Merry Christmas

Tomorrow is going to be all about the full-on preparation for the big feast that is planned for Christmas Day. Today, however, has a slightly slower and altogether gentler pace. It involves baking a batch of amaretti biscuits for the Christmas trifle; dipping a few things in chocolate and turning the rest of the melted chocolate into curls to adorn the aforementioned trifle; and - the nicest bit - icing the Christmas cake.

I think this is probably only the second Christmas cake I've ever made. I feel that I need a houseful of people to justify making one, not least because the alternative means I end up eating 90% of the cake myself. This is something not recommended for the waistline nor for the taste buds - guaranteed to make you very happy not to see another slice for a whole year.

However, I'm hoping that my Christmas guests will find space to squeeze in a slice an appropriate amount of time after lunch on the big day, with other visitors and house guests arriving before the year is out helping to consume what remains.

I made the cake back in November and have been feeding it with rum in the weeks since. The cake isn't a traditional recipe but a fruit cake with lots of grated cooking apples in it.  This means that it's very moist, further assisted with the rum. In fact, I seem to recall that I rather overloaded it with brandy the last time I made it. The evidence being that a thick, sticky liquid managed to ooze out between the icing and the cake board. It was tasty but rather unsightly, to say the least!

I'm hoping I've not over-done it with the rum but have made two other changes this year in an attempt to prevent a re occurrence of the 'great ooze'. The first is to put it on a plate, which means there is a slight lip to stop any liquid that may drip out from spilling everywhere. It may even help it to run back under the cake to be reabsorbed - I can but hope! The second is that I have decided not to ice the sides.

When I was little, the best thing about Christmas cake was always the marzipan and icing but now I find it a bit too sweet and sickly. I've therefore just put the marzipan and icing on the top. I'm nervous this may make the cake dry out but am hoping the apple and rum will mean this won't happen, further helped by the cat-proof tin that I'm obliged to keep it in. You may think that a cat wouldn't like Christmas cake but that would be because you haven't met my cat. With her, pretty much anything goes, apart from vegetables and then she will probably have a bit of a lick if they've been cooked in something she does like - butter, oil, stock, milk, cream, the oven...

As for the decoration, I've gone for a Christmas tree made of sweets with chocolate coins to decorate the sides. I'm very happy with the results and enjoyed listening to a radio play as I calmly put it all together. I'm imagining this is the calm before the storm and am relishing every moment.

Let's just hope I can channel some of this tranquillity whilst making the turkey stuffing tomorrow and when trying to get it all cooked and on the table at the same time on the Big Day.

I wish you a very calm and relaxing Christmas, whatever you are doing, and if that's just not feasible (or desirable), let it be merry, joyous and bright!

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas...

At Christmas markets I often linger over the decorations made with dried citrus, cinnamon sticks and pine cones but tend to move on when I spot the prices. It was with some delight, therefore, that I spotted a 'recipe' for making my own dried orange slices in a magazine I was given last Christmas.

Eleven and a bit months later, I finally got to give it a go. Not that it was really that difficult and I'm sure, with a bit of experimentation, I could have sussed out the recipe myself. Mind you, it's nice to embark on a project you have some level of confidence will turn out as you expect, especially one that takes a few hours, as this one does.

So, if you fancy giving it a go, this is what you do.

Take 2 large oranges and a lemon and cut into 5mm slices. Place them in a single layer between a few sheets of kitchen paper to remove the excess juice, then lay out onto a couple of wire cooling racks - the sort you use to cool cakes on.

Place the racks and slices of citrus into a pre-heated oven - 90C or 70C fan - for 4 hours, turning the slices halfway through the drying time.

Into the oven they go....

Out of the oven they come...

Having been collecting pine cones all year, I decided to use some of the dried citrus slices to make some festive pot pourri. To adorn these bowls, I also made some clementine peel stars. To make these, carefully peel a couple of clementines. Choose 'easy peelers' and try to remove the peel in large pieces. Take a small star cookie cutter measuring 1-2 cm across, and punch stars from the clementine peel. Add these to the wire racks in the oven for the final 2 hours.

For the hours that the slices and stars were in the oven, the house was awash with the aroma of citrus, which really put me in a Christmassy mood and ready to plan what else I needed to complete this crafty gift.

