Retro

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Canapés

I’d originally planned these for our New Years Eve party, but as we had such an overwhelming abundance of food I kept them for New Years day, when a friend was having another gathering to see off our Australian visitors (honestly, my life isn’t always one big feast!)

From left to right: Caramelized Balsamic Onion Tartlets with Feta Cheese; Lamb Parcels with Garlic and Coriander (and I made a Tzatziki dip for these); Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese on Toast Rounds; Chicken and Sage Parcels wrapped in Proscutto; Pork Sausage Puffs.

I invented most of these myself from things I’d seen before or thought would work well. Some of the experimental process was recorded in a previous post but these are the finished article. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to try any myself as they all disappeared from the table before I’d arrived; but I’m hoping that was a good sign ;) Some of my family members even had the cheek to scoff the prototypes, so I’ve no choice but to try making them again! Anyone having a party?!

Midnight

So we had a New Years Party. Wonderful company, great laughs and far too much to eat. We had pretty much half a pig in the oven for 24 hours and that was just for starters…

I experimented with a few ideas for nibbles, like a ground lamb mix with plenty of fresh coriander and mint and loads of garlic, balled up inside little filo pastry parcels:

(A potato masher seemed a perfect tool to turn minced lamb into ground lamb, although if I had a decent food processor that would have expended a lot less energy!)

These go beautifully with a homemade Tzatziki using cucumber, mint and natural yoghurt.

Caramelized Balsamic Onion Tartlets with Feta Cheese:

And a little twist on the traditional sausage roll, which I can’t think to name anything other than sausage puffs. I got some little heart-shaped cutters for Christmas so put them to good use with this puff pastry, into which I prodded some sliced up Frank Parker’s chipolatas (I can’t bang on about Frank Parker enough, I will speak of him again no doubt)

Oh, and my sister’s first attempt at bread was delicious – Sundried tomato and Chorizo sausage…mmm.

Trimmings

I wasn’t in charge of Christmas dinner this year (as it happens, I was working a 14 hour shift on Christmas day but that’s another story!) so here are a few old photos from when I was in charge! I loved it. I only had 4 people to cook for, and definitely cheated a bit by ordering a turkey crown rather than a fully boned bird, but would be well up for the challenge of a catering for the whole extended family next year…bring it on!

The decorated table before it was creaking under the weight of any food (wine happily breathing in the corner ready for a well deserving cook and her able assistant of a sister!)

Trimmings included: potatoes roasted in Frank Parker’s goose fat (which, along with the Christmas Eve pork, I queued all the way down the road for!), roasted sweet potatoes, brussels marinaded in balsamic vinegar and fried, pigs in blankets (with none other than Frank’s chipolatas), roasted carrots and parsnips, homemade sage and onion stuffing, homemade bread sauce, chestnuts and finally; a brazil nut, date and cranberry roast with mulled fruit topping (I wish I could say that it was homemade, but no-one beats Marks and Spencer with this one!)

The turkey itself I layered with bacon rashers, orange slices, apricots and rosemary, and surrounded it with whole garlic bulbs and shallots, which tasted deliciously sticky and sweet as well as flavouring the bird from the outside. Would love to hear of anyone else’s deviations or variations on the traditional trimmings :)

Rind

Citrus marmalade. Orange and lemon boiled up with absolutely tonnes of sugar. If I had the patience, I’d have sliced the rind a bit thinner…but I didn’t. Anyone got any tips on how to stop all the rind floating to the top of the marmalade or was that just because I made it too runny? It seemed to set ok anyway, but perhaps a little pectin wouldn’t go amiss next time.

My Winter Produce:

Wrap

It’s nice to get away from the consumer madness this time of year, so I’ve experimented with a load of reused and recycled papers and ribbon to wrap my gifts. It’s cheaper, better for the environment, shows you’ve taken time on others and best of all it makes gifts look a hundred times better than that tacky plastic wrap that fills the shops!

A good stack of handmade papers are a staple of my craft box. I tried making my own with a mesh a while ago, but my sheets turned out so thick it was hard to put them to any use. Mastering the skill of making thin paper that doesn’t disintegrate is another project to file away for a rainy day perhaps…

My base wrap was brown packing paper, coloured sugar paper and a thick cream wallpaper liner. I then added various bits and bobs like second hand buttons, dried fruit, flowers and leaves, pot pouri, ribbon and twine, and was quite happy with the results – especially the soaps.

My table of handmade gifts is filling up nicely :) It’s very satisfying to see them all done up like this, finally looking good enough to be given as presents!

I gave most of my soaps in gift parcels of two or four bars. I bought a few cheap and thin canvas boards to place them on, then wrapped them up in a basic underskirt netting from the dressmakers. With a few ribbons and handmade tags they looked pretty cute!

