A little Christmas Baking...

Apart from getting up early in the morning to go pick up the Turkey from the butchers - I think we are just about set!  So this evening, some baking was in order - if nothing else to make the house smell even MORE festive!

 Mmmm mince pies - lovely sweet crust pastry... with a sprinkle of demerara sugar on the top!

...and of course some little jam tarts to use up the rest of the pastry (these have already been consumed you understand)

If I don't blog again before the big day - 

Merry★* 。 • ˚ ˚ •。★Christmas★ 。* 。*
 。 ° ˚* _Π_____*。*˚★ 。* 。*。 • ˚ ˚ •。★
˚ ˛ •˛•*/______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛★ 。* 。*★ 。* 。
˚ ˛ •˛• ｜ 田田｜門｜ ˚ ˛★ 。* 。*★ 。*•。★* 

Chilled Sunday...

Coffee just fills the kitchen with a comforting smell....Mmmm

On Friday night about 11pm, we had the biggest hail shower I have EVER experienced.  It lasted a good 20 - 30 mins!?! and ended with a very dramatic and very FINAL flash of lightening and loud clap of thunder!  When it was over - we were left with about 3cm's of small white balls EVERYWHERE.  Sometime in the middle of the night we had a light dusting of snow too - so we awoke on Saturday morning to a thin blanket of white - all be it mostly ICE and not actual snow!

Last night we walked to some friends - or should I say slid/skidded to some friends for dinner... it was quite an amusing journey!

So...today was definitely a Sunday to just brew some nice coffee, and spend a little time in the kitchen.

Home made muesli!

I made our Muesli for the week...

Baked a gooey gingerbread, and had a stew bubbling very slowly in the oven all by 3 o'clock!  Very satisfying .

The fire is now lit and I am not moving away from it (we are due more snow tonight)

Happy Sunday everyone - Stay safe in the snow if you have some!

Is this a food blog?

...I think it might be?  Recently my posts all seem to be about food - and I am not sure I am sorry about that!?  Not sure if I have told you that I trained at college as a Chef and worked as a Chef for a good few years.  Ever since I gave it up as a career I find I enjoy cooking, entertaining and baking far more than I did when I did it all day!  Funny that!?

All last week I was away at my sisters looking after my 6 year old nephew and twin 4 year old nieces!  I came back suitably tired but also full of warmth!  They are so adorable especially first thing in the morning when they come and snuggle in bed!

Anyways, today we had friends around for Sunday lunch - Roast Pork and all the trimmings (it was a little like an early Christmas dinner).  We also BOTH made puddings on account of my friend wanting to try the Nigella Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake recipe and her hubby not liking peanuts! - so I made my no cook lemon pie (easy peasy)

Here is the Nigella Cheesecake - made by my Friend Linzi

I have to say it was LOVELY.  Not too sickly sweet and a lovely texture (I do like a baked cheesecake).  I would definitely serve this again!

And here is my no cook Lemon Pie (can you spot the bit of crust missing!)

I can't really call the Lemon Pie a recipe - it is too easy, but here it is (yummy if you like fresh sharp lemony flavours).  My sister kindly gave me this recipe and I believe it was originally from Betty Crocker?

Ingredients:
200g Digestive or ginger biscuits (I have used either)
60g of melted butter

1 tin of condensed milk (497g tin)
150 mls of double cream
2 lemons (grated zest of 1 and juice of 2)

Whizz or bash up the biscuits and add the melted butter to make the base.  Press into a dish and chill.
Combine the condensed milk, lemon zest, lemon juice and double cream in a large bowl and stir until well mixed.
Pour over the crumb base - and refrigerate.
Serve Chilled!

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend!

POST EDIT:  My sister informs me this isn't from Betty Crocker at all... still yummy though (might have to go have another slice)

My new favourite utensil

Am I that far behind the times?  Do you all use these?  

I saw this suggestion on the Barefoot Contessa

My new Ice Cream Scoop
(that goop is destined to be Raspberry & White Chocolate Muffins)

It scoopes the PERFECT amount into each muffin case with NO MESS!

SEE!  No mess and all the same size ready to go in the oven

Fresh out of the oven - all nice, plump and round!

And all the same size and shape - OK now I just sound a little anal?

I have posted the recipe on my recipe's page

Happy National Cupcake Week!

I found out about National Cupcake Week from Ali over at With Love, Cupcakes & Biscuits. She posted an invite to take part - so here I am.

Cappuccino Cupcakes

In cute little brown spotty cases

...and a little chocolate coffee bean on top!

Mmmmmm!

A bowlful of RED and more Cupcakes

:: Not alot of words in this post ::

:: Freshly harvested Cherry Toms - just look at the colour of those beauties ::

Oh and they taste divine too

:: Raspberry & White Chocolate Muffins ::

... about to be eaten!

