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Ploughing On! Another year has fleetingly passed by! Let me guess, by now most of us have already broken our New Years resolution. Join the club!Theres always hope in the form of a K shaped Good Morning after cereal diet, that gives to us a license to binge snack and drink all day, guilt free for the rest of our trans fat lives. To some of us planet conscious mammals of higher emotional quotient, it is only sensible to waste as much good food and resources as possible so that we can quickly top up Landfills to the brim, which will sooner or later turn its contents into fossil fuels and keep our wasteful societies on the road to utopia with all the trimmings. I like the way spirit of Cornish Christmas almost hypnotizes us to become shopaholics raring to spend the last penny. Regular spates of mass marketing in forms of television advertisements and umpteen cookery shows, drills the Christmas spirits deep into our conscience, enough to knackers us out before the actual midnight mass. Turkey and tinsels begin to appear on popular pub menus long before the calendar has turned Novemberish,all in the name of economic super saver celebrations! No wonder by the first week of December we already are walking past shop windows desperately proclaiming to offer Closing down sale, All stock must go,Upto 90 percent off, and Double digits Sale.(at the expense of the poor sweat shop labourer who strives to make a destined living some million air miles away) Christmas Crackers,what a Joke!On this day of joy and merriment,wage a tug of war arises,in the sky room, and someone is a winner! who walks away with a paper crown,a stale joke and often a gift from the magi! Very often what emerges from deep within those Chinese mass produced toys are odd shaped combs,whistles,pack of midget playing cards and if you are feeling lucky,A Chmpagne Bottle opener(alas that does not come in handy to unlock your Cornish Potential) Enough of harping upon the past,as we have fifty one official weeks to wait until we get a chance again to shop until we drop.Talking of the perennial waste and waist situation,why dont we settle about making something worthwhile out of all the odd sods lingering around the dreary corners of the refrigerator and larder cupboards?and mind you you don not have to be a wannabe master chef,to rustle this up,just cook along alive,or otherwise.. So what have we got!A bit of sliced turkey, may be a few shreds of ham, a wedge of cheddar, some champagne chutney, watercress/salad leaves and a few slices of crusty bread. That is definitely a good start.Place chicken or turkey, ham, chives and 100ml clotted cream(everyone has a bit of clotted cream in their fridge in Cornwall!) in a blender, and process until smooth.Yes I am not feeling crude enough for you to use a mortar and pestle instead. Once the mixture is smooth,almost with no more lumps in them,spoon them put into individual ramekins or muffin cups,and dust them with some freshly crushed peppercorns.Chill the pate portions in a fridge for half an hour,and enjoy

a guiltfree health lunch as part of a ploughman's lunch with cheddar, chutney, watercress and crusty bread,or simply spread between two luxurious slices of farmhouse bread,pondering over all the things you should not have said during the office Christmas party.If you happen to have a lot of cooked vegetables left over,try turning them into interesting fillings for fish cakes and toppings for pies.Peas especially can be coated in dark soya and broiled(dry roasted)to extract a certain melancholic sweetness out of them.Serve them with your favourite bit of battered fish,or include them as a part of neatly arranged Salmagundi, its upto you. See you in a fortnight for a rather cockle warming ladleful of , Chefs cream of Potage soup Plough on, Rick Oliver