Edible Gifts

I can see how, as a result of last week's posts, you might all begin to think that I spend all of my time these days in the kitchen, baking and cooking for Christmas. I can also see that this post will just further that belief!

However, let me say that I don't! I was honestly hardly in the kitchen today.

Or yesterday.

I do love Christmas cooking and baking though. I love all my old traditional recipes taken from my mum but I also love to find some new recipes. I stumbled upon these two on Friday when I was looking online for a couple of quick gift ideas. I needed something for the Boy's Brigade leaders and also for the Kid's Club leaders at church.

I found these two recipes on the BBC Good Food website. They are really simple to make and really delicious to eat. I would highly recommend trying them both out. 

Firstly we made Peppermint Creams.

These contain uncooked egg white, which all of my boys except David are allergic to, so only he was able to help me with these (I think he was quite pleased with that anyway!)

You will need:

250g icing sugar

½ an egg white

peppermint essence

green food colouring (optional)

 dark chocolate , melted

~All you need to do is put the icing sugar in a bowl, add enough of the egg white to make a paste (it looks like rollable icing), and enough peppermint essence until you get the strength of mint you want. Also add in your food colouring if using.

~Dust your surface with a little icing sugar, roll the paste out and cut out little shapes.

~Place them on greaseproof paper and leave to dry out for a few hours.

~Melt a little dark chocolate and dip the mints in the chocolate. We just dipped the underneath parts in but you could do whatever you fancied.

~Place them back on the greaseproof till the chocolate is dry.

Baileys and White Chocolate Fudge

Our second recipe should come with a health warning. If you are making this as a gift, you really must make sure and leave enough for yourself too!

Oh. and a more serious warning, make sure you use a nice big pan. I used one that seemed ok until it all started bubbling up and up and up and over the top!

And Baileys, in case non-UK readers aren't so sure, is the brand name of an Irish Cream Liqueur.

500g granulated sugar

500ml whipping cream

50ml Baileys

150g white chocolate

1. 
   

~Put sugar, cream and Baileys in a large pan and, stirring slowly, bring it to a simmer. Make sure the sugar is dissolved (it will stop feeling grainy on the base of the pan), then turn the heat up to a rolling boil.
~Adjust the heat until the mixture bubbles without getting too near the top of the pan. Keep bubbling, stirring occasionally, until a small amount of mixture dropped into a glass of cold water will form a soft ball that you can pick up on the end of a teaspoon.

~Take off the heat, add the chocolate, mix well until melted and give a quick beat with a wooden spoon to make it smoother.

~Pour into a square tin and leave to cool. Cut it into squares about half and hour or so after putting in the tin. It just makes it easier while it is still warm and soft.

~Package up nicely with cellophane bags and ribbon.

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O come, o come Emmanuel

So I mentioned yesterday that this was my favourite carol. 

When I was looking for it on youtube I came across the arrangement below.

I don't think I can even begin to explain how much I loved it.

The piano part, the way the music changes key (twice!), the haunting violin melody (which is actually the Israeli national anthem, I believe!).....

It's not in the least bit 'Christmassy' but.......wow!

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Christmas Music

These two are my favourite Christmas albums.

I've had this one for quite a few years now and it's still my most favourite.
(If you had told me about 10 years ago that I would even just own an Aled Jones album I would have cringed with embarrassment!)

I bought this one last year, and it comes a pretty close second to the Aled Jones one. I love the sort of ancient sound of the voices on it.

This year I bought this one for the boys. A friend introduced us to Colin Buchanan earlier in the year and the boys just love his songs. His Christmas CD is really excellent. Very catchy songs and all about the true meaning of Christmas. It comes with the sheet music and lyric sheets so we are practising a couple of them to do a wee concert on Christmas day!






My most favourite Christmas carol is 'Oh come, oh come Emmanuel' and there is a version of it on both of my favourite two cds.

Here is the Aled Jones version.




All I could find of my second favourite CD on youtube was this clip of the composer talking about it, but you hear wee bits of the carols on it too.

I couln't find the boy's favourite song from King of Christmas, but I did find this one,





Happy Listening!

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Mince Pies

Elizabeth asked me a few weeks ago to write a bit more about mincemeat pies, so I did a quick bit if research online and I'm afraid I didn't find out much more than I already know!

