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It was three years ago that we first started having our Christmases together, alone, in Our Lovely Flat. It was quite the revelation of calm, and something we'd both find it difficult to give up now. The family visits are lovely - perhaps not accompanied by the best weather or travel conditions, but lovely nonetheless - we get to see each others in the two weekends before Christmas, delivering presents (when they're not forgotten! Oops!) and enjoying long lazy evenings of wine and chat, and if I'm particularly lucky N's parents will break out the card games, and then thrash me at all the one they know and I don't. Cribbage? "fifteen two,fifteen four" what's all that about then?! We just like being able to do our thing.
But what is that thing?!
That first Christmas in our flat was quite the revelation in other ways too. There was a conflict of traditions, and much confusion about how to resolve them. We shared stories in the run up to the big day of how each of our families played out Christmas morning. In N's family presents were opened immediately, in pyjamas and accopanied by glasses of Bucks Fizz. In my family however, it was quite different. My stocking, kindly left outside my bedroom door by Father Christmas, was allowed to be opened in secret, in pyjamas, and then shown off downstairs in a haze of excitement. The presents under the tree however had to wait. Everyone must be washed and dressed, all food prep done, and the all important clincher, it must be done whilst eating mini-sausage rolls, mince pies (in exploding pastry - aka, very short shortcrust) and sipping hot fresh coffee.
There were other conflicts too, N and his brother always had chocolate advent calendars, I on the other hand always had beautiful old fashioned ones with windows and pictures. Oh, and don't get me started on what you had to eat on the day!
We weren't quite sure what to do about these traditions. We knew Christmas wouldn't feel quite like Christmas without them, but somehow it didn't feel right to pick some over others. This, of course, led to an inevitable stumbling into Christmas with no clear plan at all. And it all worked out wonderfully. Some traditions have been kept, others discarded, and naturally new ones have evolved over three years to become our very own, and I couldn't be happier!
We have lazy Christmas mornings, and open mini-stockings in bed with coffee, and then carry that coffee to the tree, spread a quilt on the floor and open big presents, with Buck's Fizz, mince pies, and coffee, all in our pyjamas! As for the advent calendars? Well, I still have one with pictures, and N still gets chocolates, albeit homemade and tucked into a fabric calendar.
Old traditions and new traditions, all good traditions. The food has also evolved over the years, as we have gradually come around to the idea that you should only eat what you want to, no matter what anyone says about brussel sprouts being The Law. So, we have nut roast, potatoes,stuffing and stir fried carrots and broccoli. The latter is not very festive, but it's a darn sight nicer than watching two people push sprouts round their plates trying to hide them!
And so, here, I finally come to a recipe to share with you. Nut roast. We're seasoned veggies, and have been around the ring with many a nut roast in our time, more than a lot of which have been mediocre at best. This one is not. We have it every Christmas, and every year we complain that we eat it and then forget about it for another twelve months, as it's so good. I can also tell you that it feeds 4-6 people, but that it's always best to make more, so you can have nut roast and gravy sandwiches on Boxing day. No really, make it just for that, a wonderful sloppy indulgence that has officially been added to next year's list of traditions! (This image is just before I heaved the sarnie onto the plate and dumped a load of onion gravy on it, oh yes!)
Luxury Nut Roast
My exact version of this is a very closely guarded secret, and I'm afraid I'm not sharing all, but this is what I start with before the tinkering, and it is hands down, delicious. Make it, even if you're not veggie. I made this for a bunch of meat eaters for Sunday lunch once, and there wasn't a scrap to be seen.
I should warn you that I've never successfully turned this out in a loaf shape, instead I scoop it from the pan onto plates. Frankly we don't care that it doesn't look pretty because it tastes so good, but if you're looking for presentation, you might want to reconsider!
Also, I make mine the day before and leave it to rest overnight in the fridge. I swear that this makes the flavours much better, and it saves time on the day.
Serves 4-6 (just!)
2oog mixed nuts (use whatever suits you, walnuts, hazels cashews, brazil, peanuts and any seeds go well in this)
75g dried cranberries
100g shallot (I use basically half an onion and it seems to be fine)
400g tin chopped tomates, drained in a colander for 10 mins
1 large egg
100g strong cheddar, grated finely
dash of dried mint
dash of dried sage
handful of fresh parsley, chopped
1 tsp marmite, mixed with 1tbsp red wine and a 1tsp orange juice
pinch of salt, and lots of grinds of pepper
tsp mustard
Grease a large loaf tin and set aside.
