Mise’s coconut ice: the perfect retro present
Well, well, well, hello again! We’re all moved over to the UK (after much swearing and broken fingernails packing the house up, then a ferry crossing from hell with storm force winds and high seas). We’re moved into English Towers Mark 2 (kitchen is a B+ but garden’s a C-) but sadly I’ve no internet connection, so I’m going to hand you over to my lovely friend Mise for a little retro pressie making. Chat soon!
Hi there, I’m Mise from Pretty Far West and I’m here to help. You’ve been reading the lifestyle blogs and you’ve realised that this year you can’t just buy junk from the ‘For Her’ and ‘For Him’ stands of the chain-stores as Christmas gifts, as they won’t show that you’re Vintage, Frugal, Retro and Caring. So what can you do? Well, while you’re thinking about it you could make a batch of old-fashioned Coconut Ice to give to your aunts in beautifully-wrapped little boxes. Here’s how.
You’ll need:
250g sugar
75 ml milk
a splash of rose water or 1 tsp vanilla essence,
75g desiccated coconut
a few drops of red food-colouring.
1. Heat the milk and sugar in a heavy saucepan until the sugar has dissolved, then simmer it gently until it reaches the soft ball stage. That means that if you drop a spoonful into a glass of cold water, it’ll form a soft ball. Don’t worry if you boil it for too long: it may turn into coconut toffee.
2. Remove from heat, stir in the coconut and rose water or vanilla. Mix well (it’ll start to become firm).
3. Turn half of the mixture out onto a sheet of greased greaseproof paper (in a square tin or just on a big plate).
4. Add a few drops of red food-colouring to the rest, mix it in, and press the pink mixture down on top of the white. Tidy the edges a bit if you like by pressing them in with a knife.
5. In a few minutes it’ll be firm enough to cut into squares (this should make about 16 pieces). Leave it in the fridge for an hour and then remove from the tin or plate.
I was surprised at how well this turned out – it was delicious and much sought after. Add more colouring if you prefer a brighter pink. Play the Bee Gees while you’re working to enter fully into the spirit of the thing. And tell your aunts I said hello.
Off to the kitchen with you then, and I’ll be back soon with more guest posts and fabulous ideas for a cracking Christmas. Mwah! x
Christmas Pudding with Morgan’s Spiced Rum
Righty ho, then, so tomorrow is Stir-up Sunday, which gives me carte blanche to get all Christmassy even though it’s still not December. Bonus.
Today, your mission, should you wish to accept it, is to make sure you have the following ingredients to make your Christmas puds tomorrow, or whenever. I won’t be checking or anything.
As usual with this sort of thing, this recipe is just a guide, it’s not set in stone, so if there’s something you don’t like, substitute something else. So if you don’t like alcohol, for example, you can use orange juice, or cranberry juice, or more tea. And I’d rather stick needles in my eyes than eat dried peel, but if you like it, bung some in. As long as you don’t mess with the quantities too much you’ll be fine. Here goes, then:
500g dried fruit (a mixture of raisins, sultanas, de-stoned ready to eat prunes, cranberries – whatever – as long they’re small and wrinkly, chuck ‘em in)
1 tbsp Maraschino cherries, halved (optional, but it’s nice to see a little glistening bit of red when you cut it open)
1 lemon
100ml black tea (I used Earl Grey)
100ml Morgan’s Spiced Rum (or whatever booze you like), plus extra for the cook
1 cinnamon stick, snapped in half
100g self raising flour (or rice flour for gluten free – thank you to my lovely Twittermate Pippa D for this)
100g fresh white breadcrumbs (or ground almonds if you need to keep the recipe gluten free)
150g veggie suet
150g dark muscovado sugar
25g almonds or pistachio nuts, chopped
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground mixed spice
3 eggs, beaten
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp black treacle
1 Bramley apple, grated
First, then, weigh out the fruit, then have a good look through it and remove any stray stems. If you’re using prunes, make sure they’re de-stoned and snipped into little pieces. Finely grate the lemon zest (as usual, don’t push too hard – you want to avoid the bitter pith), then juice it as well. Add the zest and juice to the fruit then brew up the tea (one tea bag is fine for that amount of water) and pour it over the fruit, along with the rum and the cherries. Add the cinnamon stick and stir it all up. Leave the whole shooting match to steep (make sure it’s not a metal bowl) overnight, stirring occasionally if you remember.
