How to determine a successful Christmas.

Well the big day we’d all been looking forward to and working towards has been and gone. We’ve had a typical family Christmas, great food, good presents and family disagreement. 

From my point I’m thinking that maybe I’m getting an image for myself. I think it’s a good one, well in my eyes anyway! 

It started with my mum’s present. Now every year of my life mum has brought me a calendar. A cutesy fluffy animal one. More recently I’ve donated said calendar to Miss C who fills it with very important news (toof fell out, got new shoos)  and buy myself a plain, lots of space family one. This year mums calendar has garden ideas and came with a pair of gloves. Very useful.  As was the toothpaste she also got me but I’m still considering the meaning of that!

The rest of my family also exceeded my expectations. 

Father in law brought me hand cream and a garden thermometer. Exactly what I needed. My brother and sister  in law brought me a hedgehog house ( hubB had a hand in that I believe!)

HubB excelled himself as always and I received a very handy bird feeder. I presently hang food from the trees and summerhouse but the killer cat has too much cover there for his attacks. This means I can feed in the middle of the lawn where the attacks can hopefully be pre-empted. 

He also found me a jam funnel that strains and some jam labels that dissolve in water. Both problems I have muttered about regularly over the past year. 

His treat of a pair of felco secateurs and a holster went down well. I will spend happy hours chopping things down with them. 

My biggest surprise was this wildlife camera. The copse that my bee hives are in has a number of tracks through the grass and hopefully, if I can hide it from theft, I will now be able to see what makes them. I was high hopes of badgers and deer but who knows! 

Miss C bought the present that gave me the biggest smile. She picked it totally herself but had some trouble at the checkout when she had to call for her dad. It turned out she’s not as grown up as she thought she was and still needs help to buy a dangerous item. 

I had other presents. Chocolates and books were well received. The three scarves (one of which I’m wearing as I write), two pairs of gloves and thermal socks show how cold blooded ( some might say cold hearted) I am and will be put to good use. 

So with great gifts, good food and lots of Christmas music and games, I feel it’s been a lovely Christmas. 

I hope everyone has had as good and peaceful a season.

Christmas has started.

I love the idea of Christmas and always get sucked into buying a Christmas magazine in October and making lots of lists at the same time. By November I totally can’t wait but once December arrives, and the work has to start in earnest, I just don’t feel up to the job. 

This year hubB has been home from work ill, the weather has been wet and cold, any number of excuses have been found and my procastination has known no bounds. Most of my lists are not only uncompleted but lost to boot! 

With only a week to go we decided to join friends at a Christmas church celebration. Now I’m not at all religious and having attended another friends baptism only last month I’ve already been more this year than I usually look to. 

My friend was attending the 9.15 service and as the church in question is in our nearest city, it meant an early start. The weather was cold and frosty and at the last minute my friend texted to say her whole family were down with some horrible lurgy. We were on our own!

The first clue that the service was different came when we pulled off the main road to be met by traffic cones and attendants to control the traffic. This was no village church or small scale service, this had all the hallmarks of a full scale event. 

The entrance was full of friendly smiling people greeting us with Christmas cheer. The quantity of people wouldn’t have looked out of place at a concert. 

The hall was no less than an auditorium and it was full by the time the service started. 

Miss C was very taken by the jokes on the main screen. HubB was impressed by the full choir and live band. The mixing booth with spot lights, countdown and full crew impressed me. 

We sang our hearts out, as did everyone else there. We clapped and cheered. The sermon was more a sales pitch for Jesus than a Bible reading. The live entertainment and screen production may have been members of the congregation but they could easily have been professionals. It was like no other church service I’ve ever been to. 

I may not be taking up nightly Bible reading anytime soon but I certainly feel much more christmassy and excited for the whole season now.

I’m so in the Christmas spirit I used some of my mincemeat to make a few mince pies. 6 dozen to be correct. I’m Christmas ready! 

Mincemeat.

Many years ago when I was just a teenager, and newly left home, I brought the first ever issue of a new magazine called Prima. At the time it was probably aimed at ladies with families but I brought it for the patterns and recipes that gave me a glimpse of that other world, frequented by real grown ups, who baked and stitched. Over those first years I never missed a copy and made lots of things from its pages. Many of those pages still exist inbetween the pages of various recipe books or in a box file in my home. 