I did find out that what we call mincemeat is called fruit-mince in the US, a far more accurate term!

Nobody is sure for certain why mincemeat pies changed from containing different meats to just fruits. The spices are supposed to have been added after Crusaders brought them back from the east, and traditionally three spices were added to represent the three gifts of the Wise Men.

Anyway, today our mincemeat is made of dried fruit, spices, sometimes apple, sometimes suet and often a touch of brandy or whisky.

I use Nigella's Mincemeat recipe from How to be a Domestic Goddess. 

My pastry recipe is:

8oz plain flour

4oz butter (Stork pastry butter is good)

1tbsp icing sugar

1 beaten egg

~Put the flour and butter into a food processor and blitz until it looks like breadcrumbs.
~Add the icing sugar and blitz again until mixed.
~With the motor on add the egg until the mixture turns into a ball of dough.
~Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for about half an hour.
~Flour your worksurface and roll out the dough reasonably thinly, cut out rounds and place them in a shallow bun tray.
~Add a teaspoon or so of mincemeat to each pie.
~Re-roll the pastry and cut out little star shapes for the tops of the pies.
~Bake in the oven at 180C for about 15-20 minutes until golden and the mincemeat is bubbling.
~Cool on a cooling rack and sprinkle icing sugar over the top.


As an alternative to rolling out the pastry, I use my Pampered Chef Mini Tart Shaper. Then you just take little chunks of dough, roll them in a ball, pop the ball in your mini-tart tin, squish it with the wooden shaper and it makes a perfectly shaped pastry case for you! You can also get this at Lakeland (no I'm not on commission from them!)

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Recipe of the Week - Christmas Biscuits

Although these are Christmas biscuits, we make them throughout the year with different shaped cutters.

My mum got me this set of cutters last year for my birthday. They are sooo fab.

There are 12 different shaped cutters and each cutter has two bits to it. 

These are the Christmassy shaped ones.

The red bit cuts out the basic shape of the biscuit, then you pop off the clear bit and use it to add some detail, like this little teddy below.

Here he is after the basic shape was cut out.

And here he is with the details added.

Moving onto the recipe.

 10oz Doves Farm SR Wheat-Free Flour

4oz dairy-free margarine

4oz brown sugar

1tsp baking powder

2tsp mixed spice

2 eggs, beaten

~Put the flour and margarine into a food processor and blitz until the butter is all blended into the flour and it looks like breadcrumbs.

~Add the sugar, baking powder and spice and blitz again until mixed in.

~While the motor is on, slowy add the eggs until the mixture comes together in a ball. You may not need all of the egg mixture but with wheat-free flour I find that you do. You don't want your mixture to be too crumbly and with wheat-free flour you are best to have it on the sticky side, although not too sticky to roll out!

~Use some more wheat-free four to dust your work surface and roll out the dough until it is about 1 - 2cm thick, depending on how chunky you want your biscuits.

~Cut out the shapes, re-rolling the scraps until the dough is all used up, place on greased baking trays and bake at 180C for 15-20minutes until golden brown.

~Transfer to cooling racks once they are cool enough to touch and then shake over some icing sugar.

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Christmas baking continues...

Last night the temperature here was -18C, although the postie claims that when he started work this morning it was as low as -22C! During the day it didn't even get close to 0C, I think the maximum daytime temperature today was -6C.

Perfect conditions for a spot more baking!

~~~Today I made the cranberry sauce for Christmas:

500g fresh cranberries

100g brown sugar

2 oranges, zest of one and juice of both

5 cloves

1 cinnamon stick

1 slug of port (optional)

Just put everything in the pan and cook gently until the berries pop and the sauce thickens.

I have now frozen this until the big day but it keeps for about a week or so in the fridge. I'm planning on adding another slug of port once it's defrosted too. 

Oh, and remember to take the cinnamon stick out before freezing!

~~~I also made a double batch of Mum's Never-Fail Gingerbread.

One big one and the small one are for the freezer.

~~~A batch of Christmas biscuits (tomorrow's recipe)

~~~And some toffee popcorn for Calum's little cinema that he made up today.

He made up the tickets and sign, James made the cones for the popcorn and we all snuggled up and watched Finding Nemo this afternoon.

