It’s beginning to look a lot like Kitschmas
So being a bit of an Ebay-addicted household, lovely Ciaran the postie is well used to being mugged at the door of English Towers by eager parcel recipients. Friday was no exception, then, when my copy of Merry Kitschmas, The Ultimate Holiday Handbook by Michael D Conway finally arrived. I’ve been looking for it for ages after glimpsing it on the shelf behind someone on some tv programme or other (it might even have been a Nigella programme – I can’t remember now).
This treasure trove of the cheap and tacky is exactly what Christmas should be about. I mean, how did people survive Christmas before Michael Conway taught them how to make a Frosty the Chocoholic Snowman cocktail (above left) or a Santa’s Little Helper (above right). The one in the middle, in case you’re interested, is a Chocolate Candy Cane (1 part grenadine, one part peppermint vodka and one part Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur – garnished with a chocolate-dipped candy cane).
And for your festive food, how about a Weener Tree? It’s perfect for your Kitschmas cocktail party. Or why not decorate the table with an enormous styrofoam snowman (completely covered in white mini marshmallows) and on Christmas night, hang the Manipulative Parent’s Reversible Stocking on the mantelpiece: on one side it says ‘nice’ and on the other it says ‘naughty’. Threaten to hang it ‘naughty’ side out unless they do everything you say this Christmas.
And let’s face it: any recipe that starts with ’3 x 3oz boxes sparkling white grape-flavoured gelatin’ gets my vote. So come on, spray that fake aerosol snow on your windows, crank up the wattage on the flashing Rudolph on your front lawn and be lavish with the tinsel. Celebrate your inner trailer trash. What? It’s Christmas.
Counting my blessings
So I spoke to me Me Ma yesterday. I’m sure she won’t mind me telling you that she’s had a bit of a rough time recently. She’s just retired, too, and that’s a big life change when you’ve worked at the same place donkey’s years; your colleagues become your friends, and suddenly not seeing them every day is a pretty big deal. ‘Still’, she said, ‘when I get a bit down, I remind myself to count my blessings: I have my health and strength, and there are plenty of people worse off than me’.
Too right, said I. We had a chat with the fellas about Christmas: you don’t want to terrify the little sods, but we tried to explain how the credit crunch affected everyone, even Santa, and that maybe Christmas would be a little smaller this year. Still, they’re going to have a house filled with fun and laughter for Christmas, stuffed with Uncles, Auntie L, their cousins and their Grandma, which will definitely make up for it. I told me Ma about Lou and Little C. They came to dinner on Sunday evening as D was out with Hubby. When I offered her sprouts, Lou said ‘erm, can I just have one?’ (I’m sure she hates them, but didn’t want to be rude). After dinner, the boys went off to play Xbox or PS3 or whatever, and Lou and I sat and watched MTV and talked about phones (she wants a pink one for Christmas) and shopping and stuff. She told me that they’d got all their Christmas decorations out, and I was struck by how hard it must be for them: unpacking everything that their Mum had packed away last year. Mr and Mrs Lovely are fantastic and do so much for D and the kids, but blimey it can’t be easy. Don’t get me wrong: they’re kids and they’re not perfect, but they’re always upbeat and they’re absolutely no trouble to look after. Their Mum would be so proud of them.
So like my Ma, I’m counting my blessings today. My kitchen is warm and fuggy with the delicious smell of the Christmas cake that is cooking in the oven, I’m filling the freezer in anticipation of my family arriving and I’ve just made a fire, which will be crackling away nicely by the time #1 gets home (#2 is in bed with a cold – don’t worry, he’s happily watching Monty Python’s Holy Grail on his PSP).
And next time I hear someone moaning, I shall wish that like the Ghost of Christmas Present, I could transport them to the window of the house next door, where two little ones are preparing for their first Christmas without their Mum.
Let it snow and Limoncello (ooh that rhymes)
Oh the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we’ve no place to go,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
So okay, I kind of promised myself that I wouldn’t do anything vaguely Christmassy (apart from talk about shopping, natch) until 1st December, but I’m thinking that this beautiful e-snow (thanks a-plenty to our resident internerd, Grandad!) is more wintery than actually Christmassy, so it’s okay.
