Christmas catchup

Apologies for the rather long Christmas break between posts. I won't bore you with a super long post but here's a brief run down of my new recipes over the Christmas period:

1. Christmas cake!



I was really pleased with this. I made it from Nigel Slater's fruit cake recipe and it turned out with just the right amount of citrus and fruit. Lovely.

I'd made fruit cakes before but never one that was such a high proportion of fruit to flour. The recipe was quite free and easy with the fruits you should use which made it easy to tailor to your own tastes. I used my new favourite dried fruit - figs! I had dried figs for the first time this past spring when we went to Croatia. They were served with coffee and schnapps absolutely everywhere and I liked the sticky grainy texture of them. We bought a bag from the market - you can just about see them for sale in the picture, bagged up with bay leaves.



They appeared in Sainsburys just in time for my Christmas cake. Marvellous!

I also made the marzipan (a bit fiddly to get onto the cake) and the royal icing (took longer to set than I'd anticipated). I felt I had make both in order to keep in the spirit of the recipe challenge; shop bought would have seemed like cheating.





2. Mulled white wine

I think the recipe for this needs a little tweaking as it tasted more like mulled cider, and I would definitely have preferred a winey-er taste. I think next time I'll put a lot less apple juice and less sugar too (the quantity here is half the recipe quantity and it was still a bit sweet for my tastes). Don't get me wrong, the flavours were nice and it was a lovely warming drink, but it seemed a shame not to taste the wine much. Didn't stop us drinking it all of course!

Here's the recipe:

Apple & spice white wine

1 * 750ml bottle white wine (I used Riesling)
400ml apple juice
2 cinnamon sticks
2 star anise
50g demerera sugar
a few strips of orange rind

Put all the ingredients in a pan over a medium heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Heat gently for about 10 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse, but don't allow the mixture to boil or you will lose all the alcohol content.
Serve.
Easy peasy.

3. Pickled pears

I made these a couple of weeks ago after catching a bit of the Hairy Bikers Christmas cookery special. They need about 10 days pickling time before you can eat the pears, so we had our first taste of them shortly after Christmas with cold meats, oatcakes and cheese.

Yes, you read correctly - I did eat cheese. I bought some Manchego cheese to have when we had my younger sister and my Dad up for lunch, and I discovered I actually liked it. In very small quantities.

Anyway, I digress - the pears were tasty, although my sister thought it was distinctly wierd that I would pickle pears.
She may have a point.

4. To go with the Manchego cheese - hazlenut and black pepper cookies.

I came across the recipe for these on a blog called Chocolate and Zuccini. Its written by a French lady (in English although there is a French version). They sounded interesting and she mentions that they go well with figs. Since I had a few figs left over from the Christmas cake it seemed the ideal time to make these biscuits.

They turned out to be a semi-sweet biscuit, and did go well with the dried fruit. The black pepper added a pleasant zing but I think I would use cinnamon instead in future, just because I prefer the warmth of cinnamon.

5. Brussel sprouts

I know these are a love-them or hate-them vegetable, but I definitely fall into the love-them category. Which is just as well as we've had them in our vegetable box quite a lot recently.



A colleague at work suggested baking them in the oven in a parmesan cream sauce. I liked the general idea, but thought all that cream and cheese would probably disagree with my stomach. Instead I found a recipe that suggested baking the sprouts in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It was a good way to do them. I would imagine that a scattering of grated parmesan and a sprinkle of pinenuts would be a tasty addition.

Here's the method:

Balsamic Brussels

Mix 1 dessertspoon of olive oil with 1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar. Peel and quater your sprouts then toss them in the oil mixture until well coated.
arrange in a single layer on a baking tray or roastig tin and cook for about 20 mins at 180-190C.

Pickles, pears, and puddings

Well the weekend cookery didn't quite go to plan as I forgot to buy chocolate for the chocolate dipped fruits. They will have to be done later - maybe on Christmas eve.

However, I did manage to make a lovely crumbly vanilla fudge without 1. burning the whole of the bottom of the saucepan 2. burning me 3. setting off the smoke alarm 4. swearing. It was even edible!
I felt this to be a significant achievement.

I also experimented with a new pear recipe. I think pears are my favourite fruit.
Well, actually that's not true as I love strawberries more, but they're certainly my favourite autumn/winter fruit.
I've been exploring ways to preserve them for nibbling throughout the year. A few weeks ago I tried drying them in a cool oven, which was pretty good. They turned out chewy, a bit grainy, and very very pear-ish. Nice.

Over the last week or so the BBC have been running lots of Christmas food & drink programmes. In all honesty they're a bit irritating on the whole, but I did watch the Hairy Bikers christmas programme last week, where they made pickled pears. I'm not usually bothered about pickles but the combination of spices in their recipe sounded lovely so I gave it a go this weekend. I made half quantities, as 20 pickled pears seemed a little excessive for just 2 people. They'll be ready to eat in a week, so I'll keep you posted on whether they're edible. They smelt like vinegary mulled wine as they cooked, so I have high hopes.



On the otherhand, my jar has sprung a leak, so I hope that being 100% air tight isn't crucial to the recipe.
I do rather like the Hairy Bikers recipes - their baking programme was good last year and I like their sense of irreverance. Did you see the wedding cake they made? So fun.


But I digress; here's the link to the recipe.
I also fancy having a go at their pretzels recipe. We saw some proper German-style pretzels in Merano, in Northern Italy when we were there this autumn. They were massive and doughy, rather than the biscuity variety we get here. Could be interesting to try.

Also this weekend, my very first attempt at roast beef and yorkshire pudding. The perfect dinner according to Dan. Feeling smug at acheiving perfect yorkshires on the first attempt I decided to use the remaining batter the next day and do sausage and mash with yorshire puds. Sadly it seems that it was beginners luck. The pudding still rose but it was somewhat soggy in the middle. Ah well, you win some,you lose some....