The next step involved a trip to my local Indian supermarket - apparently the largest supplier of ethnic foods and spices in the South West of the UK and pretty fabulous it is too! Here I stocked up on those quintessential Christmas spices of cinnamon, star anise and cloves. I also dug out a can of gold spray paint and applied it to a few of the smaller pine cones for an element of festive sparkle.

Today I have enjoyed assembling all these ingredients into festive packages.

There's a slight irony in my gift giving in that some of the recipients live in the countryside and so probably have their own supply of pine cones, however, I've decided that's not the point! I just hope the recipients enjoy the festive scents as much as I do.

Getting festive

I spent last weekend in Edinburgh catching up with my nieces and very nice it was too. It was a little on the chilly side, thanks to a stiff breeze off the North Sea and beautiful clear skies, but with enough warm clothes on it was a great way to see the city at its best. My visit also happened to coincide with the start of the Edinburgh seasonal festivities, with the Christmas lights being switched on (thanks to Shrek and Princess Fiona) and the opening of the Christmas market.

I hadn't gone intending to do any present shopping as such, mainly because I was at a bit of a loss what to buy anyone this year. However, I had written a list of people that needed as yet unknown gifts and I had this in my pocket. I struck gold in one shop, managing to tick off four names, and the Christmas market solved another two. I returned home feeling very pleased with myself and most definitely in the Christmas spirit.

As a result, I resolved to continue with the festive preparations this weekend, starting with making up a batch of Mulled Cranberry and Red Onion Chutney. It ended up taking much longer than I thought to reduce down to a thick enough consistency so I busied myself making this year's Christmas crackers whilst it bubbled away on the stove.

Having faffed around trying to make crackers a few years ago by sticking wrapping paper onto the inner tubes of kitchen roll and getting in a real mess, I now 'cheat' slightly by buying Christmas cracker kits. The first set I found were in Wilkinsons but I've since found them in my local Oxfam shop, which at least makes me feel slightly better as the money goes to a good cause. I also tend to bulk buy in case the kits aren't available the following year or if next Christmas ends up being a bumper family occasion.

The kits contain pre-cut cardboard crackers with a snap already fixed to the inside and a stack of paper hats and jokes/mottoes. This just leaves you with the task of finding a suitably small gift to go inside, rolling them up and tying something pretty around each end. In the past I have tailored gifts to the recipients and used the crackers as place names. Gifts have included a bicycle bell, USB stick, torch keyring, mini multi tool, a set of measuring spoons, and whisky miniatures,  However, this year the contents are identical and designed to go with a specific course of our Christmas lunch. Not that I can tell you what that is, because the recipients of the crackers will be reading this and there have to be some surprises reserved for the big day!

A new baby blanket

Just a quickie to share a new baby blanket that I finished yesterday. The baby is due in a few weeks' time so I'm relieved to have it ready with time to spare. I don't know if the baby is a boy or girl but I do know that bright colours are the order of the day.

Knitting for more than pleasure

A friend and fellow crafter is accomplished at many things from sewing to paper craft to crochet but, it turns out, has never knitted. It was, therefore, quite surprising that she decided to embark on a simple yet large knitted project.

Actually, she saw was out at a craft outlet casually browsing when some large balls of multicoloured yarn with a name not too dissimilar to her own and in her favourite hues caught her eye. The label gave a pattern for a triangular shawl which required just two balls so they were purchased. At September craft club I got her started with a quick knitting lesson and she was away. Admittedly, in October she asked for a little help as something didn't seem quite right and it was whilst rectifying this glitch that I realised how much I love knitting and how much I miss it. 

Unlike crochet, which I need to be looking at and counting every stitch, knitting is something that I can generally do whilst my attention is elsewhere - chatting, watching television etc. I ended up getting rather carried away knitting my friend's shawl as I sat chatting and decided that I should probably find myself a new knitting project. But the big question is what that project should be?

I have more hot water bottle covers than I know what to do with and I opted to make my friend's new baby an appliqué blanket rather than knit anything as I know another friend has been busy knitting since the summer. As for knitting garments for myself, I tend to either not like the fit or overall look after I've invested a not inconsequential sum of money and time into producing it. I therefore either need a soft furnishing project, but with a cat in the house anything is likely to be short-lived, or to find something like the hot water bottle covers but different.