Lightly toast the nuts in a frying pan until just becoming fragrant. Remove and cool, then whizz in a food processor until finely ground.
In a large bowl mix all the ingredients together thoroughly. Place in the prepared pan and leave overnight in the fridge, or for at least an hour to let the flavours deepen.
Preheat over to 180C. Cook for 45mins to an hour until firm and golden. Serve with cranberry sauce and onion gravy. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, and are bounding towards the new year with happy thoughts and outrageous resolutions.
..So, apparently things get worse before they get better.
new flight delayed by five hours...flight home cancelled...new flight booked, again, then a text to say it was cancelled...finally arrived home a day late, to discover I wasn't paid this month.
And.....breathe.
Not quite the relaxing stress-free run up to Christmas we had hoped for. But we are thankful for the small things, and the not so small things, like not having been booked on the Eurostar, having family to entertain us with card games and whiskey, a cat who loves us despite the fact that we couldn't get home to him, a friend and a neighbour who were happy to look in on the cat and be messed around because we were, friends who listened to us moan, and bought us drinks, and made us laugh all night.
And being home on Christmas eve, in our lovely flat, with a beautiful tree full of decorations that remind us of people and places that we love.
The halls are decked, and so it's time to bake the gingerbread, mull the wine, have a bath and let the relaxing festivities begin.
I hope you are all surrounding by the friends and family that you love. Have a very merry Christmas, and thank you for reading my little corner of the interwebs. Normal service will resume after all the mince pies have been eaten and the recycling put out!
Sometimes you just have days (ahem, weeks) when the world seems out to get you. I had plans for lovely posts this December, but it seems to be the 19th, and my blog remains sparse. Why? Well, it started with work getting incredibly busy, throw into that a round of pre-Christmas parental visits, and a list of outstanding Christmas presents long enough to make even the saner amongst us weep, and you begin to get an idea of how my December has been shaping up. Now, granted, this is probably exactly how everyone else's is going. But I haven't gotten to the good bit yet!
Last weekend, whilst potting in my parents brand new beautiful kitchen I started playing with some settings on my camera. I decided to do some black and white, and I was really pleased with them. So, after the six and a half hour drive home I eagerly fired up the laptop to blog about them. Oh no, my memory card had other ideas! No pictures to be found. Not only were the black and whites missing, but about a hundred others, including the ones of the delicious port and prune brownies I was going to include in said post. I was not amused. 
So I was nervous about using that memory card to take pictures, and of course, could I find my spare, of course I couldn't. Almost a week passed before I was able to do anything.
Then yesterday was the final straw. Trying to fly out to Europe over Christmas is always a tough haul. Especially when the flights you have are with a budget airline, because they were the only ones you could get. Add snow into the mix, and you have total chaos. Trains don't run, planes don't fly, and heaven forbid anyone should be on hand at the airport to help you. We waited and waiting, and were finally told that all flights were cancelled and we should go home. Cue a battle back across London and a whole bunch of upset family members. Then we made the mistake of getting online to claim our compensation, only to discover our flight had actually taken off.
Angry doesn't cover it. So today, we try again. Different airline, different airport. And goddamnit I don't care how long I have to wait, but we are getting to France tonight, no matter what.
Er, yes, so that's why I haven't posted. I will have to leave you today with the only festive picture I have managed to snap, and the promise (yet again) that there is more on it's way next week when I finally get to breathe again.
I hope you're all having better runs up to Christmas, and in the midst of your own baking/shopping/entertaining chaos, you are managing to enjoy a huge glass of mulled wine and a whole host of chocolate goodies. p.s. During the writing of this post my computer crashed. Seriously, the world is against me right now!
Alas, I come to you today with a downcast look. I have something to admit, and I'm not quite sure I'm okay with it yet.
I won't be opening the shop tomorrow. In fact, I won't be opening this year.
I was jubilant, I was baking, melting, mixing, packaging and photographing like mad, and then slowly amidst this haze the reality began to hit. There was no way I was ready. I wanted it so, so badly, I've been clinging to the idea with all my strength as I am desperate to start my road to working from home and working for myself. But sometimes you need to stand back, and see things from a distance and admit to yourself that you were wrong, and now is not the time.