The next day, then, (stay with me here) weigh out all the dry ingredients and combine them in a huge bowl. The muscovado sugar can be a bit lumpy so you might need to sieve it to break up any lumps.
Take the steeped fruit and remove the cinnamon stick pieces. Add the eggs, honey, treacle and grated apple. Stir well, then you can add all that into the dry ingredients. Give it a really good stir (get everyone to take a turn to stir and make a wish). Now butter one of those big, lidded plastic basins (3 pint/1.7 litre) and bung in your mixture. Put on the lid, then cover it in foil. If your basin doesn’t have a lid you’ll need to use buttered greaseproof paper, then foil, then tie it tightly with string (or you can tie it in a muslin, or use one of those special circular moulds).
To steam it, you can use a steamer if you’re posh, but I haven’t got one so I just used a huge saucepan and balanced the basin inside it on a circular metal pastry cutter so it wasn’t sitting on the bottom of the pan. Add boiling water about halfway up the basin and put the lid on the saucepan. Steam for 5 hours, making sure you go back every so often to top up the boiling water.
And that’s it, you’re done. Let it cool then stash it away (don’t unwrap it!) for Christmas day when it’ll need to steam for about another 2.5 to 3 hours (don’t worry if it gets a bit longer, it won’t ruin it).
BTW: If you want to make mini puddings instead, remember to put a teeny piece of buttered greaseproof paper in the bottom of your ramekin, otherwise you’ll never get the buggers out. Then you can just cover them with foil, put them on a deep baking tray, add boiling water to half way up the sides of the ramekins, and bake in the oven for 30 minutes on 180/gas 4.
BTW 2: Nigella advocates vodka rather than brandy to flame a pudding – apparently the flame is better and lasts longer. Just mind your eyebrows
Off you trot then. Give everybody a stir, let them make a wish, and then make them do the washing up. You deserve a break.
Rules for a perfect family Christmas
I know, I know, it’s not even December, but it’s a Christmas Countdown, so stop moaning (you know who you are). The lovely chaps at John Lewis set me a little Christmas challenge to give my rules for the definitive English Towers family Christmas. They go a little like this:
Children
#2 must awake at the crack of dawn. There will then follow an intense period of annoyance when every other sleeping member of the household must be awakened (generally in an aggressive, jumping-on-the-bed fashion) and invited to ‘wake up, it’s Christmas!’, even though it is barely 6am. There is invariably a lot of creative, un-Disneylike swearing at this point.
Every year, at least one present will be opened by the wrong child. This will cause all sorts of trouble. This will have nothing at all to do with how inebriated the gift giver was when wrapping and labelling the present at 11.55pm on Christmas Eve *cough*. #1 got Rachel Allen’s ‘Bake’ last year. He was not amused.
Christmas Dinner
The dinner must be at least 1 hour late (it’s amazing how long a turkey can ‘rest’ when the cook has been on the cooking sherry, got distracted and wandered off to have a chat with someone).
One part of the dinner (generally something that I have slaved over) will be left in the fridge or oven and be completely forgotten.
Everyone must talk at once (I remember my two lovely sister-in-laws once comparing notes about our family dinners, saying that they could never keep up with the 17 conversations that were all taking place across the table at the same time).
There MUST be champagne.
Family
There must be at least one drunken misdemeanor on Christmas day. This will usually involve Mad Uncle Ali (remember the swan dive off the sofa last Christmas? I rest my case).
There must be a call to The Disreputable One which will entail each child in turn listing each and every present in great detail, and must bore the pants off the poor man, but he bears it with dignity.
