whopping sixty five THOUSAND pounds. However, much like the number of women men claim to have slept with, you are always advised to half the Boss’s claims and just to be safe, half them again. And again. Anyway, all exaggerations aside, the event was clearly lavish and plush and everything else that is wonderful.
Naturally, I was expecting big things this year. The line of business I work in doesn’t really get affected by recession and so there was no risk of the excuse that it had been “a bad year” or anything else like that. So, it was to my surprise when the Boss declared that we would not be having a party this year. Instead, we would go for a nice, hearty meal with drinks to follow.
The Boss said he wanted to go to a restaurant that was a “reeeeally good gastro pub that was reeeeally nice and very British and very Christmassy”. My colleague correctly pointed out that the only place that was really Christmassy at the moment was the Harrods grotto. Apart from that, pretty much every restaurant is going to be at least vaguely Christmassy come December 23rd. So we decided to discount that requirement.
The first and only idea we managed was Rules but after calling up and being a little underwhelmed by the Christmas menu, we were already feeling defeated! The Christmas party plans are all still up in the air. However, I was feeling inspired to create my own British feast.
I’ve recently realised that I hardly ever eat British food. Since I moved out of my family home, I never have a roast and when I eat out, it is invariably Pakistani, Arab, Indian, Thai, Chinese, Greek, Italian etc cuisine that gets my vote. In a bid to alter this, my colleague and I took things into our own hands and decided that a good toad in the hole would not go amiss for the evening.
We used the BBC Good Food recipe and I honestly think that we did a pretty good job! My friend is so daring, that she actually GUESSED measurements. This was something that made me feel incredibly nervous but I somehow managed to stay calm and resist intervening (probably because I was at her flat, in her kitchen). The result was tremendous and delicious.
In fact, I would go as far as to say that ours looked BETTER than the toad in the hole on the website. As my friend pointed out, the toads aren’t really in their holes on the recipe photo, whereas our toads are all cosy and wrapped up.
The onion gravy was also spectacular and really easy. We averted major disaster with careful planning. The recipe for the gravy required soft brown sugar which we didn’t have! Luckily, I had cannily stolen a sachet of granulated brown sugar from the kitchen at work earlier in the day. Excellent preparation and highly recommended for cost cutting.
Try this recipe – there is no reason not to. It is easy and it tastes amazing. We ate half each and couldn’t move for the rest of the evening; now that is what I call a success.
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