Friday, Day Six, of Week Six. But more importantly, it is Travel Friday, well Virtual Travel and as usual the instigator of this event “Globetotting.com” was up to the task.

She ( the willowy Blond) was born in Belgium and as such returned to her roots. She has actually lived longer in Belgium than in any other country ( including the UK if one discounts school). One of the Belgian heroes is Tintin and his little dog Milou. We as a family pronounce Tintin as the French do more like Dan Dan, but definitely NOT TIN  TIN and Milou ( Snowy in the english version ) is Milu. The books both in French and English have been family favourites for many years. And so it was that the North London branch of the family transformed themselves into characters from the Tintin adventures, including Sammy as Milou. They ate one of the Belgian National dishes, Steak Frites, and no-one makes Frites like the Belgians, followed of course by another anytional dish, Dame Blanche, icecream topped with chocolate sauce and cream !!

The W2 branch of the family appropriately took herself off to the South of France. She actually was born in France though in Normandie and not the south. She decided that Les œufs had to be french, and so that was the limit of her french meal ! But then again maybe it was Omelettes Frites of maybe just œufs brouillé ( scrambled)

And us? We got on our sleigh, pulled by the trusty Rudolph and went to Lapland to get ahead of the game of Toy making !

And Santas favourite dinner, well of course Reindeer sausages with creamy mashed potatoes and onion gravy ! I make onion gravy a lot, ( I don’t eat gravy though) and always make a fair amount as Himself really likes sausages with onion gravy. I don’t really ever eat sausages and consequently not the gravy. Again, my gravy is always a little bit of this and a little bit of that but basically it is

• 2 onions, finely sliced
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 1-2 oz butter
• 1 cup red port
• 1 cup red wine
• 1cup stock, any will do
• 2 tabs dijon mustard
• 2 tabs Worcestershire sauce
• 3 tabs any dark red jam, bramble, mixed fruit, cherry
• salt and pepper to taste.

Melt the butter, add the onions and garlic and cook gently for maybe 30 minutes or more for them to turn soft and brown. Add the port, wine and stock and then stir in the rest of the ingredients, and let it simmer until it thickened a bit. No flour or corn flour is needed to thick it as it will thicken by itself.  Use what you need, bag the rest and freeze. Defrost , heat , use, bag and freeze. Easy and will always have some gravy on hand.