Entertainment
There must always be a disagreement about what is The Perfect Christmas Movie. I will vote for How The Grinch Stole Christmas or White Christmas and be outvoted (and told that ‘it’s GAY’), and Hubby will vote for Back to the Future, even though it patently has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas whatsoever. We’ll probably all settle on Elf, which is obviously the best Christmas movie in the history of absolutely everything.
English Grandma, who is well known for not saying no to anything, will end up being caned at Texas Hold’em or playing Call of Duty on Xbox, even though she won’t know what the hell she’s doing.
Decorations
The children will always insist that every tree ornament that we’ve ever purchased must go onto the tree. My attempts at subtle two-colour decor will be treated with contempt and that bloody plastic star thing covered in glitter will go on the top of the tree again.
The outside of the house will be lit up like Blackpool Illuminations. This is Hubby’s department. He will moan and groan about it, but at some point he’ll be out in a force 10 gale, swaying about on the top of a ladder, swearing at gutter clips whilst stringing 500 lights across the front of the house. It’s just his thing.
Oh, and the big move commences today, so feel free to chat amongst yourselves until I unpack the computer at the other end. Over to you, then. Christmas rules?
Icklebabe’s Christmas
So cracking on with the Chrimbo countdown, then, I’ve got another amazing guest post for you today, this time from my lovely Twittermate, Helen, who runs the frankly adorable Icklebabe.com website. Over to you, Helen:
Christmas is such a lovely time and I usually start dreaming up new ideas for designs from about the time the school summer hols finish!
I have a cheesy Christmas album I put on (Cliff features heavily!) to get me in the Christmas spirit and then start painting and stitching away! I do get some strange looks from the rest of the family and by the actual event I have been on Christmas mode for ages, but its still one of my favourite and most creative times of year!
This year I am bringing back a few bestsellers: the Santa snacks plate is always popular and a really nice family tradition for every year:
…as well as the yummy felt shabby chic Christmas puddings:
…button trees:
…and cherry red hearts!
I have also been busy with lots of new Christmassy treats and I am adding new things all the time! My favourites at the moment including a really cute Christmas tree t-shirt in baby and child sizes:
… and my new wooden retro style Christmas tree decorations made and distressed to look like they may have been hidden away in granny’s attic just waiting to be discovered!
I am now working on some shabby chic Christmas stockings:
…and personalised mugs:
I love the magic of Christmas and the way we all get to just take a deep breath and enjoy the time together, ohhh and the copious amounts of chocolate and the odd glass of egg nog go down quite well too!
Final date for all Christmas orders is the 10th December. So hurry along to icklebabe soon and also grab your free cheeky ginger bread man gift!
*Sigh*, it’s all gorgeous! I’m wondering if I can get one of these cute Rudolph t-shirts made in an adult size:
Beef, red wine and onion puff pastry pie
Moving on, then, because frankly, a girl’s got to eat, even when she’s packing. Here’s a nice, warming, saying-goodbye-to-Ireland kind of pie. This is the kind of pie to eat with a big pile of mashed potato whilst looking out of your window at the rain driving horizontally across the garden, and feeling smug that you’re not out there, but in here with a big piece of pie.
So. You’ll need a pack of puff pastry (or flaky pastry, or whatever you want to call it). Coincidentally, being a pea-brained fool, I accidentally turned the freezer off before leaving the house last week, and this is the only thing that survived. Oh and you’ll need some nice beef: let’s not be poncy here, it’s going to be cooked for a long time, so stewing steak is absolutely fine. Here we go, then:
2-3 tbsp plain flour
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
Stewing beef: (500 – 600g should do you for an average family)
Large glass red wine
500ml stock
Pack of defrosted puff pastry
Milk or egg wash
So firstly, spoon the flour onto a plate. Season generously and then toss your pieces of stewing beef (trimmed to remove any excess fat) in the flour so that they’re well covered.
Leave them to one side while you heat the oil in a pan and fry the onions, just enough so that they’ve got a bit of colour. You can remove them with a slotted spoon while you cook the meat, if you like, but I tend to just leave them in there and add a bit more oil. Now, fry the floured meat pieces, just a handful at a time – don’t overcrowd the pan, you want them to sizzle and caramelise – until they’re a bit browned on all sides. Remove each batch to a warm plate before frying the next.