This is when I learnt that my Mum is making Twiddlemuffs for dementia patients in local hospitals and residential homes. Bear with me on this - you need to think quite traditionally here. These are open ended hand warmers (or muffs) with lots of textures on them. Apparently, dementia sufferers often have restless hands and so like to have something to keep their hands occupied. A Twiddlemuff is therefore a tactile and sensory stimulation to keep hands warm and occupied. You can read more and find a pattern here. I'm sure your local hospital or residential home will welcome any donations if you fancy making one, or many. 

If this wasn't a good enough excuse to get knitting, my friend sent me a link to this fabulous news article about a group of knitters in Kenya knitting 'knockers' for women who have had mastectomies following a breast cancer diagnosis. This is pure genius and it's great to see such a cross-section of the population getting involved and what a positive impact it's having. Long live the creativity and generosity that hobbies such as knitting can provide.

Getting into the Halloween Spirit

It has been quite a while since I picked a 'recipe book of the month'. I invented this concept when I realised I was in a bit of a food rut, cooking a limited number of dishes, albeit influenced by the seasonal veg that arrive each week in my veg box. This seems ridiculous when I have shelves of recipe books and folders stuffed with hundreds of recipes torn from magazines.

The idea is to pick a recipe book or folder from the shelf and adopt it as my recipe book for the month. The challenge is to cook just two recipes from it, which is a fairly low commitment. However, I tend to end up thumbing through every page to select the two recipes and this invariably reacquaints me with lots of other recipes, even if I don't end up cooking them immediately.

However, the same green recipe folder had been sitting on the book holder in the kitchen for about three months and I decided it was time for a change. I selected Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Veg Everyday and have already made more than two things from it. However, last weekend could have seen the perfect combination of why I get a veg box and why I began recipe book of the month. Actually, there are a lot of reasons why I get a weekly veg box, but one of them is to challenge myself to not always buy the same veg, regardless of the season. Can you see a theme emerging here - getting into a rut and setting myself a challenge to get out of it?!

Anyway, with beetroot in the veg box and Hugh's veg recipes on the go, I turned to the book's index, selected beetroot and began choosing from the options. I was looking for something savoury but soon spotted Chocolate and Beetroot Ice Cream and, with my nephew staying and willing to claim half the calories, I decided to give it a go.

Oh-My-Goodness.... what can I say other than we can't wait for the next delivery of beetroot!

The recipe calls for 4 egg yolks and so I was, rather annoyingly, left with 4 egg whites. However, inspired by the October issue of the Sainsbury's Magazine I decided to make Halloween themed meringues.

Something spooky came out of the oven!

...with something amazing from the freezer

I have to say that I just can't look at the ghostly meringues without smiling, although perhaps they do look more scared to see us than we are probably supposed to be in seeing them.

The success of the meringues made us extend an invitation to my parents to join us today for a Halloween themed Sunday lunch. I do admit that the menu was chosen more for the individual dishes being either themed or family favourites rather than for how well they would sit together. As a result, four hours later I am still fit to burst. However, it was definitely delicious and fun.

We began with Black Magic Martinis: sweetened espresso, spiced rum and vermouth garnished with an eye ball (lychee).

Main course was a mummified sausage pie served with braised red cabbage and monster mash (mashed potato garnished with red onion wedge 'claws' and Gouda 'cobwebs').

Cheesy eyes peaking through the pastry 'bandages'

To finish it just had to be spiced hazelnut treacle tart with cream.

Unfortunately today's batch of gluten-free pastry was a complete disaster (as you can see from the treacle tart) so I must remember to never use that recipe again. However, that means I do need to remember which recipe I normally use. I'd better get searching and perhaps decide which book will be November's recipe book whilst I'm at it.

Pannacotta alle nocciole (Hazelnut Pannacotta)

Wow - is it really a month since I last wrote anything? Actually, I suppose it does make sense since I've worked the last two weekends and have generally been having a very hectic time. However, this weekend was beautifully extended with a day off on Friday. As a result, I was not only able to get up to date with the ever-pressing list of chores, but also find some time to play around in the kitchen.

Initially the idea for making a dessert came from an invitation to my parents for dinner on Saturday night. I asked what I could take as an offering and got looking at dessert recipes. By the time the reply had come back asking for a jar of olives and a bottle of wine, I had set my heart on making something sweet. As a result, my cooking experiment was just delayed to Sunday. Mind you, dinner on Saturday night was so delicious that I had a lot to live up to - an amazing lamb and fennel dish from The Hairy Bikers, a chocolate mousse cake that was to die for, and some delicious cheeses washed down with some smooth port. Mmmmm!

But I digress!

