In the reading time afforded by the Christmas holidays, I have been composing a list of recipes to tackle in the next few weeks. This started out at a mental list, but then I committed it to post-it, and now I’m posting it for the world to see – in the hope that it will help me actually tackle them all.

Lentil & Chestnut Soup from Feast: Food That Celebrates Life by Nigella Lawson
I made this a couple of years ago, and spent ages trying to remember where I got the recipe from. All I remembered that it had chestnuts, and was the best, most wintry soup I made that year. This one I accomplished this afternoon – there’s no picture, because it’s not the most exciting soup to look at, as you might expect from the ingredients list.

Rudolph Pie also from Feast
This is to use up the cold venison I have in my fridge from Boxing Day at my parents house. Going to do this tomorrow.

Marmalade
The Blood Orange Marmalade I made last year is nearly out, so time to make some more as soon as Seville Oranges are in the shops. This year I will either use the recipe from my new copy of the The Cranks Bible or from MFK Fisher’s description of her family recipe in With Bold Knife and Fork. This one sounds like it could be wonderful, but includes no very specific quantities and requires 3 days!

Pumpkin & Mango Chutney Parcels
Pasta stuffed with the butternut squash I’ve got sitting in the vegetable box.

Ginger Cake
Ginger cake always goes down well in our house – it lasts ages, and goes very well with tea. Dan Lepard’s recipe in the Guardian a few weeks ago looks like a good one.

Chips
Jeffrey Steingarten’s article on the perfect French Fry in The Man Who Ate Everything includes a description of how to make chips at home following Joel Robuchon’s home method. The idea is apparently to put the cold cut-up potatoes into cold oil and heat the whole thing up together, thereby giving them the first cooler cooking followed by the hotter second frying, all in one go.