When they’re all done and removed, whop in the glass of wine and allow to bubble away while you attack the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon and remove all those lovely tasty bits that were left on the bottom. You get a lovely alcoholic facial sauna here too. Bonus.
Now add back in your steak, onions and the stock. Stir, cover, and then just put it in the oven and forget it for an hour or so. Gas 4/180 should be fine.
Next, roll out the pastry and cut it to the size of your pie dish (remember to allow extra for the sides). We like a soggy bottom (oh stop), so I cut out two circles and line the pie dish with pastry as well, but if you prefer just a crisp crust, by all means leave the bottom unsullied.
Now, when the meat’s had a good hour, pour the whole lot into your pie dish (lined with pastry, or unlined as you wish) and top with your second circle, crimping the edges to keep the whole lot together.
Now, brush the top with milk, or egg and milk, or just egg, and put back in the oven to puff up in a crispy and delicious fashion for another half an hour or so.
Serve with tons of creamy mash and some nice winter veg. Maybe some buttered cabbage, or some lovely sweet parsnips.
Oh, and don’t bother trying to show off by printing the letters ‘PIE’ into your pastry. It disappears when you cook it. Trust me on this one.
To Ireland, with love.
So that’s it, then. Packing has commenced, the chickens have been collected in a trailer and carted off to their new home, and in a very short time we shall land back on terra firma in the good old Kingdom of United.
I have mixed feelings, frankly. When we first moved to Dublin I was miserable. I missed my friends, my family, the familiarity of having lived in a place your whole life; bumping into people you know in Tesco (frankly, being able to even go to Tesco without an hour’s round trip). It was rotten. The children hated their new school (#1 was the only native English speaker in his class), everything was alien, everything shut for lunch, or on a Monday, or on a Wednesday or had to be requested in writing, and I lasted about 6 weeks before I fled home, leaving poor Hubby blinking in a bewildered fashion in a big empty Irish house.
Still, we made it back. And with a new school for the boys, a new dog (the wonderful and much missed Becks), a new friend in Jenny and a new blog to take up my time (EnglishMuminIreland.blogs.ie – where it all began), I started to settle in. The Irish are a wonderful breed: open, friendly, always up for a laugh, never too busy to help… With Hubby’s new job we found ourselves here in Cavan and from the moment we walked over the threshold of English Towers, we felt at home. With the lovely C next door already terminally ill when we arrived, a sad by-product of being able to help in small ways like minding children or fetching medicine from the chemist was that we (selfishly) felt needed and wanted very quickly. We made friends with The Lovelies, the Galway Cs and Poppy’s Mum and her family (if you’re new here, check out ‘All about me’ at the top of the screen for more info), all via D, who was unceasingly generous with both his time and his friends, and have felt happily and contendedly as though we were home for the past two years. D now has a new, lovely lady in his life. The children are delighted and so are we. We wish them all the love and happiness that they so deserve.
But things change. The Recession came and bit us on the bum and it’s time to move on again. I’ll miss the beautiful countryside, the wonderful people and the laid back lifestyle, but the hustle and bustle of town life is calling me back too. Living in this huge house with the dog and the chickens and the lovely garden has been a massive adventure for us all. The children have made lifelong friends, received a fantastic education and enjoyed some amazing life experiences. They have benefitted immeasurably from their time here, as have the Hubby and I. We’ve been lucky enough to share this fantastic place with our friends and family when they came over for our wedding blessing and have even been welcomed into the new community of the church by the kind and gentle Revd Craig - something I never would have imagined in a million years. I know we’ll return so much more open to new experiences, and with a fresh appreciation for all the people and places that we’ve missed over the last four years.
Onwards and upwards, then. Pass the bubble wrap. Goodbye Emerald Isle. It’s been a blast.
The Friday photo: Dog training? Piece of cake.
Soooooo, the ‘keeping off the sofa’ training is doing really well….
