Meal planning Monday

Back and planning again - life here is altogether more hectic than we'd like; between work, decorating the new house, Guiding, and spending time together - I'm not sure where the time to eat or sleep has gone. All of that combined with an untimely dose of Labrynthitis have meant that meal planning has gone a bit awry. I'm actually sat down this morning having a bit of a rest in advance of a baking marathon and a bit of spray painting of the radiator.

We've been lucky enough to have some much needed and appreciated help with the decorating this weekend - and baking seems to be payment enough for Mark's colleagues, so we have Welsh cakes on the menu this week.

Breakfasts are porridge and fruit for me. I don't know about you, but I struggle much more with my 5 a day in the wintertime so adding dried or fresh fruit to my morning porridge is a great way to sneak an extra couple of portions in.

Lunches this week are some of the rice I froze from my fridge bottom bonanza the other week. Wonderfully spicy to blow those wintery cobwebs right away.

Dinners: tonight I have dibs on the telly in order to watch the new Doctor Who as well as Strictly and am accompanying that with a sausage and spaghetti squash bake. The spaghetti squash is a new endeavour for me, so I think I'll try with plenty of time, just in case it's troublesome.

Sunday: Leftovers from Saturday night

Monday -   I'm going to pop a chicken, butternut squash and barley casserole in the slow cooker.

Tuesday - Leftovers (can you see a pattern?)

Wednesday - last week's risotto leftovers from the freezer

Thursday - Baked potatoes with beans and cheese. These are ideal for Thursday nights as I can pop them in the oven before Brownies and they're ready to go afterwards.

Friday - Friday always feels such a long way away at this point, but we'll either be at home and I think if so it's be baked salmon and samphire for me, with chicken and veg for the non fish eater.

Next weekend we're at M's parents for their birthday celebrations (and a break from decorating) so no cooking on the agenda for me.

Baking this week is finally festive - It's stir up Sunday tomorrow so pudding is on the agenda, but I'm going to make the Christmas cake this afternoon. A lovely festive smelling house is on the agenda - which for me marks the gateway to the Christmas season and celebrations.

Christmas part 2: More pudding

The last post I wrote had the Asda & Leith's recipe for their Extra Special Christmas pudding. This post is Mark's mums recipe. Which is just as good. We made it together last year - which was actually when I wrote and scheduled this post initially. However, technology and I having the somewhat strained relationship that we do, it vanished. Yes, vanished. From my scheduler. And then in August it turned up again. No, I have no idea either. 

So Christmas pudding - actually there's a lot of similarity between this and the Asda recipe, this one is done in old money, and has a shorter initial steam. But this post is all about the pictures

 Christmas Pudding

4oz flour
2oz breadcrumbs
1tsp sweet mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
4oz suet
4ox brown sugar
4oz grated apple
1 small grated carrot
4oz cherries
2 eggs
4ox currants
4oz sultanas
8oz raisins
2oz of prunes or dates
4oz ground almonds
Grated zest half lemon
Grated zest half orange
Juice half lemon
1tbsp golden syrup
1tbsp black treackle
1/4 pint brandy

Cream together the butter and sugar, add the egg and syrup & treacle
Fold in the flour, spices, suet, apple, carrot and breadcrumbs
Add the fruit, ground almonds and brandy
Leave to stand overnight

In the morning:

Stir - wishing hard
Spoon the mixture into greased 1 pint pudding basins
Cover the top with a layer of greaseproof paper
Top that with a flour and water lid
Cover with a double layer of foil, and a layer of greaseproof paper that you've greased. 
Pleat these together and tie around the pudding with string

Steam in a large pan (put the basin on an upturned saucer) for 6-8 hours - top up the water as necessary

Remove the pudding and leave to cool
Remove the wet covers and re-cover with new, dry covers. 

Store in a cool dry place
Re-steam for 2-3 hours on Christmas morning

Christmas post the first: Stir up Sunday

The last Sunday before Advent is Stir up Sunday. The traditional day to make your Christmas Pudding. This year (for the first time ever, possibly) I was ahead of the game and on Tuesday, instead of Guides found myself once again at Leith's with some friends, stirring up a pudding.

