Merry Christmas

After a manic few weeks I have finally made and delivered all the presents including one or two jars of chilli jam, some marinaded olives, some spicy nuts, and some incredibly cute (even if I do say so myself!) goldfish mittens.

It just leaves me time to say Merry Christmas to one and all and share an image of this year's Christmas decoration.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.

Mega Mince Pie

After getting into the Christmas spirit back in September by making Cranberry Chutney and some mincemeat, I decided it was about time the mincemeat got used. Well, some of it at least. I remember making some mince pies with a frangipane topping a year or so ago so dug out the recipe and got baking.

I decided to follow the recipe to the letter, just substituting normal flour for gluten-free. The pastry had the addition of ground almonds, some icing sugar and the finely grated zest of an orange and seemed to be coming together really well.  Since gluten-free pastry is very fragile - gluten gives pastry and dough a stretchy quality that is entirely lacking without it - I always roll it out between two sheets of clingfilm as this helps to keep it all together and also helps when transferring it into any sort of pie tin or flan case. However, my patience was growing rather thin as I attempted to cut out 9cm discs of this very fragile mixture and line deep mince pie tins with it. I was up against the clock as I had a date with a friend, and things weren't going at all well. I had already scrapped two attempts to line just the first of 12 pie 'holes' and the pastry was in danger of being over worked or even thrown in the bin in frustration.  I therefore took the executive decision to make one giant mince pie rather than the more traditional individual ones. Well, the baking process was supposed to be enjoyable and it was rapidly becoming the opposite. I'm also a firm believer in cooking and baking with love for the people I love and things were feeling rather doomed at this point!

A quick re-roll of the pastry on fresh clingfilm gave me a large circle which I easily lifted into a 23cm flan tin. The rest was simple - spread it with a jar of homemade mincemeat and make up a frangipane mixture to cover it, finishing with a sprinkle of flaked almonds.

The mega mince pie came out of the oven (180C or gas mark 4) about 35-40 minutes later and was bundled straight into the car for the drive to my friend's house. I have to admit that my car has never smelt so good! The pie went down a storm and the addition of the orange zest in the pastry was sheer genius. This is definitely a recipe to be repeated!

For the pastry:

125g plain flour, or gluten-free equivalent

50g ground almonds

75g lightly salted butter, chilled and cubed

25g icing sugar, sifted

Finely grated zest of 1 orange

1 large egg yolk (add a bit of the white if using gluten-free flour)

For the frangipane topping:

100g lightly salted butter, at room temperature

100g caster sugar

1 large egg

100g ground almonds

1 tbsp plain flour (or gluten-free equivalent)

A sprinkling of flaked almonds for the top

A simple luxury

Are you familiar with the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs? It has been going for years and the format is that of an interview where guests are asked to choose eight discs or music tracks that they would want to have with them if they were to be castaway on a desert island. They also get to choose a book and a luxury item.

After a week in rural Ireland earlier this Autumn - hardly a desert island I know, but bear with me please - where I lost the only lip salve that I had with me on day two and was unable to find a shop that sold any sort of replacement for another 5 days, I swiftly realised that my desert island luxury would have to be a lifetime supply of lip balm.

I am normally the person that has one in every coat pocket, every bag, as well as one in the car and one by the bed. Whilst on the ferry to Ireland I soon realised that the coat I had taken had no lip salve in the pocket (what do they say about making assumptions?) and it is the one that I had in the car that fell out of my pocket on the second day. It may seem ridiculous but I can't tell you how much I missed being able to give my lips a quick slather.

Anyway, after a couple of successful attempts to make my own body lotion I thought I would turn my hand to making some lip balm. The ingredients seem to be very similar to body lotion so it was just a case of adjusting the ratios and the volume. And if you had the ability to make the one thing you realise you really struggle to live without, then why wouldn't you at least give it a go?

Having had this mini project in mind for some time, I had been setting aside any small pot that I thought would be useful. One had contained lip balm, another was a small glass jar that originally contained an ointment and the rest had contained free samples of various beauty products.

The next task was to measure out the solid elements for the lip balm. This was 14g beeswax pastilles, 14g Shea butter and 7g of cocoa butter. These were melted together in a metal jug placed in a pan of water.

It's the beeswax which keeps the balm solid when the room temperature begins to rise, so this took quite some time to melt, but once I had a liquid I then added 26ml of apricot kernel oil, 6ml of caster oil and a few drops of vitamin E. As these oils were cold they instantly solidified half of the melted wax and butters but about a minute in the warm jug, still in the hot water, soon resulted in a clear runny liquid. Removing the jug from the hot water I quickly added 12 drops of sweet orange essential oil and poured the melted butters and oils into my prepared pots where they swiftly began to solidify.

With this new stock of lip balm and the ability to make more in minutes, I'm hoping I'm never going to be without again and will be all set to be castaway. Now I just need to decide on the eight discs and book I will be taking with me... would it be Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy or the complete novels of Jane Austin...? Hmmm, lots to think about!

Thrifty decorations

Over the summer I had a bit of a clear out and found piles of felt left over from an old craft project. There were a range of colours but a strangely large amount of brown felt existed. Naturally I began thinking what I could do with it and Christmas sprang to mind, which regular readers won't be surprised to learn, since I do love all things Christmas and often begin making decorations as soon as the tree is down in January - sometimes you just need to strike as and when inspiration occurs!

Anyway, the brown felt was pulled out, along with some scraps of white. The button pot was raided and the ribbon drawer searched. Soon, the raw ingredients for Christmas puddings (of the felt variety) were being assembled.

As you may imagine, cutting out felt circles creates a lot of small off-cuts, however close together you place your circle templates.  A friend spotted the growing pile of tiny bits of felt and suggested I use them as the stuffing. A brilliant idea, so these little beauties really are the epitome of thrift and waste-reduction. I have to admit to buying the green ribbon but everything else came from left-overs.