Gaelic word(s) of the day:

uabhasach fuar (oo-av-a-sach  foo-ar) - Awfully, or dreadfully, cold! 

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My Christmas Pudding Recipe (Wheat & Dairy Free)

One plus of all this snowy weather is more time to do lots of Christmas baking!

Yesterday afternoon I got my Christmas pudding made. I had planned on making it two weeks earlier, on 'Stir-Up Sunday' when you are traditionally supposed to make your pudding, but we just had too much other stuff on. The fruits will have benefited from those extra two weeks soaking in the alcohol anyway!

This recipe is a bit of a mish-mash of a couple of other recipes I have tried in the past. Last year was the first time I had tried making a wheat-free version (shown in the photo below) and I was delighted with how it turned out. There was no difference at all in taste or texture from a wheat-flour version.

I think it really is worth the effort of making your own pud (not that there is much effort or skill required at all). It's bigger than most shop-bought ones for a start, tastier and you can bask in the Domestic Godess-ey glow of satisfaction when you see it flaming on the Christmas table.

You will need:

250g mixed dried fruit

50g dried cranberries

150g prunes, chopped

200ml brandy, or alcohol of your choice (I used whisky this year and last, but brandy is more traditional)

100g Doves Farm Wheat-Free Self Raising Flour*

125g wheat-free breadcrumbs (about 4/5 slices of bread, blitzed in a blender)

150g suet

150g brown sugar

1tsp ground cinnamon

1/2tsp ground cloves

1 tsp baking powder

zest of 1 lemon

zest of 1 orange

1 cooking apple, peeled and grated

3 beaten eggs

*If you are making this with wheat flour then use plain not SR

~Put the dried fruit, cranberries and prunes in a bowl, pour over your chosen alcohol, mix well, cover and leave to soak overnight (or a couple of weeks as I did!)

~Put the rest of the ingredients into a large bowl and mix together with a wooden spoon before adding your soaked fruits and any leftover liquid, then mix well again.

~Traditionally every member of the family is supposed to take a turn mixing the pudding, and according to Nigella you were supposed to mix from East to West in honour of the Wise Men!

~Once everything is well mixed, which really doesn't take long at all, tip the mixture into a greased 3 pint bowl or plastic pudding basin.

~Cover with greaseproof paper with a crease in it to let the mixture expand, tied with string. Or the lid if you have a proper pudding basin!

I've just realised that you can't see the crease here! It's just a fold in the middle really.

~Put the pudding in the top of a steamer and steam away gently for 5 hours (yes, really). I tend to make mine just before dinner and then let it simmer away until later in the evening.

~Let the pudding cool and then keep it somewhere safe until Christmas.

~On Christmas day it will need steamed again for 3 hours. To save on hob space I usually cook my potatoes in the bottom of the steamer for part of that time.

~Run a knife around the edge of the bowl before putting a plate over the bowl and turning it upside down and gently shake the pudding out.

~Heat a ladle full of brandy over the gas hob (or in a pan) and then light when it is warm enough.

~Quickly pour it over the pudding and take it to the table while everyone 'Ooohs' in wonder.

The flame is really hard to photograph but you get the idea!

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Cancelled trains, champion icicles & Christmas decorations

Well, firstly, the cancelled trains. 

There have been no trains running on our local train line for over a week now as a result of the weather. I take the boys in to school on the train but since school was off anyway this was no big deal. However, on Friday morning we heard that ALL trains from the central belt of Scotland and northwards were cancelled. This included my beloved's train home! He investigated a couple of other options but nothing was available and so we spent the weekend without daddy and he spent it in a lonely flat.

I had been leaving the digging the car out of the snow for him to do when he came back, so instead I did it myself on Saturday morning so that we could get some food (my brother's wife had managed to get their car out before then and had called round with some welcome supplies for us on Friday). 

When we were home from the supermarket my brother came round and helped me clear a bit more of the snow because I had only done the bear minimum - phew, it was hard work! Tea was joking in the comments below that we must have 8 feet of snow and it certainly felt like that when I was shovelling it! 

While my brother was here the boys and their cousins were throwing snowballs at the icicles on the house to try and knock them down. They didn't want to knock this one down though because it's our champion one.

Some people in our street put up those Christmas lights outside their house that look like icicles. I don't think they need to bother this year - this is the view from Calum & David's bedroom.

