You’ll probably remember that back in the summer, The Organic Trade Board challenged us to take the #thriftyorganic challenge and switch our usual weekly shop for a 100% organic one, all for £83, the average grocery shopping budget for a UK family of four. We ate really well AND stayed on budget, and it made me really think about what we eat, and made me plan our meals properly as well. Eating organic on a budget really is possible!
As part of our #thriftyorganic challenge, I whipped this up for a quick dessert and served it hot with double cream. While it’s cooking, it makes the whole kitchen smell like Terry’s Chocolate Orange (our Christmas chocolate of choice) and could just as easily be made with clementines or tangerines too. I think it would make a lovely, Christmassy alternative for the Christmas pud haters on Christmas day too!
The best thing about winter when you work from home is being able to snuggle up in a lovely warm jumper, light a candle that smells of Christmas pudding, make yourself a hot chocolate with extra marshmallows and sit in front of the fire all day, with a warm whippet for company. Unfortunately the aforementioned whippet also needs to stretch her legs, so my day is broken up with a couple of frosty walks, which actually I don’t mind, as long as I’m well wrapped up.
I adore P & O Cruises (you may remember that my Samsung People of Note video was filmed on board P&O Britannia), so when I was invited to Hedonism Wines in twinkly London for an update on their news, and a wine tasting with Food Hero Olly Smith, I was really excited.
The Christmas shopping has begun in earnest, so I was delighted to discover a gorgeous new website that’s going to be verrrry handy indeed. Join up and tell Lyst your favourite shops and brands, and you can see them all in one place. Once you’re logged in, you choose which brands and shops you want to follow, save items to buy later and even flag items so Lyst will let you know when they’re on sale - genius! There are items from designer brands like JBrand, Gucci and Michael Kors and retailers like Zara, Selfridges, Asos, Topshop, John Lewis and The Outnet. The lovely people at Lyst asked me to choose a few of my faves, so I’ve chosen carefully, just in case Mr E is reading…
This is basically the same recipe as my heirloom personalised Christmas cake recipe, but without all the waffle. If you want to know more about ingredients or if you have any questions about lining tins or what booze to use, etc, do check it out. If, however, you want a nice, easy step by step recipe to follow, then read on.
I made my Christmas cake completely organic, as I’m taking part in the #thriftyorganic challenge this week, which is actually pretty easy to do. You can find organic port and brandy quite easily - and Steenbergs do all sorts of organic ingredients, including spices.
You will need:
800g dried fruit (sultanas, dried cranberries, apricots - whatever you like)
175ml good quality rapeseed oil or 200g butter
200g dark brown sugar
4 tbsp honey
120ml sherry, or brandy, or anything with some warm flavours. I used organic spiced rum.
120ml orange juice (or two fresh oranges, juiced)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
Grating of nutmeg
3 eggs
200g self raising flour (or 300g flour and omit ground almonds).
100g ground almonds
Firstly, preheat the oven to gas 2/150 C and assemble everything you need: crack the eggs and mix them and line the bottom of your cake tin/tins with parchment paper, and up the sides too. If you’re using larger pieces of dried fruit like apricots or figs, make sure you’ve chopped them into roughly sultana-sized pieces.
Next, put all the dried fruit into a big saucepan and add in the butter, sugar, honey, treacle, sherry, fruit juice and spice. Stir it all together and heat gently until the butter is melted and the sugar has dissolved.
Take it off the heat and leave it to cool. You don’t want to scramble the eggs when you add them in.
When cooled, stir in the eggs, flour and ground almonds. Pile into one large lined springform tin, or two smaller ones and bake for about an hour and a half for the two small ones, or up to two hours for the large.
Test by pushing a skewer into the centre of the cake. It should come out clean.
As it’s quite a dark mixture, it does darken up considerably when it’s cooked. I don’t worry about it because it’s being covered in marzipan and icing, but if you’re leaving it ‘naked’, you can always bake it covered in foil so it doesn’t darken too much.
Cover the cake(s) in foil while they cool to stop the tops going hard. Then, when completely cool, wrap in fresh parchment paper and then foil, and stash somewhere in a tin. Occasionally unwrap, stab with a cocktail stick and slosh with a couple of tablespoons of your chosen booze. Or just eat straight away.