I have a tradition of sending hand made Christmas tree decorations in place of Christmas Cards and with this year's gift decorations already made, I had thought I was being very organised for 2019. However, my friend reminded me of the Christmas Fair that the local hospice holds at the end of November and so I have bundled up a pile of puddings and passed them on to be sold.

After all, I do have plenty of time to make more for 2019!

Finding Joy

I am convinced that happiness is underrated. Or at least in relation to other more material things. Yet, if we were happier I'm sure some of the more material things would become less important. I'm not talking about the basic material needs that enable us to live above the poverty line, but ... oh, I'm probably digging myself a huge hole here...!

Anyway, have you ever stopped and thought what makes you happy? Have you ever consciously decided to then include more of these things in your life? I have to say, it's a lot harder than you would like to think, since so many more hum-drum things seem to constantly get in the way.

What about things that bring you joy? I guess I'd define this as mini happiness, perhaps even a double espresso of happiness - giving you a boost, a tiny lift, a 'hit'? Any idea what this looks like?

Well, Ingrid Fetell Lee has studied joy extensively and I just love what she discovered.

Her talk is under 14 minutes so please watch it if you can find the time. I'm sure it will make you look at things differently, perhaps even help you insert a bit more joy into your life.

I also now know why I prefer round mirrors to square or rectangular ones, why fairy/cup cakes are so much more enticing than a tray bake, why polka dots can seem so much more frivolous than most other patterns, why the cerise cyclamen and orange violas I've just planted in the front garden make me smile, and why I wear dark clothes when I'm feeling down (and probably shouldn't unless I'm determined to wallow!)

Armed with this new knowledge I'm looking forward to a joyful Autumn!

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

I'm finally enjoying a bit of free time, something that has been in very short supply for at least a year. Mind you, I'm finding my days very easy to fill and not always with the things that have been mounting up on my 'to do' list for longer than I care to remember.

One thing that really wasn't on my 'to do' list was to clear out my freezer. However, last week I read an article about a woman who challenged herself to feed her family for a month from what she already had in her freezer and kitchen cupboards, supplementing it with fresh essentials limited to a budget of £50.

Firstly, I am pretty sure that her freezer is a lot larger than mine, and secondly that her cupboards were fuller than mine. However, it did get me thinking about exactly what was filling the top drawer of my freezer and when I last cooked amaranth or camarague red rice. Anyway, a quick delve into the freezer revealed 2 bags of cranberries and this was followed swiftly by a flick through a few recipe books. Actually, I immediately grabbed Delia's Winter Collection - the one that resulted in a national cranberry shortage in the UK and sure to contain something I could make using cranberries.

The first bag and a half of berries was swiftly turned into Spiced Cranberry Chutney. I was down to my penultimate jar of chutney from last year so it seemed about time I made some more. I tend to make chutney in vast quantities and then get a bit bored working my way through the resulting jars, so vowed I'd make small batches from now on. This recipe resulted in three jars, one of which I instantly gave away, so I'm already on track. The resulting concoction of cranberries, coriander, cloves and orange simmering on the stove created a distinctly autumnal atmosphere (desperately trying not to use the 'c' word here!)

The question was what to do with the remaining cranberries.  However, a few pages on in the recipe book revealed a recipe for Christmas (darn it, I used the 'c' word!) Mincemeat with Cranberries.  It seemed to make a lot of mincemeat and, seeing as I'm opting out of the festivities this year, it seemed a bit excessive. I therefore halved the quantities and merged the volume of cranberries and apple, using whatever I had of each.

Since I absolutely love all things 'festive' and regular readers will know that I begin making 'festive' decorations as early as January, I was rather surprised to realise that I have never made mincemeat before. Incredible when I realised just how easy it was to do (and how pretty). Whilst the chutney was simmering away I threw all the mincemeat ingredients into a bowl to 'mingle' and that's were it stayed for the next 20 hours or so before being popped into the oven, yet again filling the house with the smells of you-know-what.

Mincemeat 'mingling'

Fresh from the oven

A satisfying stack of jars

Now I'm just working out what to do with the amaranth and camarague rice!

Playing with pesto

The herb garden is enjoying the hot summer weather and quite a few plants have become rather rampant. After a visit to a professional herb farm a few years ago, I did learn that cutting back chives mid-summer is a good thing to do. The basil is also about to bolt so, in an attempt to keep it going, that too needs a prune. Then there is the parsley which always seems to recover from a severe harvest.

The abundance of basil immediately made me think of making pesto and it took only minutes to gather 60g of basil which I popped into the mini blender along with a tablespoon of pine nuts, 25g of grated Pecorino Romano, a clove of garlic, a grinding of salt and 6 tablespoons of olive oil.

I then came across an idea for a Spanish inspired pesto. This had slightly different ratios of herbs, nuts, cheese and oil and this seemed to make a richer sauce. For this I used 50g almonds, 50g grated Manchego, 60g parsley, 1teaspoon of sherry vinegar, a clove of garlic and 100ml olive oil.

Using this recipe I followed with a chive, Parmesan and walnut pesto, omitting the vinegar. As you may imagine, this is quite strong but still delicious.

I've already stirred some of the basil pesto through some freshly cooked new potatoes which went brilliantly with some roasted salmon, olives, green beans, anchovies and tomatoes. The rest has been potted up and spread between the fridge and freezer and I'll enjoy stirring them through pasta and potatoes and using as a drizzle on fish and meat and to pep up salad dressing over the coming months.

If you too have an abundance of herbs I do urge you to give it a try. If you have a blender it takes just minutes and the results taste so much better than any pesto you can buy in a jar. I promise!