Prima is still in print but I no longer buy it. It’s now to glossy and  grown up for me! 

Every Christmas without fail for the last 25+ years I have made a batch of mincemeat from one of those first issues. Almost every year we all enjoy it so much I make a second batch. This year I just doubled the recipe from the start!

I used my largest bowl. It was my grandmothers and is very special to me.

In went

• 12oz currants
• 1lb each of sultanas, raisins and light brown sugar
• 8oz each dried apricots, mxd peel and glace cherries. All chopped. 
• 4oz chopped blanched almonds.
• 4tsp each, ground cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.
• 2tsp each allspice and ground ginger. 
• Zest and juice 3 oranges
• 8oz melted butter.

The whole lot is then stirred well and soaked with 1/2 pint each of brandy and sherry. 

It smells more than lovely and it’s really difficult to not get tipsy on the fumes or the constant taste testing. 

After leaving it to soak over night I treat it like jam and jar it in warm sterilised jars. The recipe says it keeps for up to 2 months but this year I deliberately left one from last Christmas and it was still perfect. 

This batch was a bit wet when I went back to it so I added extra fruit. There’s no science involved, I just poured and stirred until it looked even better.

 I tried it again to be sure. Twice in fact. This stuff is good! 

A simple idea, but effective.

As I’ve already mentioned, Miss C and I booked a local village hall and threw a home ed Christmas party this year. everyone brought food to share and I just provided music via the hubby’s PA.

I also made a few simple ‘toys’ to keep the younger children entertained. For anyone with small children this one is a great idea, I can just imagine how much fun Miss C would have had with it a few years ago.

Basically I brought a large piece of felt for just a few pounds online and cut out the tree shape and then used my left over felt for the decs.

Now I love working with felt and made lots of tree decorations last year as gifts in Miss C’s advent calendar so I had a lot of colours but the packs are very cheap in craft shops everywhere.

We started off with proper shapes and hand sewing and then like all good ideas I procrastinated and ran out of time.

I then cut lightbulb shapes and basic circles.

On the day I double sided sticky taped it to a board and lent it against the wall at ground level but here it is just blue tacked to the wall. Either way it works a treat and kept the toddlers entertained for ages. The tub underneath was just as much fun for lots of the little girls who spent long minutes carefully packing everything back into it before someone else took it all out again. Great fun!

A bonus day.

It’s been very busy this last few weeks. Obviously I’m not alone in that, it is Christmas after all! Miss C and I have planned a home ed party that was great fun and eaten our own weight in pre Christmas lunches with different groups of friends or family.

Today would have been our third day out this week when my friend called to say the foggy weather and a bad cold had conspired to keep her at home in the warm. I was disappointed initially but it is a fair way for her to come and I’m generous enough  to see her point! As I stood catching up on the ironing I suddenly realised that meant I had a whole free day. Every cloud has a silver lining, just what to do with it.

Miss C was working on some Christmas themed schoolwork so I finished the ironing and surveyed my messy lounge. We’d been meeting out for lunch so the house had not had the manic tidy of an overworked mum. No piles of books and magazines shoved under the stairs. Nothing hidden in the dishwasher or microwave for later. The coffee table was groaning under the weight of unclaimed nothing that just seems to collect in my house and two partially emptied but abandoned boxes of Christmas decorations sat beside the tree.

Miss C now has an area for all her craft makes and treasures.

Then I went out into the garden and pottered. It’s not a good day unless it involves some outside time. Miss C filled the bird feeders and I aired the polytunnel. Taking advantage of the weather to uncover everything and see how it was all doing. The peas and lettuce look small but green.

Cabbages and cauliflower looking good.

Strawberry runners for an early crop.

Healthy Hebes.

Outside the garlic is very advanced and onions just peak through.

Leeks are still growing slowly as is the kale

There’s one solitary pak choi and a curly leaf lettuce in the bed that I planted the winter manure in. Before the manure, that didn’t germinate, I had planted rows of each but they hadn’t come up either. You can never tell with nature, I’ll probably have a bed full of it all by spring!

Just a few flowers and a cotoneaster full of berries to brighten the season.