Last week threw up a chunk of extra work. Not entirely unexpected, but the amount of which has caught me a little off guard. Coupled with this I will be organising Christmas at home this year as a working lady for the first time. I no longer have hours in the house, pottering around getting everything just so, or browsing the markets for that perfect little gift. Instead I will be joining the hordes of shoppers battling with the besieged high street in the rain after work. So this weekend when the sudden realisation hit, that actually, diving headlong into a business venture, just three weeks before Christmas might not be the best idea I've ever had, for once I stood back and decided to say "no". I don't like it, but the reality is that when I do this, I want to do it right. I want to have lovely photographs of products I really and truly believe are worth (hopefully) shipping all over the world. I can't do this at a canter in the middle of trying to buy presents, bake/sew/knit gifts, and spend two weekends out of three on pre-Christmas parental visits.
So, it will be a little longer until I try and take over the world (ahem, my little corner of the web at least), but I promise you it is my goal of the new year, and it will be bigger and better than it could have been before. Plus, shipping might be a tad more reliable once this pesky Christmas malarkey is over!
I hope you will bare with me, and I hope if you do it will be worth it.
Phew, now I've got that off my chest I feel a little better. I'm hoping a prune and port brownie will help me relax even more...photos and recipe tomorrow!
I have a real thing for empty plates. I seem to photograph them all them time. Often, I find them more appealing, than plates full of food. Weird, I know. Perhaps it is because usually the food that once occupied the plate in question is invariably in my stomach, and making me feel smug. Perhaps there is just something about the tines of a fork (because more often than not my empty plate shots involve forks). Perhaps it's just that I have no patience, and so my documentation of food becomes uselessly after the fact.
Tonight, it was an empty bowl that caught my eye. This time, satisfyingly empty because the risotto that was in it was entirely my own recipe, and as a result gobbled down even more smugly than usual. Fortunately I made far too much than two could possibly eat in one sitting (although we tried, we really did) and here is plenty more sitting on the stove waiting to be packed into the fridge for frying into risotto cakes tomorrow.
This is a nice autumnal dish. A hint of sweetness, a touch of spice, and an unctuous creaminess that balances well with a dry rose wine. Winter is fast approaching, but I refuse to give in the hearty meals entirely, instead I think you need something which can occupy the "in between" space, hence the rose. I hope you all enjoy this too.
P.s. Who's stupid idea was it to attempt opening shop in one of the busiest months of the year? Eek!
Spiced Butternut and apple risotto (probably serves four (ish) )
1 small butternut squash
2 medium-sized sharp apples (I used bramleys)
one large leek
2 cloves garlic, minced
150g risotto rice
1 pint of good vegetable stock
2 tsp cumin
1 bay leaf
1 tsp dried sage
glug of olive oil
glug of cider
pinch of salt
freshly ground pepper
freshly grated parmesan
Preheat the oven to 190C. Peel the squash, cut it into quarters and scrap out the seeds. Douse with a smidgen of oil (I used chili oil to add a hint of heat to the eventual risotto) and roast until soft. Mine took about 20 mins, but it'll depend on your oven and the size of the squash. Remove from the oven and cool.
Slice the leek and heat a large glug of oil in a deep frying pan. Gently sweat the leeks, being careful that they don't brown. Once they begin to glisten, add the minced garlic and fry for another minute. Then add the sage, cumin and risotto rice and another small glug of oil. Coat the rice with oil and heat for two minutes and then begin adding your stock. You want to add this a ladle-full at a time, and wait until it is absorbed by the rice, before adding more. Meanwhile, peel, core and quarter your apples. Blend together with the roasted squash in a food processor. When you are three quarters of the way through adding the stock (eg. when there is only a quarter of a pint of stock left to be added) add the pureed squash and apple mixture to the pan, with a large pinch of salt, a grind of pepper, the bay leaf and a generous glug of cider. Wait until the liquid has been absorbed, and then add the final stock. When this is cooked down, check to make sure that the rice is soft, but retains a slight bite.
Serve immediately, topped with a generous helping of freshly grated parmesan and a large glass of dry rose!
Preparations are well under way here in the North London Kitchen.
Cakes have been baked, and puddings have been steamed. Oh yes, "stir up" Sunday produced a flurry of activity, none of which the cat agreed with. As far as he was concerned, all attention should be focused on the sofa, the first One Day International cricket match between England and South Africa, and, quite frankly, giving him as much attention as possible.
Alas, I was not obliging. Instead I have spent the majority of the day aproned-up covered in puffs of flour and icing sugar, in a haze of steam, attempting to get test products baked and photographed before the inevitable disappearance of natural light.