Chickenmum.com
So we’ve been away for a few days. And after disgracing himself by chewing on the house last time we went away, Bert was banished to the kennels (still no luck on the new home front) and Little C from next door was given chicken sitting duties in exchange for a small financial reward.
On our return, Little C looked a little worried: ‘I think I lost one’, he said. Apparently the poor little sod had been hunting high and low in the torrential rain for Minnie the Moocher, sending the rest of his family out into the field to search for her, but all had returned empty handed.
‘Meh’, I said, knowing her penchant for roosting in ridiculous places, ’she’ll be around somewhere’. Well, dearest reader, we scoured and hunted, searched and… lots of other words that mean ‘to look for’, but she was nowhere to be seen. I was beginning to worry, I mean, she’s usually in the kitchen hoovering up the crumbs:
… or sitting on the office windowsill giving me a good telling off when I’m late feeding them, and this was unusual.
I did wonder whether she’d been birdnapped by the particularly evil-looking gang of pheasants that are currently inhabiting the field, but no, I spotted them out of #2′s window (sorry about the photo, but they were a long way away), and no Minnie:
And then #2 rushed, breathless, to the back door: ‘Ive found her!’. Long story short, she’d taken up residence underneath the beech hedge (you can see it in the bottom of the pic above – plenty of places to hide), but – strangely – she wasn’t at all pleased to see him. In fact, she burbled at him in a rather aggressive manner and looked all squashed flat and peculiar. We decided to investigate. And this is what we found:
Poor Minnie is broody. I feel so sorry for her. She’d made herself a little nest, and was happily sitting on a large amount of eggs: 17 in fact, although the white ones aren’t even hers, they’re Chilli’s (don’t know how she managed that).
I had to explain to #2 that of course they won’t ever hatch because we don’t have a cockerel to fertilise them, but that Minnie doesn’t understand that and thinks she’s keeping a future generation warm under her feathery bum.
‘Aw, poor Minnie’, said #2 as we took the reluctant Mama back to the coop and picked up all the eggs, ”I almost wish we could get her a boyfriend so she could have some real babies’.
Five minutes later, though, she’d escaped the coop and was back in her little nest, presumably hard at work producing the next 17. So the question is: who’s going to have the ‘birds and the bees’ chat with her? Hands up, now…
Christmas Countdown: The Foodie Gift Hunter’s Fabulous Top Ten Festive Foodie Presents
So okay, its 1st November and as such it’s far too early to be uttering the dreaded C word, even for die-hard Chrimboaholics like me. But hey, planning in advance often means you can do things better, easier and sometimes cheaper too, so over the next 8 weeks I’ll be giving you loads of fab recipes to plan, make and even freeze in advance, as well as advice and great ideas for the big day itself. I’ll be trying to persuade my BFF and wedding cake maker extraordinaire, Jen, to do us a step by step Christmas cake decorating lesson and I’ll also be teaming up with the wondrousness that is Helen: all-round Queen of Presents and editor of The Foodie Gift Hunter to give you some great ideas for Christmas gifts: foodie and non-foodie.
And so, without further ado, I’ll pass you over to Helen:
I love Christmas, and it usually starts in about June. About the 25th, when I get the 6 month countdown panic! When you have a reputation for finding great gifts, you’ve got to start early. In fact my top tip for finding great gifts is don’t leave it till the last minute. Presents bought in panic will haunt you for years to come as the recipient endlessly reminds you how bad it was.
And foodies can be pretty difficult to buy for, because only the best will do, but the best isn’t necessarily about price. With most gourmet foodies, it’ll be as much about the provenance of the food, the rarity, the way it’s made, not to mention the taste! So, I probably wouldn’t pick up a chocolate fondue set from Sainsburys on Christmas Eve if they have such high standards. Here’s some alternatives:
1. I like FoodFullStop for a great selection of artisanal food producers. Regardless of their favourite food type, you’ll probably find something there to suit them. Delivery costs and timings vary, and they only ship within the UK at present. No one will guess that you are sending them a box of handmade Scotch eggs. Well, not unless they leave them somewhere warm for a week.