I used some scraps of cloth cut into circles to cover the chutney, pickles and marmalade. Double-sided tape is also now my best friend, as I can turn fragile homemade paper into labels fairly quickly.

On the rest of the kilner jars I used scraps of ribbon to tie on dried fruit slices – orange, lemon and lime. Great because they retain their colour for quite some time so I could prepare them in advance and they still looked great come Christmas morning :)

Blind

I added my mothers secret ingredient to my short crust pastry today before blind baking it…grape nuts. They give it a lovely crunch which is perfect for the tart I’m making. Also making a mental note to use foil instead of baking paper to line the pastry next time, as it’s such a fiddle to get the searing hot ceramic beads out of the case without foil to scrunch around them!

There are a lot of fiddly recipes out there that ask you to skin your peppers before blending them, but I can’t see what’s wrong with that little bit of goodness and texture that would make you want to discard it. So:

Roast 4 large chopped peppers in olive oil until lightly charred and tasty (yes, pinch one to see) then stick in a food processor with 2 eggs,  a tablespoon of mascarpone, a large handful of basil leaves and some salt and pepper. Then just pour it into your base (it will look all frothy and bubbly) and cook for about half an hour at 180 degrees.

No hassle.

Festive

I hate mince pies. Or at least that’s what I’ve always said when someone offers me a tray of shop bought mince pies in those little foil cases. I’ve always wondered why someone would want to use suet (whether beef or vegetable) in a dessert if it doesn’t melt properly anyway and you’re left with little white lumps of fat to chew into? I know it’s meant to keep the fruit moist and make mince pies nice and sticky, but I’m sure there has to be another way…

Enter ‘homemade suet-free mincemeat’ (Hettie Potter’s if you’d like to try) in a beautifully crumbly short crust pastry. This stuff, I assure you, is delicious. And not in the slightest dry.

I sterilised my jars in the oven, but wasn’t sure if the rubber seals would withstand such dry heat…does anyone know? I used boiling water on them instead which seemed to work alright.

The recipe itself is basic enough once you’ve got all the ingredients together, although all the dried fruit isn’t cheap. Feel free to improvise – I used cranberries and mixed peel as well as I had some leftover from my fruitcake.

250g soft dark brown sugar
250ml medium dry cider
1kg cooking apples, peeled, halved and quartered (I used even more than this – they really mulch down and make it fruitier)
½ tsp mixed spice
½ tsp ground cinnamon
500g dried mixed fruit
75g glace cherries, roughly chopped
75g blanched almonds,
zest & juice of ½ lemon
6 tablespoons brandy (alternatively rum)

1.  Place the cider and the sugar in a large saucepan and heat gently.

2.  Add the roughly chopped apples to the saucepan and stir well.

3.  Add the remaining ingredients, apart from brandy (or rum).  Simmer for around 30 minutes until the mixture is soft and pulpy.

4. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool for 5-10minutes.  Stir in the brandy (or rum) and transfer to sterilised jars.

Then of course I placed some dollops into my standard shortcrust pastry (double the amount of four to butter and just a sprinkling of water) to make the actual pies. Although it already tasted so good I could have eaten it straight from the jar!

I’ve made a few batches with my own mincemeat now and they’ve gone down a treat with many who previously claimed that they, like me, hate mince pies. Result! I’ll also be wrapping up a few of the leftover killer jars of mincemeat as gifts so that others can do the same :) And the best thing about mincemeat? Just like you and I, it improves with age!

A dusting of icing sugar on a mince pie is compulsory…

Soap

I recently ordered a huge 5kg lump of SLS-free organic soap base, so thought I’d make a few batches to give as Christmas presents. I’d never tried this before, but the melt-and-pour process is so easy-peasy I’ll definitely be doing it again. The hardest part is probably only the slicing/grating of the base as it’s pretty solid stuff!

 For the scent I tried a lavender batch and a sweet orange batch, just by mixing the pure essential oils directly into the melted base. I wasn’t quite sure how strong they’d turn out so I used these two as they are the gentlest of essential oils when used directly on the skin. As it turned out, they smelled delicious and certainly aren’t too strong on delicate hands!

I wanted to add a few ‘bits’ to make the soap look more homemade, so I stirred in a handful of oatmeal to the orange soap, and lavender bits in the other one. I’ve had the lavender bunches drying for years and they still smell super-strong. I later tried a variation with lavender and rosemary and one with tea and orange: simply by splitting open a teabag and using the dust. It created a lovely poppy-seed effect on the underside of the soap and acted like a natural dye turning the soap a rusty orange colour which looked great alongside the other paler soaps. I’ve only got one tray mould at the moment which allows for 8 x 100g bars so they’re a good size to be given as gifts.