Just a heads-up, this week at English Towers we will be mostly making… Limoncello! (takes a month to get gorgeous, so we need to get going) and biscotti (which don’t need to be made in advance, but I want to fiddle with the recipe so it’s perfect to serve with the Limoncello at Christmas). So get thee to SuperValu (or wherever) and pick up 6 of the biggest, fattest, glossiest lemons and a 70cl bottle of any-old-brand vodka in anticipation. Oh and if you happen upon some kind of really decorative bottle, maybe with one of those Grolsch-type swing-top corks, so much the better. (See what I did there? Drawing you in with a tantalising little snippet of things to come). It’ll be worth it, I promise.
30 days to go, people!!
The Friday Photo: it’s that time again! (quick Bert, hide)
Okay, so my camera’s knackered and anyway, I’m a busy little recipe testing beaver this week, but I couldn’t resist giving you this little ‘blast from the past’ from last year when we plugged Bert into the mains. Greyhounds, eh? Entertaining, warm on a cold winter’s evening and always up for some ritual humiliation. Don’t ye just love them?
Warning: this post contains the C word
Oh come on, it’s what, the 21st October? That’s not bad for me – I usually start thinking about Christmas in September. I know, I’m sorry. I just can’t help it. Now I’m not saying I’m buying presents, or digging out the decorations or anything, just that I enjoy the thinking and the planning and the list-making almost as much as the main event. And this year, the whole bloody great clan of Englishes are coming over: me Ma, Sensible Uncle I, Mrs Sensible and the Fleas, and even Mad Uncle Ali, which means a big, huge, happy house party to look forward to and -even better – to cater for.
And the postie came yesterday with my new book:
Boozy Ginger Biscuit Chocolate Log
Oh, and me and me Mam were reminiscing about this little beauty. It was a Christmas tradition in our house and it may sound weird but it tastes bloody fab.
1 packet ginger biscuits
Sherry or orange juice (ooh, or Morgan’s Spiced Rum would be great)
Double Cream, whipped
Dark chocolate
So take each biscuit individually and then dunk it in the sherry (or orange juice if you’ve got kids eating this and you don’t want them staggering around telling dirty jokes). Sandwich them all together into a long roll (don’t dunk too many at a time, you’ll get mush) with a splodge of cream. Then cover the whole thing in the whipped cream and then completely cover in shaved (or grated) dark chocolate. It looks very chocolate-log-like and festive. Stuff a bit of holly on top and Bob’s your Auntie. Oh and leave it overnight in the fridge to get even more soft and delicious. Yum.
Snowball Nostalgia
So J’s on nights at the moment. We love this as it gives us the opportunity to have random nocturnal chats about all sorts of things while she’s on her break in the bowels of wherever it is she works (she does something incredibly clever and technical which I don’t honestly understand). Hubby came in last night very late to find us gabbing away about the kitsch retro food of Fanny Cradock. Remember her?
This brought me neatly along to the subject of Boxing Day (St Stephen’s Day over here) at Grandma Maudie and Grandad Sam’s house, when four hundred or so of our closest family members squished together in Grandma’s ‘parlour’ to be treated to a Boxing Day feast of epic proportions. I was one of the youngest and therefore was allowed to sit in front of the evil electric fire, which would strip the skin off a bare young calf in a matter of seconds, but she had this fab furry rug, so it was plum position, third degree burns or no. Grandad Sam would have been put to work peeling several hundredweight of new potatoes, ready to be turned into potato salad (with salad cream, not mayo – and covered in snipped chives). When not rushing up and down getting drinks, taking coats, giving cuddles, mending broken toys, playing snap, or any other of millions of uses that every good Grandad has, he used to have a swift swig of whisky in a very comical Monty Python type way while Grandma was in the kitchen, giving us a conspiratorial wink as he hid the bottle again. We laughed like drains.
The grand opening of this gargantuan spread would always be prawn cocktails: forever an eye-watering shade of Barbie pink (J fears that the dreaded crushed beetle may have come into play here) with added chopped tomato on a bed of lettuce, served in Grandma’s best posh glass bowls. I hate prawns but somehow could woof down several of these delights. Other wonders on the heaving table would be sausage rolls, glistening slices of ham, pickled onions, pickled walnuts (ew), Piccalilli (double ew), thinly sliced circles of cucumber (no skin: Grandma Maudie would rather have impaled herself on a sharp implement than served cucumber with skin on), and half of a mystery fruit (melon?) covered in foil and then randomly stabbed with cocktail sticks containing tiny sausages, squares of cheese and baby silverskin onions, or cheese and pineapple, or cheese and cheese. All were the height of yumminess. I also loved the hard-boiled eggs which she used to halve, remove the yolk, mix with salad cream and pipe back into the whites. Fantastic. Ooh and what about the celery sticks cut into 2 inch lengths and piped with cream cheese before being sprinkled with something pink (paprika??). I must talk to me Mam about this because she’s bound to remember loads of other bits.
