Welcome to Betty’s Festive Howdy Doo’s

Betty Buffer is showing us how to prepare all your veg so you’ll have the most delicious food this Christmas. Here, you’ll find Betty’s top tips on roast potatoes, roast vegetables and carrots, green cabbage and Brussel sprouts, red cabbage and to top it all off, bread sauce.

Betty’s Christmas leftovers tips

Did you do too many roasties…left over sprouts- bash them together with some thyme. Fry and onion in some oil and butter and bash them all together in a frying pan until crispy. It’s Bubble and Squeak- eat with a fried egg on top! You can be posh and  add snipped up bits of ham or bacon or gammon then make it into little cakes and fry as above. Or bits of stuffing…

Red cabbage - just eat cold! Mmmmmm.

Turkey and ham make a super pie. Soften a chopped leek in some butter or non dairy marge- 2 tablespoons (big ones). Add same quantity of plain flour and cook it off a little bit- very gently. Add water or non dairy milk substitute (oat is best here) bit by bit- up to about a pint of milk. Whisk until as smooth as you can make it. Add chopped up Turkey, ham- whatever’s lying about (chipolatas chopped into chunks?) and stir through with some chopped flat parsley or dried thyme. Taste and add salt and pepper. Pop the mix into a deep dish and cover with some ready made puff pastry. Paint with a beaten egg and pop into the oven (180C) for 20-25 minutes. YUM!

Lots of left over cheeseboard? Make a fondue - over a low heat in a heavy pan or in a fondue pot. Whisk a big spoon of cornflour with 1/2 pt white wine and 1 crushed garlic clove. Add 600g mixed cheese gradually and melt it all together. Do not let it boil or burn-and when it’s all thick and bubbly sit down with bread or veg sticks to dip in…ooooo!

Smashed mince pies or Christmas pudding stirred through vanilla ice cream - hey presto new ice cream! And mincemeat cookies - a lovely cookie dough with mincemeat stirred through, extra orange zest grated onto them just before baking…

We love our food at Christmas- some of us we will have got too much- make sure you use it all well. Soups, stocks, freeze things if you can and find a way to make it keep on feeding you and your family into the new year.