Friday 23 December 2011

The rush for Christmas

As can be told by the fact that this is my first post since December 2nd, tying blogging, cooking, decorating, making and going to work together has been a bit tricky. What have I learnt? A) writing a blog is more fun than homework, but you do have to force yourself into a stride. B) Even though I started planning for Christmas at the end of October, perhaps because of that, you can never fully avoid making and preparing things close to Christmas if you're the one doing a lot of the cooking. I'd much rather be baking, making and decorating my way to Christmas than getting everything in ready-made however! C) A 'Christmas Countdown' blog probably needs to be more of a countdown, and less of a sporadic assortment of ramblings :)

I may have been a bit slack, but I have not forgotten to take photos! I will be posting a number of photos today and tomorrow, highlighting efforts made for my 'Christmas Countdown'.

So, a Holly Jolly Christmas to those of you who may have accidentally stumbled upon this blog and wondered at its banal nature, and, of course, to the one 'loyal' follower, my friend Annabelle, Merry Christmas!

 Lime and rosemary vinegar. Not my idea, but smells good.
 Mini jam tarts, for those at work not partial to chocolate mince pies. (More of later) When frozen, the jam remains springy, but they defrost well I think.
 Making lemon and grapefruit marmalade. Bizarre to peel a lemon and see it as a segment fruit, like an orange. Resisted the temptation to bite off a segment...partly due to the fact that it took an age to peel..
 For ages, the marmalade just would not thicken. In the end, I had to take it off the boil to go out, and, when I came back, the cooling process seemed to have thickened the marmalade perfectly. It'll mainly be given as gifts, I'm not actually the hugest fan..
 All wrapped-up and in a kilner jar, for my Aunt and Uncle.
 Amazing what a celophane bag and some raffia ribbon will do to a few cheap sweets. Hope and Greenwood charge a fortune for their jars of sweets (in my opinion), so I have more plans up my sleeve for wrapping and jarring sweets up, for a fraction of the cost!
 Efforts towards making Christmas Day easier are underway - apple and sage stuffing balls, going into the freezer
 Filo tartlets, most with a spinach and cheese filling, and six with a gorgonzola and proscuitto filling.
 Swedish Pepparkaka shapes, with various homemade decorations.
 Not quite pulling off the Scandinavian style with this but not bad.

One of the creations of my elf helper (Mother). A white star, but looks a but like a fairy to me :)

Friday 2 December 2011

The Christmas tree is up!

Unashamedly, the tree is up, bedecked with all sorts of decorations. It took a while to finish putting it up and decorating it, so all I had time to do was add a few stitches to my work-in-progress Christmas bear cross-stitch project. 

Still feel like I need to get on top of things, so I will attempt to turn Sunday into a very productive day of making, and maybe baking. 


More soon!


Tuesday 29 November 2011

Lots to do...


As I could have predicted, my initial enthusiasm turned to realisation that writing a blog is a bit like homework!

Added to this, after the efforts of Stir-up Sunday, making three different things, I have not felt hugely enthusiastic towards making or baking much this week. This will change though, a new week and a new enthusiasm! (It might have something to do with the fact that it is pay day on Wednesday...)

Going back to Sunday 20th, a week ago, I finished the day chutney-making, filling a large saucepan full with grated onion and carrot. If you have never tried the Marks & Spencers sandwich filled with Wensleydale cheese and caramelised carrot chutney (very tasty) you may not know that deciding you like them so much you want to make your own at home is more difficult than it sounds. I took out a few preserves books from the library, expecting to find recipes, but alas, no! So, I essentially made the chutney as I would make a red onion version; add sugar, let the mixture brown a little bit, then add white wine vinegar, allowing to simmer and thicken. Add balsamic for colour and depth. The only problem compared to make onion chutney in small quantities for the odd burger, was the amount of carrot and onion, there was a lot. It meant the mixture sort of steamed at the bottom rather than browned. The colour was too orange (well, duh) and it didn't seem caramelised enough but I resolved that by adding the balsamic, which improved the colour, and by cooking it for longer, adding more sugar to taste. I won't know how good a chutney it is compared to the M&S until Christmas though. See below for the jarred result. With Wensleydale or mature cheddar and a charcoal biscuit I think this chutneycould be delicious. If not, well, l may just have to scour the shops for some!