Wait a minute! Test products? I hear you exclaim, I thought this post was all about Christmas preparation.
Well, it is. Sort of. You see I've been in a bit of a slump. I have grand plans, I really do, but am a bit unsure of quite how to go about them. So a while ago I decided that baby steps were the only way to kick me out of stasis and get me going. And of course what better time for me to choose than the run up to Christmas. Nothing much going on around that time is there!
You see, I've decided to try my hand at opening a little online shop over at Etsy! I'll be selling handmade and homemade baked goodies, and hopefully the odd piece of knitting or sewing. Oh and a print or two. I have spent the last couple of weeks thinking about and testing products, and hopefully on December 1st I'll go live!
EEEEEK!
I thought you'd all like the sneak preview and heads up. If you fancy a spot of festive foodie goodness, head over on December 1st and you'll see what's up for grabs. I might even throw an offer or two into the mix.
In the midst of this I have of course also been trying to get more personal Christmas things sorted. Like the making of puddings. Last year we had the Great PhD Pudding Stir-Up. This year it was just me. Needless to say I had to adapt the recipe somewhat so I didn't end up with twenty puddings! Instead I have just two and they smelled rather lovely steaming all afternoon. I did of course stir and make a wish, and asked N to do so too. Last year I shared the ingredients list for all twenty puddings, this year I thought I would give you the scaled down version. Okay, a little late to make your pudding on stir-up Sunday, but I highly recommend it. There really is nothing quite like producing a homemade pudding at Christmas, aflame with hot brandy.
Oh, and don't forget to give it a stir and make a wish. They taste better holding wishes, I promise.
Christmas Pudding - Makes two 700ml puddings.
This is my own take on a traditional recipe. You can swap in and out things you like. For example, although I love nuts, I just can't abide them in my pudding, so I don't bother. But if you want them in there, who am I to stop you. (wrong as you are!)
Also, you need to start this the night before as the fruit needs soaking. Just to warn you.
Before you start you will need either two traditional ceramic pudding bowls, lined with first buttered parchment paper, and then muslin, or two plastic modern pudding bowls well buttered. You will also need two disks of parchment paper, with a fold in the middle go on top of the pudding basins while they steam (the fold allows for expansion).
Ingredients:
175g sultanas
88g raisins
88g cranberries
75g figs
63g mixed peel
50g unsulphured apricots
38g dark glace cherries
80ml brandy
1 apple, grated (but you don't have to peel it first)
juice/zest of one orange
3 eggs
125g vegetable suet
175g light muscovado sugar
125g brown bread crumbs
88g self-raising flour
1 tsp mixed spice.
Firstly, put all the dried fruit in a bowl, pour over the brandy and leave over night. The liquid won't cover the fruit, but don't worry, just give it the odd stir.
In a large bowl mix together the apple, orange juice and zest, the eggs, suet, sugar, breadcrumbs and flour. The add all the dried fruits and any remaining liquid. Stir together (whilst making a wish), and then divide between the two pudding basins. Place the disks of parchment over the top and tie down with string around the edge. Steam for three and a half hours (!) and then leave to cool.
When cool seal the pudding basins. Do this with a double layer of cling film across the top of the plastic basins before popping on the lids, or by wrapping the traditional pudding basins with parchment and then foil (I do this to make doubly sure they'll still be okay by Christmas).
On the day you'll need to heat them for further three hours of steaming, or if by heating in a microwave for 3-5 minutes depending on your wattage. To serve turn out onto a place, douse with heated brandy and light! Bring to the table aflame, and then serve with lashings of brandy butter and clotted cream. Yum!
....you can totally justify eating oatmeal cookies for breakfast, then go out for brunch, and still have a slice of cheese on toast at 4pm. You can also knit in front of the football, and finish a project in ninety minutes, discover you can make a hat, and learn that you like port. Mmmm...port...how did I not discover you and your fortified winey goodness earlier?
This week I promise to make more things, and try and post more about them. I miss this little space. I'm sure I'll get the balance right eventually. But right now there is a mushroom bourguignon waiting to be eaten...
We have lazy Christmas mornings, and open mini-stockings in bed with coffee, and then carry that coffee to the tree, spread a quilt on the floor and open big presents, with Buck's Fizz, mince pies, and coffee, all in our pyjamas! As for the advent calendars? Well, I still have one with pictures, and N still gets chocolates, albeit homemade and tucked into a fabric calendar.
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