As regular readers may know, I have some lovely friends who now live in Italy. When visiting a few years back I discovered the free recipe magazine that is given to loyalty card holders of their local supermarket. (When I say I 'discovered it', it was actually sitting on their dining table!) Anyway, whilst I was there I attempted a chestnut cheesecake which was so successful that I repeated it last year for a pre-Christmas family get-together.

My friends have since sent me a copy of the December magazine as part of my Christmas present last year and brought me another copy when they last visited the UK in May. It is the May edition that I turned to mid-week and spotted the recipe for Pannacotta alle nocciole or Hazelnut Pannacotta.

Now, the first thing I should say is that I don't speak or read Italian. However, my rudimentary knowledge of Spanish helps a little bit, supplemented by the wonders of Google Translate and a good working knowledge of cooking. It is with this that I set out to see if this particular recipe seemed feasible. Graded with one chef's hat out of a possible four and a preparation time of 10 minutes, I decided it should be fairly simple. Assuming, that is, I could work out what the ingredients were and get hold of them.

The recipe asks for 600ml hazelnut milk, 5g of agar agar, 40ml of agave syrup, 70g of 100% hazelnut paste, and some chopped toasted hazelnuts to garnish. I was OK with the hazelnut milk, the agave syrup, and the chopped hazelnuts and decided that the agar agar was essentially vegetarian gelatine (I used Dr Oetker's Vege Gel). The 100% hazelnut paste had me scratching my head for a bit but, since logic states that if you blitz up hazelnuts for long enough and finely enough you have hazelnut butter, I opted for a jar of hazelnut butter (think peanut butter but made with hazelnuts).

Unfortunately, the only jar of hazelnut butter I could find was 'crunchy' but decided I'd try to deal with that at home. Oh, and do check that any nut butter you buy is made from 100% nuts and doesn't have any of the dreaded Palm Oil added (a small plea on behalf of the environment).

The recipe turned out to be simple enough and deserving of its single chef's hat symbol. Taking into account the ingredients I'd managed to track down in the UK, here's how to make it.

Pour 600ml hazelnut milk, 40ml agave syrup, 70g hazelnut butter and a 6g sachet of vege gel (or whatever gelling agent you can get hold of and the appropriate quantity for around 600ml of liquid) into a heavy based saucepan. If your hazelnut butter is a little on the coarse side, take a stick blender and do your best to blend the mixture together and break up the nuts. If you have a very small blender you could try blitzing the 70g of nut butter by itself but I found this quantity just too small and the butter just avoided the blades. Obviously a smooth hazelnut butter would be best but I urge you not to give up on making this if you can only find the crunchy variety!

Once the mixture is as blended and as smooth as you can get it, place the pan over a low to medium heat and, stirring constantly, gently heat it to boiling point. Keep it simmering for about 1 minute then pour into whatever pannacotta moulds you may have. I chose to pour the mixture into a jug through a sieve to catch any remaining unblended bits of hazelnut. The jug also makes it easier to pour the mixture into the moulds.

The magazine suggests you use a 6 hole silicone mould - the type you may use for large muffins. I surprised myself by having one of these in the cupboard and I'm pretty sure it is the first time it has ever been used. The recipe is supposed to serve 6 but I have to say that the mixture comfortably filled four of the muffin holes I had so I opted to make just four. I'll leave it for you to decide if that makes me practical or greedy!

If you choose to use a silicone mould like this one, can I urge you to place the mould on a baking tray of a similar size so that you can easily lift the whole lot into the fridge without everything spilling everywhere - don't say you haven't been warned! Obviously, you also need to make sure you can fit the whole tray into the fridge. If you don't have a mould like this, I'm sure ramekin dishes or individual metal moulds of the variety you may make steamed puddings or sticky toffee puddings in would work just as well although I can't vouch for the tipping out bit. Of course, you could always serve it in the ramekin dishes.

Whatever, you choose to pour the mixture into, chill it for 4 hours. When ready to serve, tip each pannacotta out onto a plate and garnish with a few roughly chopped toasted hazelnuts. The silicone mould made tipping each pannacotta out really easy as it's completely non-stick. I was worried that turning the whole thing upside down would result in all 4 (or 6) pannacotta falling out everywhere but they didn't, just be gentle and targeted as you ease each one out onto its individual plate.

The result is a simple, light and refreshing, super tasty dessert that is also completely vegan (assuming you have used a vegan gelling agent!).