Christmas rituals can offer great reassurance in a fast changing world, making the mincemeat and Christmas cake, choosing a theme for the family get together dinner, picking out and decorating the tree, all feed the air of anticipation and excitement leading up to the big day. Over the years, as…
Christmas Cake – Angela Nilsen Recipe
I haven’t made a Christmas cake for a few years now as I am the only person in the house that likes it, but I really miss the tradition of making it, the aroma wafting around the house conjuring up that first excitement of Christmas and I miss decorating the…
20 minute ‘blitz & blend’ Mincemeat
For those of you that thought my Delia mincemeat recipe was rather long winded, fiddly and basically you just do not have the time to faff around making homemade mincemeat, when you can just pop to the shops and buy a jar…. here is the simplest recipe ever, very quick,…
Stollen Ring
I have to admit that I have never tried Stollen, I have seen it in the shops but it never took my fancy. Then I saw this recipe, the picture looked so nice that it inspired me to give it a go and I am so pleased that I did,…
Homemade Mincemeat
Its hard to think about Christmas in early November but if you love to bake at Christmas I am afraid you have to be prepared. The Christmas cake needs baking and feeding with booze, mincemeat needs time to mature and develop flavour and sloe gin needs weeks to be perfect…
Pasta, crunchy chicory & watercress salad, little frangipane tarts
We are now into receipe 2 of our cook our way through Jamie Oliver’s 30 Minute Meals Book and we have another winner. We are beginning to wonder, will they all be this good! What is nice about this book is that there is a whole spread of food,…
Orange and Blackberry Trifle
As a busy Mum on work days Hubby usually cooks, just so I get a break and because he uses cooking as way of winding down after a stressful day, but tonight I decided we needed a quick dessert as we always crave something sweet after dinner. After 6…
Pineapple upside down cake
I came home from work tonight completely shattered but really fancied something sweet and something nice for dessert, I didn’t have much in apart from a tin of pineapple in the cupboard, so thought I’d make a pineapple upside down cake. I’ve never made one before and it must be…
