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Blogmas Day Twelve: 10 Things I Love About Christmas

honeyanddough

December 12, 2015

One: Family. I count myself lucky every day that my family are so incredible rad. We don’t live in each other’s pockets but I know full well that if I needed one of them, they would be there. I love Christmas Day with them; it reminds me how chill and individual each one of them are.

Two: Mince pie, cheese and champagne breakfasts. They are a thing. And you should have one. Or two. Lies actually, you need at least three.

Three: Those cosy cups of coffee you have with your best friend in between Christmas and New Year.

Four: That one practical gift that you screw your nose up at that becomes an integral part of your daily/weekly routine. I don’t need a shower radio. But I’d use the hell out of it. Thank you.

Five: One of my cat’s look of sheer happiness when the tree goes up. It’s her favourite thing. Mainly the hiding underneath it and taking swipes at passing ankles.

Six: Finding the Christmas Monkey for the tree. Long story short: we couldn’t afford a tree topper when we first lived together. So we used a cuddly toy monkey. Ten christmases on and a marked increase in our disposable income and I don’t have the heart to replace him. It wouldn’t be Christmas without him.

Seven: Cinnamon/mulled wine anything and everything.

Eight: Hastily refreshing your makeup and hair do at your desk for after work christmas meet ups with friends.

Nine: Leftovers. I’m talking epic sandwiches and mountains of bubble and squeak. The latter must have an egg on it. It is the law.

Ten: Christmas Eve gin and tonics.

Blogmas Day Eleven: Christmas Sausage Rolls

honeyanddough

1 comment

December 11, 2015

When I was younger, Christmas Day had a set routine. It wasn’t timed to military precision, it just flowed. We weren’t allowed up before 7am. We’d all open our stockings only may parents bed (Note: impressive as I have three siblings). Then Mum would cook the world’s largest breakfast. Then presents after breakfast. Then Christmas dinner. Then in the afternoon she would fill our dining table with a buffet that could feed at least 87,000 people. She’d cook whole hams, there would be cold cuts, all the accompanying pickles, hot bread rolls, crudites and dips, literally everything. I don’t quite know how she does it. I’m 90% convinced that she is in fact a wizard.

I do not possess the same skills. I am rubbish at buffet preparation. We have people over this Christmas Day and I think all I’m going to manage to stretch to is a couple of sheets of these sausage rolls, enough champagne to sink the navy and some horrible rounds of Cards Against Humanity. Actually, that sounds like a good party…

We’re looking at sausage rolls, spiced with all-spice and clementine zest, little tart bursting cranberries, wrapped up snug in a puff pastry duvet.

Ingredients
600gr minced pork (20% fat)
2 garlic cloves, finely grated
1/2 small white onion, grated
1 small red apple, grated
1/4 tsp ground all-spice
1/2 tsp dried sage
1/4 tsp black pepper
2tsp sea salt
60gr cranberries, sliced
Zest of 1 clementine
1 x 375r pack read rolled puff pastry
1 egg, beaten (for glazing)

Method
1, Preheat your oven to 180 o/c and line a baking sheet with baking paper.
2, Add the pork, garlic, onion, apple, the all-spice, sage, pepper and salt into a large mixing bowl and mix well – best way to do this is with your hands. Add in the cranberries and clementine zest and mix this in well too. (At this point, I fry off a small lump of the filling to check for seasoning)
3, Cut the pre-rolled puff pasty horizontally so you have two long strips and halve the pork mixture between the two strips and evenly lay it down the centre. Fold over one side of the pastry, egg wash the other side of the pastry and fold over the other side. It should overlap. Carefully roll it over so the seam is on the bottom. You should be left with two long sausage rolls.

4, Using a sharp knife, cut the long sausage roll into 4-5cm slices and space them apart onto your baking sheet. Egg wash wash one.
5, Bake for 20 to 25minutes or until the pastry is golden and the pork filling is completely cooked through. As we’re not using sausage meat, you are going to get a little bit of leakage. I drained mine off half way through or else the bottoms get slightly soggy.

Blogmas Day Nine: Christmas Hot Sauce

honeyanddough

1 comment

December 9, 2015

2015 was the year of the hot sauce for me. From my first foray, into subsequent batches to keep my blood hot sauce level at a healthy level, of course it was going to get a Christmas makeover.

Ingredients
200gr chillies
2 red peppers
3 cloves of garlic
100gr fresh cranberries
150ml water
3tbsp honey
1/2tbsp table salt
60ml white wine vinegar
Super finely grated zest of one clementine
1/4 tsp all spice

Method

1, Chop off the stems of the chillis and roughly chop, seeds and all. De-stem and de-seed the red peppers, roughly chop these too. Remove the skins of the garlic cloves. Stick the whole lot, along with the cranberries, in a blender with the water, honey and salt and blitz until you have a pulpy mash.

2, Transfer this into a clean mason jar or a glass bowl and cover loosely with clingfilm. This needs to now ferment.

3, It needs a minimum of three days. Stir it daily and check on process. It needs to be a bit bubbly. There is a video on my instagram page if you’re unsure. This boils down to how hot your kitchen is. When I was hot sauce testing in July, it was fermenting really quickly and ready after two to three days. In November, I had to wait four to five days.

4, After four days, mine was bubbling away and had that telltale hot sauce smell.

5, Transfer back into your blender, add in the vinegar and blitz until you can get this as smooth as possible. Work this through a fine sieve to give you a smooth sauce.

6, Stick this into a small saucepan and bring to a really gentle simmer. Reduce the sauce down to your desired consistency. I ended up with about 300ml. Stir through the clementine zest and all spice whilst the sauce is still piping hot.

7, Check for seasoning and pour the hot hot sauce into sterilised preserving jars or bottles. This should keep for three months unopened, or four weeks opened. Keep in the fridge once opened. Put on all the leftovers.

Blogmas Day Eight: Reindeer Shortbread

honeyanddough

4 comments

December 8, 2015

Leaving an old blog behind was hard. I kind of grew out of it but there was still some solid content on there. I like to refresh some of it here every now and then. Perfect for blogmas: Cinnamon Reindeer Shortbread Biscuits.

I found this brilliant piping idea on Pinterest

Ingredients
125gr butter
65gr caster sugar
190gr plain flour, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Small pinch of cinnamon
Red and black writing icing tubes

Method
1, Make the shortbread dough first by creaming the butter and sugar together. Beat in the vanilla extract and cinnamon. It is up to you how much cinnamon you put in these as it depends on preference and also what type of cinnamon you have, some can be quite bitter. A little does go a long way.
2, Add in the flour and bring it together to form a ball of dough. You might need a couple of extra tablespoons of flour.
3, Wrap this in clingfilm and pop in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
4, When you’re ready to bake, line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper and preheat your oven to 180o/c.
5, Roll out the dough until it is roughly half a cm a thick and cut out rounds. It doesn’t matter how big or small you make these. I managed to make around 16.
6, Place them onto your baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes or until just starting to turn golden brown. They will be soft when you take them out of the over but will firm up when cooling so leave them to cool on the baking sheet or slide the cookies on the greaseproof paper off the baking sheet and onto a heatproof surface.
7, When they are completely cold, ice them by adding a large dot of red, and then piping eyes and antlers in black. Leave to set before storing them in an airtight container.