91Èȱ¬

Even as an adult there is at least one time of the year when we can let the inner child free.

This morning I had the first day off in living memory and as all the Christmas shopping and food supplies were well taken care of what better than to brave the icy conditions and have some fun.

As you can see the latest snowfall was lovingly sculpted into something wonderfully festive. My household decided it was not just to be a snowman, but to be rather freakish too.

To me falls the responsibility of doing the Christmas dinner, so naturally the sprouts have been on a low light for several days now.

Whatever delights the yuletide holds for you I hope you have a wonderful time and on behalf of the whole Inside Out team we wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

We're back on air on January 10 2011, so see you then.

Chris

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My mouth starts to water just thinking about the day that two professional Masterchef finalists from our region put their Christmas feasts on the table in front of me.

- chef at in Northumberland and - who worked at the in County Durham accepted the Inside Out challenge to come up with a Christmas dinner for four people with a scrooge-like budget of just £7.50 a head.

You can see the results in the last show in our current series at 7.30pm on Monday December 13 2010 on 91Èȱ¬ One.

Trainee chefs of the future at were assigned to help our intrepid culinary masters come up with their stunning yuletide fayre.

It was great to see John and Dave mentoring the students even though they were up against the clock. It was a Masterchef masterclass in action.

To keep the costs down the masterchef finalists went straight to a Northumberland farmer to source local vegetables. Earlier that day the produce had still been growing in the ground.

For the beef and duck they went to a butcher in . I suspect they haggled better than you or I ever could to keep within the strict budget.

Waiting to test the end results with me was . The well established North East restaurateur knows his stuff and is absolutely thrilled that two chefs from our region made it into the finals of Masterchef. Add to that the fact and you have proof positive the North can cook.

Dave came up with a magnificent dish of three kinds of duck. Eugene was full of praise for the precision delivered to the plate.

I just loved every morsel. Included on my plate was a duck's tongue which I had never ever tried before. It surprised me at just how tender and tasty it was.

Sadly my gag ended up on the cutting room floor.

"I don't mind having the duck's tongue, just don't present me with the bill!"

John's dish was a stunning array of Christmas delights as you can see in the picture at the top of this page. The huge cut of beef just melted in the mouth and if only I could get my parsnips to be as light and fluffy as John's I'd be a very happy man. A sumptuous gravy and roast potatoes to die for made for one extremely happy tummy.

You'll be pleased to hear Eugene and I only got a taste, as the College students and camera crew who'd worked their socks off also got to tuck in.

If you fancy having a go at John's Christmas feast on a budget you can get the rib of beef recipe here.

If you are cooking Christmas dinner for vegetarian guests you might want to get a few tips from Simon Rimmer's blog.

I leave you with a chance to have a real giggle. Someone with more time on their hands than is good for them has . John, Dave and the judges Michel Roux Jnr. and Gregg Wallace may not be amused!

Also in the programme this week:

We have returned to the subject of puppy selling after our previous programme about Ivy Leaf Kennels of Burnhope run by Kevin Knox sparked a large number of emails and calls from people who had bought animals that had become ill.

In this latest report we highlighted some of the new complaints and showed how Mr Knox travels to Wales to pick up puppies which are handed over in the car park of an industrial estate.

Mr Knox declined to give an interview to respond to the issues raised and through his solicitor told Inside Out:

"We believe that the previous programme about Mr Knox and the Ivy Leaf Kennels was unfair and highly biased. For that programme, Mr Knox issued a lengthy statement defending, in depth, all the allegations made against him by the 91Èȱ¬. That statement however was only briefly mentioned, with extracts from the statement being recited, out of context, to support the highly biased nature of the programme. With that experience in mind, Mr Knox feels that, only by way of a live broadcast, can he safely and comfortably put across his views on this matter."

As Inside Out is a pre-recorded programme we unfortunately were unable to conduct a live interview. For the record we did publish his full statement from the previous film on my blog at the time.

If you want to comment on the dogs story then please email me directly:
chrisjackson@bbc.co.uk

Our other film this week looked at the remarkable find of gun fragments on the site of the Battle of Towton, one of the bloodiest fought during .

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So there's no sign the cold snap is easing its grip on the North of England. .

There was one upside of the night when the temperatures plunged severely. Ice crystals which fell onto my windows grew into rather beautiful formations as you can see above.

The beauty of the wintry scenes however can delude us and mask the very real difficulties and dangers the cold brings. Sadly the elderly are at particular risk and the ice and snow have claimed two lives in Cumbria and in Darlington a pensioner died while apparently clearing snow from his home.

In the latest programme I have been looking at the problems caused by the big freeze. I ended up wandering through the frozen rutted tracks of a Northumberland field to watch farm workers trying to pick leeks out of the ground by hand. It is back-breaking and even with gloves on you can imagine how unpleasant a task that is in the bitter cold.

They'd spent the previous day just clearing snow off the vegetables before there was any hope of getting at them. The harvesting machine couldn't cope with the conditions at all.

I won't be taking what's on my dinner plate for granted any more.

In my previous blog I was pleased to report how the last episode of Inside Out might actually have saved somebody from a really nasty wintry accident.

If you have any Winter's Tales of your own you'd like to share then please add your comments.

Also in this week's show:

We look at what happened to all the in the North East & Cumbria. The 91Èȱ¬ commissioned research into the state of our High Streets and you can read about the results on the 91Èȱ¬ News website.

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Our final film on the show this week follows the man who thinks he can succeed in making a go of Robbs of Hexham where others have failed.

We've some nice archive and extra video footage on this shopping institution

You can see this episode on December 6 2010 at 7.30pm on 91Èȱ¬ One.

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TV is a powerful medium, but perhaps I can modestly claim our show has actually had a hand in saving a viewer from a rather nasty fate.

Tony from Sunderland had just had his tea and was sitting in the kitchen when his wife called him through to watch our latest episode as it was bound to interest him.

The show included a story about a new blue plaque trail to mark the historic sites of 's former grounds.

While he was sat glued to the box, the snow that had been on his roof came crashing through the kitchen skylight. Where he'd been sitting was now covered in shattered shards of glass and a heap of snow.

This is Tony describing what happened in his own words on 91Èȱ¬ Newcastle's breakfast show with Alfie and Charlie:

Our "life saving" film was about the blue plaques being put up by club historian Rob Mason.

He is determined the club's rich heritage should not be forgotten. Apart from the and few people can name the club's former grounds.

If you'd like to follow the trail you can get an overview on the map below, but I have also created an .

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