Early snowdrops poking through. Helped by the cat and his relentless digging. He might look cute but he’s a demon , my new cat.

When he’s not resting that is.

Christmas cake leftovers.

I found this tub of leftover Christmas cake on the side this morning. In the back of my mind I knew it was there but we still have a lump of the main one left so I’ve been ignoring it. I don’t make a cake usually as it always gets fed to the birds around now.

Well this year will be different. Bring on Pinterest. Unfortunately that was no help. I found a brownie Xmas cake recipe after much searching  but it was tooth decayingly sweet. I know I’ll make my own……

Using the standard brownie recipe idea I melted 175g each of butter and chocolate. Beat 3 eggs together with 150g of sugar and stirred in the cooled chocolate mix.

To this I added 75g plain flour, 40g cocoa powder and 200g of crumbled Christmas cake. (The small cakes weighed 100g each it seemed, it wasn’t science!)

Gave it all a good mix and poured into a  20cm square cake tin. I baked at 160° for about 30 minutes. I can’t be more precise than that as I didn’t remember to set the timer. Moved straight on to the next thing and forgot them for a while.

I always like to make a number of things together, at the same time and in a total panic, when I bake. I tell myself it is to use the oven more efficiently but really I just love the buzz of being under pressure.

Hubby favourite cake is apricot and white chocolate flapjack. He perhaps wouldn’t choose the white chocolate part but anything and everything is improved by adding chocolate.

Flapjack is easy.

Mix together 5oz of oats, 2oz SR flour, 4oz sugar and as many chopped apricots and chocolate chips as you think looks good.
Stir in 1tbsp golden syrup melted with 4oz butter.
Plop it into the tin and pat down.

Well while stirring it together I had a eureka moment… Christmas cake.

So I made the same recipe again but crumbled in a Xmas cake instead of apricots and chocolate.

And then I added another because it looked a bit lacking and I had so many I can!!!

At that point I remembered the brownies and took them out. I turned up the oven to 180° and put in the flapjacks for 15 minutes.

Now i might work in a whirlwind of utensils, bowls and bother but I always wash up while the last thing is baking. My kitchen isn’t very big and I need all the space I can get for cooling the end result

I could and would put everything in the dishwasher. I have a belief that if something isn’t dishwasher safe it’s not the thing for me. However this bowl is the exception that breaks my rule.

Used by my mum and her mum before her. It holds  history in its very existence. It makes me think of Sunday afternoons and making rock cakes, standing on a chair until I could reach the work surface unaided. Of my grandad showing me how to lift the flour and let it fall to rub in. Of my mum patiently washing and picking through the dried fruit before we used it. We made other things but rock cakes were my cakes and how very proud of them I always felt, as they sat on the plate at teatime.

If there’s any left this will be tonight’s tea time treat.

Feeling Christmassy now.

Miss C and I have had a lovely day with lots of Christmas fun. First we topped the cake.

As hubby doesn’t like marzipan or icing we don’t usually bother with one but this year we just fancied the challenge. Having made a traditional cake some weeks ago I found a nut topping in this year’s issue of Landscape Magazine.

It’s a delicious combination of nuts, dried cranberries and choc chips. Stirred into a syrup, butter and cornflower sauce and cooked in the oven for 10 mins. We had a little try (cooks perk!) And it tastes lovely, can’t wait for a slice.
Later we made sweets and cranberry and apple sauces. I might post them later!
We finished the afternoon by using the leftovers to make a room fragrance.

Basically the chopped squeezed oranges with the discarded odd looking cranberries, a few cloves and a pinch of mixed spices. Having a rampant rosemary bush outside the front door I chucked in a few clippings of that as well for colour. Stood on top of the fire for a while the whole room now smells divine.

Christmas has officially started!

Home educational fun

Today was the day for the home ed party. Great fun was had by all as 80+ children and their parents played games and shared a banquet of grand proportions. Father Christmas visited and was so realistic that many of the children didn’t even  realise he was a she. Group games both old and new were played by all the ages. There are no photos for 2 reasons. Firstly I wouldn’t feel comfortable with sharing online but mostly because I was having so much fun I forgot to take any!!! But
here’s the vegetable tree that was my contribution.