http://www.foodfullstop.com/2. For the luxury end of food, then there isn’t much London Fine Foods won’t deliver, and they deliver across the UK and EU. I have always wanted to present someone with a gift wrapped whole acorn fed Iberian ham. Can you imagine them guessing what it is? It’s great for really unusual ingredients, that would earn real gourmet food points, definitely worth a look. I’ve asked Santa to consider the White Truffle Oil, just in case I’m good between now and December.
http://www.efoodies.co.uk/3. I couldn’t do a list like this without including Lakeland. Stuff you never even thought about needing pops up here and you wonder how you ever did without it! It’s a great place for gadgets for gourmets as well as food treats. They will deliver outside of the UK, but you can’t order online with a card issued outside of the UK, you just have to ring them instead. I love the nostalgic look of the Tala Icing Syringe Set, imagine it could provide hours of fun. And mess.
http://www.lakeland.co.uk/4. One of my new favourites is the wonderfully named Pong. If you’ve got a cheese lover to buy for, this is a great site to get to know. You can choose your own selection, or buy one of their gift boxes, but the recipient won’t be disappointed. I love that they even have a selection of vegetarian cheeses, and goats cheese for those who are dairy intolerant. There’s also a concise but tasty selection of biscuits and chutneys you could add in too. Cheese can be shipped throughout the UK and the Republic.
http://www.pongcheese.co.uk/shop/5. I am somewhat addicted to cookbooks, as the weekly Friday Five will testify. And a foodie can always manage another cookbook. My advice is you’ll probably need to go a bit less mainstream than Nigella and co, and dig out the writers the chefs admire, or go obscure on a type of cooking you know your loved one is really into (I bought Dr T Extreme Barbecue, which is definitely inspiring for the barbecue kings out there!). Or try Alibris for out of print, first edition and just plain hard to track down titles. Go for something unusual and interesting sounding!
http://www.alibris.co.uk/6. Not just for the foodies around, but NotOnTheHighStreet is one of my favourite sites for bringing together such an amazing collection of talent from all over. My fave gift on here is adopting an olive tree with Nudo, and get some of their olive oil too, but then there’s also beautiful kitchenware, from modern to kitsch, and some of the best apron choices around.
http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/7. If you’ve got an avid cake baker to shop for, then I would highly recommend Splat Cooking, for every kind of tin, cookie cutter and embellishment they could ever, ever want, let alone need. Want a corset cookie cutter? They’ve got one. Designer gingerbread kits? Everything from chalets to rabbit hutches. And a proper cake stand for their creations? One tier or two?
http://www.splatcooking.net/thestore/store.php8. Lets go full on carnivore, but with a difference. The Real Boar Co., aside from a great name, will provide you with meat treats from boars reared in the UK and all produced here too. Salami sounds like a good buy, easy to wrap, and not prone to going off! There’s probably also some comedy value and there’ll be a few comments about big sausages on Christmas morning. If you’re buying for a very greedy meat eater, then the 4 pack may be just the thing.
http://www.therealboar.co.uk/charcuterie.html9. To spice things up, then, I highly recommend Spices of India for giving you all the ingredients you’ll need for fantastic curries. Not just the spices though, you can buy things like spiced masala tea, a Bombay sandwich spread which has to be worth a go and even a tandoor oven for the real authentic experience. Again, another present they are going to guess ahead of time!
http://www.spicesofindia.co.uk/10. Of course you can always buy them wine or champagne but for non drinkers, or those likely to go on the wagon in January, buy them fabulous tea from Lahloo Tea. No PG here, this is top quality tea with huge variety, including their own breakfast blend, Rose Congou and the delightfully named Dragon Pearls. One for the in-laws perhaps?
http://www.lahlootea.co.uk/So not so much a top ten as a starter for ten! Given all the issues around the post this year, if you’re going to shop online then start early for the non-perishable stuff. Either that or go back to the old fashioned thing of visiting shops, but make it the small, local ones who really, really need your business, this year more than any year.
