This is not a Christmas 'recipe' post.

Covid turned up for Christmas, having ignored us for 1000 days. Three vaccinations and good health meant it was not much worse than a ten day head cold, though I lost my sense of smell for a week. My mug of tea tasted odd. On a hunch I flipped open a tub of fresh coffee and stuck my nose in. Nothing. A fresh lemon was clearly a plastic replica. I found a bottle of TCP and bravely inhaled. It could have been distilled water as far as my nose was concerned.

We dismantled Christmas, declining to share our unexpected gift with family. We stuffed surplus food in the freezer and bought the Radio Times. I am not a big TV watcher. I avidly read reviews, imagine the pleasure of watching a much lauded show, and that's as far as I get. The appointed time comes and goes and it doesn't seem to matter that much if I watch it or not. But ‘Casablanca’ is a fixture and I'd forgotten just how funny - and clever - ‘Some like it Hot’ is. Both are near perfect movies. ‘The Detectorists' was lovely too.

How rare, how glorious it was just to stop. I have an innate tendency to race through life, not out of angst, but because everything is interesting. I say yes to the new, turn left when the map says go right, stay on a train after my stop to see where I end up. That scene in 'The Wrong Trousers' where Gromit is laying track at breakneck speed just ahead of himself? My lifestyle in one scene.

Covid made us slow our lives to a crawl. We watched sleek thrushes tug at the halved apples we threw out for them. I made slow bread, slowly. We took all day to put up one curtain rail, punctuated by a long lunch and several pauses to watch a troupe of long tailed tits chirrup their way through the trees. Coughing and sneezing aside, it was luxuriously languid.

But Christmas is only ever delayed, never cancelled. My daughters and their partners came for lunch once we tested clear and of course it was wonderful. We cook together, one chopping, one stirring, another checking, all of us talking, tasting, suggesting, stepping round one another in an impromptu kitchen ballet. It works beautifully. As long as Hazel knows roughly when we are going to eat and we're within half an hour of that expectation, all hell will not break loose.

It's a relief not to have Christmas dinner dominated by the unreasonable demands of an obese bird. Now, I cook a piece of venison for the non-vegetarians which fits neatly on one shelf, politely leaving oven space for everything else. We brown it in a hot pan, then roast for half an hour with a splash of red wine, a healthy knob of butter and a handful of juniper berries. Apparently it turns out perfectly.

The vegetarians get the real treat though, a still-evolving festive adaptation of filo pastry parcels. Here's how to wow your guests, veggie or not. Be selfish, you need 6 foot of worktop all to yourself for the assembly stage.

PS: This is not a ‘recipe’. If you like the look of it, I suggest you read it through, get the general idea and then wing it.

1. Chop up mushrooms and a pack of chestnuts or pine nuts and throw them in a frying pan with butter. Add a bit of salt, pepper, sage or thyme if you have it and a touch of mushroom ketchup. Or Worcester sauce if your guests eat fish. Cook until they look cooked.

2. Chop up some goats cheese into chunks. Any will do. I add chopped chives if I have any.

3. Make or buy cranberry sauce. I like to make it so it's less sweet but either is fine.

4. Carefully unfold a pack of filo pastry onto a board and immediately cover with a damp tea towel. You'll need a sharp knife and a pot of melted butter with a pastry brush to hand. And another board. And a clear shelf in the fridge, ideally.

   

5. Get a flat baking tray and put a sheet of greaseproof paper on it. Paint it with oil or butter.

6. Take one sheet of filo pastry from under the damp tea towel, put it on the other board and cut it in half. Paint a large, rough circle of butter on one and put the other on top, offset. Paint a circle of butter on the top one too.

Put a spoonful of the mushroom mixture in the middle, pile some goats cheese on it and a spoon of cranberry sauce on top.

Gather up the pastry, and pinch together at the top. Lift the parcel onto the baking tray and brush generously with butter. Put the tray in the fridge while you make the next one, or have a glass of sherry. Keep going until one of your ingredients runs out. I usually make six.

Bake at about 15 minutes at 180C, or thereabouts. I use my little second oven, but otherwise put them in when you take the meat out to rest.

Serve with all the trimmings. Hazel's tip for a perfect Christmas dinner: make twice as much gravy as you can feasibly imagine might be needed. I used to make it from scratch, but they all like Bisto, so…

I hope you had a great Christmas, whether manic or mild, and I wish you all the best for 2023.