What???

Just need to have a little rant about the Devil's Supermarket!  Who, pray, just who rushed down to Tesco and purchased Easter eggs on Boxing Day??  Eh?  Just who would do that?  It's absolutely ridiculous to put Easter confectionery and hot cross buns into the shops at Christmas!  Can we not hang on to the tiniest bit of tradition?  Are we not allowed to have seasons?  Here's a thought, save yourself a bit of trouble, Mr Tesco, why don't we just have EVERYTHING in the shops 24/7, 365 days a year?  Let's not worry about how you (and the rest of your kind) are destroying towns all over the UK with your invasive, devisive methods, no, instead let's just make sure your pockets are exceptionally well lined at the cost of British tradition and ethical consumer practice, shall we?

And breathe......

Christmas Catch Up

It's been oh so long since I posted here and now I'm going to treat you to a long rambling catch up of my culinary exploits over Christmas!  ;oD

Soooo, let's kick off with mincemeat...whoopee, I hear you cry!  I haven't made my own mincemeat for a good few years but I decided I would this year, by which, seeing as it's now 2010, I mean last year!  I use Delia Smith's mincemeat recipe from her original Christmas cook book (although I now have her new version but sadly didn't make anything from it this year).  I like the fact that you cook it before potting it up, I just dislike the look of suet in jars of mincement!  Here it is before cooking:

I left it in the pantry overnight before cooking and was assailed by a wonderful aroma in the morning when I opened the pantry door.  Once cooked it transformed into this:

The paler bits are chopped apple.  Once it's cooled it's then laced with a good splash of alcofrolic goodness and away you go!  ;o)  The recipe can be found on Delia's website here.  It's a bit late but you can always bookmark for next year!!

A recipe I've made for the last couple of years is Nigella Lawson's fabulous Gingerbread Stuffing and I made it again this year even though I didn't get to cook Christmas dinner!  I love doing the whole Christmas cooking bit but it was my mum's turn this year, boooooo!  ;oD  If you haven't tried the gingery goodness that is this stuffing then I highly recommend you give it a whirl.  I have a little stash of slices in the freezer now.  ;o)  The recipe is from Nigella's book, Feast, which has a whole host of other delicious yumminess I plan to try out!  The recipe isn't on Nigella's site but it is on the BBC site here.  And just to whet your appetite...

Last year I made another Nigella recipe on Christmas Eve, her Triple Cheese Strata dish which is lovely.  I made it on Christmas Eve again this year so that makes it a tradition to be upheld in future years me thinks!  ;oD  Here it is in all it's cheesy glory:

It's a kind of cheese bread and butter pudding really, sliced baguette with a mixture of cheese and cream poured over, left to soak overnight and baked the next day, easy peasy and delicious!  Here's the recipe.

Moving on to another of my favourite chefs... I saw most of Jamie Oliver's Christmas TV programmes and was rather taken with his Winter Pudding Bombe.  I made it for dessert on New Year's Eve and I had a smashing time doing it!  I'd just got to the stage where you add ice cream to your raspberry jam spread Panettone slices.  I'd forgotten to get my Green & Black's out earlier so it was a tad hard, my scoop shot across the top and my elbow knocked the bowl of expectant Panettone off the counter top and smashed into a trillion pieces on the kitchen floor!  I didn't think shards of glass were a welcome addition to my pud so I was back to square one!  I had just about enough Panettone to make two much smaller bombes so all was well.  I did, in my unique way, tweak the recipe somewhat though!  The only glace fruit I had was cherries (not clementines as the recipe states) and I couldn't get any sour cherries so I swapped them for tinned peaches.  My little bowls were so small I didn't have room for a layer of fresh clementine slices either.  Oh, and I didn't have Vin Santo, and even if I had I wouldn't have used it as DH is tee total so I substituted grape juice instead.  So not really like Jamie's recipe at all!  LOL  It ws delicious though and I have one and a bit left in the freezer too!  ;o) 

And lastly I wanted to tell you about my Christmas present.  ;o)  In May last year I went over to France on a Twinning Association trip and on our first evening there our lovely host introduced us to the joys of a Raclette.  I hadn't heard of it before but, for the uninitiated, it is a stone plate that sits over an electric element and you can cook meat and fish on it.  A bit like barbecue without the mess!  There are also little pans that slide in under the element for melting cheese in or keeping sauce warm.  DD and I loved our Raclette experience, I've been hankering after one ever since and Santa obliged.  ;o)  It's a lovely sociable meal, sitting round the table everyone cooking and concocting, great stuff!  Traditional Raclette involves cooked potatoes in your little pan topped with ham and Raclet cheese (I couldn't find Raclet but Emmenthal did the job well) and, once heated under the element, served with pickled onions and gherkins.  I'm planning lots of Raclette time in this coming year and will no doubt bore you all with the details on here!  I was a bit slack with my camera during our New Year Raclette meal but I can share the aftermath with you: