At last Christmas is over and it has been a good one. I've even dared to step on the scales, not such good news, 104kg which gives me a BMI of 29.5. Ouch.

We had a quiet 25th with a walk and roast belly pork for dinner.

We'd bought a whole salmon from Tim in the market, which we picked up on the 24th. The idea being to make gravadlax with the tail and eat the rest in various forms throughout the holiday period. So, 24th poached salmon, 26th salmon in a creamy sauce with pasta, fishcakes on the 28th and for lunch on 30th. The gravadlax (pictured) was a great success and we served that on my homemade sourdough bread at our party on 1st January.

The 27th is my father's birthday and we had offered to cater for the family at his home in Herne Bay. I made lasagne for lunch with homemade pasta. For tea we had a boned and stuffed chicken and a boiled ham. Great to see so many members of the family: Ruth, Debbie, John, Ginny, Pam, Butty, Wilson, Tom, Amy, Will, Charlotte, Sam W, Chris, Kiri, Tamsin, Sam G and James plus Joe and Charlie and of course the birthday boy himself.

The weather has been bitterly cold and we've not even bothered to look at the allotment as I doubt that we'd be able to get to any of the root veg. We used the last of our potatoes, onions and garlic over Christmas. They have been great. I threw away some Charlotte potatoes that had become tainted with the flavour of the sack they'd been stored in.