What may have got me back in the mood for Christmas other than the thought of pay day may have been the event at which I bought the expensive biscuits; Thursday 24th Nov saw the John Lewis Oxford Street Food hall changed into a tasting evening. One of the things I love most in life is free food and drink, and I definitely left full! There was a lot of chocolate, a range of alcohols and pastries, hams, cheeses biscuits etc. The best alcohol was the G.H. Mumm Brut Champagne. along with a tasting, I learnt that it's best not to have too much food with a Brut, as the fizziness and acidity is best tasted on its own or with light canapés. At £31 a bottle, it's a bit above my price range but I was impressed, it was very fresh. As for savoury tastings, one of my favourites of the evening was charcoal crackers, made by Paxton & Whitfield. They were surprisingly very tasty, and the black colour will add something different to the Christmas buffet. The thing that was most delicious though, was the Iberico ham at the deli counter, I couldn’t get enough of it! And a good tip to know: if you decide you want Iberico ham freshly sliced, it’ll tastebest eaten within two days.

So, with some renewed vigour, I plan on making and finishing a few craft items on Thursday, it being 1st December:
  • Christmas pudding baubles
  • Cross-stitch cards
  • Embossed wrapping paper
  • Gift tags
  • Clementine 'baubles' (see below)

I am hoping that by the end of Thursday, I’ll feel more on top of things, but there’s still lots of food preparation ahead. I’m hoping to make the following as gifts: (not on Thursday though, lord no!)
  • More mince pies
  • Peppermint creams
  • Brazil nuts and walnuts dipped in chocolate
  • Decorated gingerbread men (though I might cheat and just buy them, ready to decorate...)
  • Homemade fudge
  • Nigella Lawson's puddini bonbons
  • Chocolate shapes

Lots to do then!

 Looking decidedly un-caramelised...
 Looking better

 Bread sauce, one of the finest things in life! I felt it lacked something though...I think you definitely have to let the onion and cloves infuse the milk for longer than I did on this occasion, use purely white bread (I only had the Hovis 50/50 style to hand) and add a bit of cream at the end, makes all the difference!
 An almost-finished cross-stitch Christmas bear. Just the green holly, bow tie and stamp and then the black line stitiches for the face etc. I used to love making cross-stitch cards at Christmas when I was younger, it's nice to make them again.
 A lovely Lego Christmas tree in the Oxford Street branch of John Lewis.
Clementine or satsuma 'bauble' with cloves.
 The M&S gingerbread men I'm considering decorating instead of making from scratch. Christmas sprinkles should look quite nice.

Sunday 20 November 2011

Stir-up Sunday, the first day of Christmas baking!

Hello!

I have been meaning to write a blog for some time but needed a good idea to run with. It presented itself fully-formed however this morning while preparing the ingredients for my mother's Christmas pudding - a countdown to Christmas, sharing with you all my cooking, baking and general craftyness (triumphal or disastrous), over the next five weeks.

One of my motives for doing this is that most Christmases, I leave everything too late and run out of time to make anything nice but this year I'd like that to change. It would be lovely to also hear from others what they plan to do, and share ideas on making Christmas 2011 a decent one!

I write this still needing to finish the last of my three cooking projects for today, but here are a few photos from the stir-up Sunday task of making the Christmas pudding, and a finished batch of mince pies, just out of the oven.


More details to come, I hope you'll join me in my countdown!


 Kate




Zesting an unwaxed lemon - if you compare the smell with that of a waxed one, there's such a difference!
 Frenzied whisking of stout, egg and treacle. Not the tastiest of mixtures...

 Making sure to give the ingredients a good old stir
 And there we have it! An upside-down, uncooked look at what it'll be like on Christmas day. Fake holly, can you tell? (I can guess the answer).
 Too tired to photograph anything other than the finished result, lots of zesting, rolling, cutting, shaping, spooning and brushing! I tend to experiment each year with recipes, and this year have gone for an orange pastry, courtesy of the Hairy Bikers. I like their straightforward approach, though they didn't mention how thin or thick to roll the pastry, and the tops are a bit too thick, so plenty of improvement to be made with batch two I think.
Three cast-offs for tasting, by myself and my Christmas Kitchen Helper (a.k.a 'Mother').
The result - nice pastry, though definitely needs to be a bit thinner, hopefully allowing for a bit more mincemeat. The mincemeat was made last Christmas, with lots of cranberries, using a Nigella Lawson recipe. Yum!