There are lots of traditions around Stir up Sunday - my favourite is that each member of the family should give the pudding a stir and make a wish for the year ahead as they do so.  On telling this to our group at Leith's we made sure everyone made their wish!

Other traditions include:

• Stirring the pudding from East to West, to remember the journey of the three Wise men on their way to visit the baby Jesus. I'm a bad Guider - I would so need a compass to be able to do that!
• A pudding should be made with 13 ingredients to represent Jesus and his 12 disciples
• Traditionally there should be a thimble (for luck) a ring (for marriage) and a coin (for good fortune) hidden in the pudding. What turns up in your portion is your fortune for the year to come. Heaven only knows what Food Hygiene would make of that!
• Early Christmas puddings did contain meat (as did early mincemeat) The puddings we recognise today was introduced by Prince Albert to Queen Victoria.

A Christmas pudding is made as it were, in three stages:

1. Making the pudding mixture and putting it in the pudding basin
2. Steaming the pudding
3. Storing it - for up to 2 years to mature in flavour

We had a taste test of three puddings at Leith's, one was a newly made and steamed pudding, another 6 months old and the third 18 months old. Many of us liked the newer pudding, I wasn't too keen on the 6 months old pudding, but the one that was 18 months old tasted as if it had been steeped in a beautiful bourbon (Knob creek is my bottle of choice. Are you reading this Louise?)

Anyway, so... onto the recipe - the one we used is the one that Asda have used for their Extra Special puddings 

• Makes one pudding for a two pint pudding basin

85g raisins

55 currants

100g sultanas

40g chopped mixed peel (I would usually leave this out and substitute glace cherries)

110g mixed dried apricots and figs, chopped

145ml brown ale

1 tablespoon run

Grated zest & juice of half an orange

Grated zest & juice of half a lemon

55g prunes - soaked overnight in cold tea, then drained and chopped 

1/2 dessert apple - grated

Soak all the fruit (except the prunes) overnight in the beer, rum, orange juice and lemon juice. In the morning add the drained, chopped prunes

Grate the apple into this mixture

110g softened butter

170g soft, dark brown sugar

1 tblsp treacle (dip your spoon in boiling water to make adding this easier)

1.5 eggs (nope, me neither)

55g self raising flour, sifted

1/2 tsp ground mixed spice (I normally call this cake spice I think)

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Pinch freshly grated nutmeg

Pinch ground ginger

Pinch salt

110g breadcrumbs

30g toasted hazelnuts, toasted (again, I would usually substitute more glace cherries for this)

Beat together the butter and sugar, when light add the orange and lemon zest and the treacle

Whisk the eggs together and gradually add them to the mixture, beating well after each addition. It's a fairly stable mixture so I didn't add flour with each bit of egg

Fold in the flour, spices, salt and breadcrumbs

Stir in the nuts and dried fruit mixture, plus any of the soaking liquor

Spoon the mixture into a greased 2 pint pudding basin

Cover with two layers of pleated greaseproof paper, and one piece of pleated kitchen foil

Tie up with string (no knots required. Yes, I was sad)

When ready to cook, steam for 10-12 hours. Put a large saucepan (I would need to use my stockpot) on to boil and put an upside down saucer on the bottom. Using the string handle, lower the pudding into the boiling water. The water needs to come at least half the way up the basin. 

Cover the pan, and leave, topping up the water as necessary (use water from the kettle to top up)

Leave the pudding to cool, and re-cover it. You can now store it for up to 2 years, in a cool dark place.

When you're ready to serve, steam for 2-3 hours and serve with custard. Other toppings are available, but I'm afraid they're wrong. 

And there you have it - Christmas pudding, a la Leith's and Asda. We had such fun - and there's another two posts to come - one of which is an activity plan! I'm giving in to Christmas - let the festivities commence! 

A huge thank you to Asda and Leith's for hosting our event this week, I had so much fun, and really enjoyed not just making the puddings, but also meeting some new people, catching up with friends and having my first mug (or two) of mulled wine.