Puddings were wobbly jellies containing floating fruit pieces, (and squirty cream!!) and, oh…the rabbit mould containing Crème Caramel which was turned out with a flourish to provide a glistening brown edible bunny. Wrong on so many different levels, but oddly nice. There were cakes and chocolate swiss rolls and ice cream floaters, meringue nests filled with cream and topped with enough (tinned) fruit to make Carmen Miranda feel slightly bare, and then while we could still just about waddle to the kitchen, we’d be allowed to make Snowballs.
I’m misty eyed and nostalgic about Snowballs. So much so that Hubby bought me a bottle of Advocaat on our recent trip to the North and I’m going to get the kids to make them. Snowballs, if you didn’t know, are in my family the only form of alcohol widely accepted to contain no actual alcohol and therefore permissible for small children on that one night of the year. They’re actually very simple (slosh some Advocaat in a glass, top up with lemonade), but with Grandma Maudie at the helm they took several wonderful hours of careful mixing and blending with her handheld plastic whisk to get just the right level of frothy topping, then to choose the perfect complementary colour of plastic cocktail stick, and the roundest, pinkest cocktail cherry to nestle in the top. No wonder I have a serious cocktail addiction. Ahhh, all our Christmas yesterdays, eh?
Pastry Cakey Christmas Mince Pies
You know when you were little and your Mum used to make stuff that you liked so much it stuck in your memory? With me Mam, it was Sunday lunch – well, not so much the actual lunch as the pudding, which could be proper steamed treacle or jam sponge, or a yummy rice pudding that she used to bake slowly in the oven…mmmmm.
Anyhoo, digressing. Apparently when Hubby was little, his Ma used to make these things that they called pastry-jammy-cakey-things (I know, imaginative title). These were basically jam tarts with a sponge top. Hubby and I were chatting last night over a cup of tea (oh yes, after the spectacular failure of the every other day AFD, alcohol has been banned on week nights – it’s nearly killing us) about such things and Hubby came up with a spectacular idea – ‘ooh, I know’, he said ‘what about pastry-jammy-cakey-mince pies?’
So I had a fiddle, and here they are. Beware, they are severely moreish.
Pastry Mincey Cakey Pie Things
For the pastry:
9 oz plain flour
5 oz cold butter, cubed
3 oz caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
First, mix the flour, butter and caster sugar in a food processor, slowly adding the egg until it comes together (actually, this is a total lie – I just bung it all in, then add the whole egg and hope for the best). Or to do it the old fashioned way, rub the butter in to the flour, add the sugar and bring together with the egg. Squish your pastry into a flat lump and cool in the fridge for half an hour (or however long – it’ll keep in there).
Then, when you’re ready, take half the pastry (save half for another day), roll out quite thinly (pound coin width isn’t it?) and cut with a cutter into discs to match your muffin tin (best with a nice deep one). Line each little hole with a disc of pastry and blind bake them in a 200 degree oven for about 5 minutes. You can do all that baking bean stuff but frankly I can’t be arsed. Then take them out and let them cool while you whip up a boring old cake mix:
4 oz butter
4 oz caster sugar
4 oz self raising flour
2 eggs
Cream the butter and the sugar, then add the eggs one at a time and finally the flour until you have a nice smooth mixture.
Take about half a jar of mincemeat and mix with a splosh of Morgan’s Spiced Rum (optional, but fabulous). Dollop a teaspoonful of mincemeat into each little pastry case and cover with a tablespoon of cake mix. Back into the oven for about 12 – 15 minutes until risen and golden (watch carefully for the last few minutes) and there you go. They’re ridiculously difficult to get out of the tin, but they taste divine so who cares?
As to the name, well, they can’t be pastry-jammy-cakey-things any more as they contain no jam, but pastry-mincey-cakey-things doesn’t sound right. So how about Christmas Mince Pie Cakes? Ooh, or how about just Christmas Pies? Pah, whatever.