After all that hard work shovelling snow on Saturday, there had been no snow for about 48 hours, until this morning, when it began falling again and another 8 inches or so fell. 

I was trying to summon up the energy to go out again and shovel while it was still soft when I saw one of my nice neighbours doing it for me!

Since the boys were a bit disappointed at not seeing daddy this weekend, I decided we would put our Christmas tree up, slightly earlier than we normally do.

These are a few of my favourite decorations.

The boys made these Bible verse scrolls last Christmas. Just to the right of it you can see a little Thomas the Tank Engine peeking out. I bought a set of them back when I only had two boys (a toddler & a baby) and they have been popular every year since!

David made this big star last year at Sunday School.

And of course no self respecting tree in this house would be complete without a LEGO decoration! There are three of these snowmen dotted around the tree.

Under the tree are these little cuties.

We also have quite a few advent calendars too!

Firstly is the Playmobil one (which we also bought way back when there were only two boys).

Each day they get a different piece of Playmobil.....

..........and add it to the festive scene.

This one is Calum and Alasdair's, because they can't eat chocolate we put a little treat that they can have in each pouch for them.

David and James have the standard chocolate ones.

And our final one, but the most important, is our Jesse Tree Calendar.

Each window has a Bible verse behind it and a short devotion in the book connected to the verse.

You tear the window off the calendar as it has a picture on it relating to the Scripture and hang it on your Jesse tree. The devotions point from the Old Testament through to the birth of Jesus, pointing out all the prophesies and promises throughout.

Gaelic word of the day:

craobh nollaig (criv nollag) - Christmas tree

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Thursday things

Normally Thursday is Recipe of the Week day but my little man has been a bit under the weather today with a wheezy cough and a bit of a temperature, so I didn't get my Thursday baking done. He would sit on my knee for the best part of the day any day if he could, but today even more so. There is something quite nice about snuggling up on the sofa with a blanket while the snow falls outside (yes, it's still falling!) The older boys are desperate to make our first batch of Christmas biscuits though, so maybe tomorrow.

After yesterday's futile visit to the local shop, my neighbour called round this morning to say that she and her husband were heading off to trek to the nearest supermarket (maybe about 2 miles away) to see if it was better stocked. They returned from their expedition with some milk and eggs for me, although the first supermarket they tried was in the same state as our local shop, so they had walked on to the next store, which is about 10 minutes further on.

Snuggling up with a sleeping baby all day has given me a good chance to crack on with some crochet today too, although not my TOP SECRET ones with the boys around obviously!

Gaelic word of the day:

fuar (foo-ar) - cold

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W.I.P. Wednesday

The boys, and their friends in the street, have finished their igloo now. Yesterday afternoon James took my phone out and made a little video showing off the igloo, so that is this week's WIP.

There are two clips because when he went into the smaller igloo, which they call the 'council' because they have their meetings there, the lantern wasn't on and it was too dark to see anything so he made a second clip.

I can't believe that the snow is still falling. Last winter was the worst we have had here for many years, but the snow then didn't fall this deep this quickly or this early. Every night I look out and think, it can't get much deeper, and then the next morning it is!

School is cancelled until Monday now as well.

Our car! Look at the little car across from us, just to the right though - it has almost disappeared!

The boys and I took a walk to our local shop this afternoon. It is only a mile away but was quite a trek through such deep snow. Here it is almost up to Calum's waist.

When we got to the shop there was absolutely no fresh produce. No eggs, milk, cheese, meat, veg, fruit. Thankfully our freezer is well stocked. I  just wanted some cheese and eggs but I have enough eggs for a couple of days and we can survive without cheese!

The main road.

The back garden now.

And at the risk of information overload, I took this wee clip as we went to the shop today because I thought a   video would show the depth better. I had to share it though because the sound effects at the start are so funny. I was carrying Alasdair in the baby sling (yes, he is getting quite heavy for it now) and so you can hear his sweet little babbles. There is also some more Scottish accents for my American friends.

Oh, yes, and I was also on the Gaelic radio earlier today, talking a bit about the work the charity my husband works for is doing with the homeless through the winter. I know the large majority of readers won't understand a word of it, but the link is here and I am at 3.55mins and 12.35mins, just in case you want to hear some Gaelic being spoken!

Now I really have gone for information overload!

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