Back from Boston...and Lemon Cupcakes

Well - I am back from Boston....and my luggage eventually followed! It was great - lots of shopping, eating and the consumption of Cosmo's. The weather was HOT HOT HOT and VERY humid too. Our last day was particularly hot so we headed up to Marblehead and had lunch in the harbour there.

So this week I have been catching up. Today I did a little baking:

Lemon Cupcakes from Rachel Allen's BAKE

This Sunday I have been...

:: Making Muesli ::

This is actually the 4th batch I have made in the past few weeks and we are LOVING it.

So now the story behind the muesli:

Over the past few months, we have been on the search for a muesli we both like. We bought some of the mainstream brands, but found them either FAR too sweet, or too much dried fruit.

One day, we were both wandering around our local Farm Shop and spotted a rather scrummy looking muesli - full of oats and nuts and seeds...this was what we have been looking for. So we picked up a packet and along with our lone jar of Red Onion Marmalade made our way to the till. £10 later....yes £10 people!!!!! we were walking out the shop dumbstruck.

The Muesli was lovely (it bloomin' should have been for £7.50!) but we couldn't help but wonder how difficult it was to make ourselves...we certainly couldn't afford another packet of that...EVER!

So with a little research on t'internet... I came up with a recipe (and it is VERY close to that which we paid a small fortune for)

Recipe:

100g Butter (or oil)

2 tbsp Honey

2 1/2 tbsp Maple Syrup

300g Oats

about another 100g of mixed seeds and nuts. I use Sunflower Seeds, Pumpkin Seeds, Brazil Nuts (chopped) Almonds (chopped or slivered) and Pecans (if I have them)

Some recipe's include sugar also, but we don't like ours too sweet

Melt the Butter and syrup/honey

add all the other ingredients and mix together so it is ALL coated really well

Toast in a 160c oven for about 10 mins - keep an eye on it and stir mid way through

Remove from oven and leave to cool completely...it will crisp up. Once cold, transfer to your vessel of choice.

Enjoy! (I like mine with a little milk and a chopped banana)

Today...

:: I have done a little gardening...weeding to be precise! ::

We think those enormous plants are teasels - we didn't plant them.... any idea's?

:: We picked more of our lettuce ::

This is about the 4th week we have had fresh home picked lettuce, and we are loving it. Yes - I said WE, Kenny is even having some in his sandwiches. Time to sew some more I think

:: We admired our growing crops... Tomatoes ::

:: Green Beans ::

of the dwarf kind

:: Spring Onions, Chilli's, Sweet Peppers, Strawberries ::

(all in there somewhere)

:: Baking ::

Sour Cream Coffee cake

Appreciation...

A few things I am appreciating/loving today:

1. The sun is out for the 5th day in a row! Yesterday was supposed to rain alot, but whilst it was a little overcast at times, we saw no rain and we DID see the sun a bit so that counts too in my book!

2. Pub lunch here overlooking St Michaels Mount

3. The walk on the beach afterwards

4. The lawn being mown for the first time!

5. The greenhouse is finished! We inherited a greenhouse when we moved into this house, hubby has been taking it apart, cleaning it, and building a new base for it over the past few weeks, and now it is all finished and looking like shiny new!

6. My new Hokey Cokey sign in the freshly decorated porch (enough with the decorating for now)

...Oh and a particularly yummy cake that I have been wanting to make for ages, but haven't for fear it would not live up to what I had in my head... SO glad I took the plunge - it is so good.

A brighter outlook...

Work has been so busy of late - I feel like I have hardly seen the light of day...so this morning, seeing the sun shining - we took a stroll down to the sea front to blow the cobwebs out! Sat back at my desk all rosy cheeked and wind swept did wonders for the brain cells!

It is a strange thing, how you can miss something so much after only doing it for a while? We moved to the sea side back in June '09 and since then have being walking a lot more than we EVER did before. Our first winter here, I have personally realised how I miss walking if we don't get out for a few days! Who'd have though it.

On that note - look at this....

Picture courtesy of the BBC Weather Page

Just look at all those lovely little suns!!! Note to self: Get out and go walking this weekend!!!

On another note: I made some YUMMY (even though I do say so myself) cookies yesterday...so yummy they are almost gone!!

Oat, Sultana, Choc Chip and Pecan Cookies

They look enormous in this photo but it is just an extreme close up I promise. I kind of used a mish mash of recipe's so wasn't entirely sure how they would turn out but both Mr Blogger and I agree they are on the keep list! Just the right combination of crunchy, chewy, sweet, salty, yumminess once requires in a cookie!

Happy Wednesday everyone!