Organic Christmas cake 2015
For tips on marzipan, icing and decorating, click here.
I don’t know about you, but I enjoy the build up to Christmas every much as the day itself. I’m one of those people who love having something to look forward to, so whether it’s the planning and packing leading up to a holiday, or the twinkly lights and lists and shopping on the run up to Christmas, I’m never happier.
Sundays for me are all about cooking. It’s my relaxation time and I look forward to it all week: radio on, cup of tea (or several) and a spot of baking is just the best way to spend Sunday morning. Sometimes it’s cookies or brownies, or a dessert for Sunday dinner, but recently I’ve been baking a lot of bread and, although there have been a few disasters, I’m pretty sure that this one is just about perfect.
If you’re heading off on a winter holiday (lucky you!), it can often be difficult to track down everything you need. Bizarrely, swimwear only seems to be in the shops around May and then if you don’t grab the nice stuff it’s all gone again by summer, so if you’re going in November you’ve got no chance! Happily, the interwebs are here to soothe your woes, and if you hunt around you can get a bargain too!
Years and years ago, Allan Pickett taught me to fillet a fish. My knife skills are appalling (think Nigella but with considerably less dexterity) and he was very sweet and patient. It was at a special event at Billingsgate for Seafish, and by the end of it, I remember feeling quite clever as we sat down to eat fish we’d prepared ourselves. I still buy the odd whole fish now and give it a go, just to keep my hand in. At the time, Allan was head chef at Plateau in Canada Place, but we’ve kept in touch and I’ve known for a while that he’s been planning to open his own restaurant.
So you know the drill by now: the birthday person gets to choose their birthday cake of choice and I promise to make it (or have a pretty good go - I have been known to fail). This birthday, Mr E requested, and I quote ‘a lemon drizzle cake - like the muffin in Costa that has the lovely lemony bit in the middle’. Hmmm. I’m okay with the lemon drizzle, but the lemon curd gooey centre? Still I love a challenge. Here’s how I got on.
I think I’ve talked before about the Bel Group Advisory Board. You know Bel, right? They make great cheese, like Mini Babybel and Boursin and they’re a lovely and very well meaning company. They get together every so often to have this meeting and talk about health issues surrounding their products. My role is really to represent the consumer, and let them know what parents are talking and thinking about when it comes to food (this time it was the worrying trend of the ‘wellbeing expert’, and our worries over cutting down on the amount of sugar we consume).
I promised you a while ago that I’d give you an update on my favourite lentil curry recipe. This is our absolute fave - a really simple, healthy one pot dinner. I’m always messing with it - adding leftover roast chicken, or a tin of chickpeas, or some veg that’s a bit past its best: sweet potato, cauliflower, etc. I’ve always listed the ingredients separately before, but now I actually make the spice mix up in bigger quantities and it’s much easier to spoon into the curry.
Living in the country, I see horse riders all the time, and I’m often struck by how equestrian style is actually quite a good look: think those tall, sturdy but stylish riding boots, warm polo necks and fitted jackets. The thing with equestrian gear is that it’s all quite sleek (I guess you can’t have your clothing flapping around you when you’re riding a horse?) so it tends to be well fitted and quite flattering, while still .
Last week, I was invited to London to join a few fellow foodies at an event hosted by lovely actor/food writer Fay Ripley and Simply Beef & Lamb. You might have seen adverts on the TV recently about midweek mini roasts, and Fay brought us all together to challenge us to create a fast mini roast that we would serve to our families.
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that I’ve been in Tuscany recently. I’ve been on a guided wine tour with Away with Wine, exploring Montalcino in Italy, and discovering more about its famous wine, Brunello. A little background first then: owner Sorcha Holloway first visited Montalcino about eight years ago with her husband Tim, and visited a gorgeous winery called Il Poggio Antico. The visit really started their love affair with Italian wine, and, wanting to share her discovery, Sorcha set up Away with Wine to provide guided wine tours to this, and many other famous wine producing areas.
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