More Christmas Thrift and Gingerbread

This year I am trying to do a completely home made Christmas, have you ever tried that?! I've never tried it before but i thought it would be fun...plus it must save money...surely?! i've knitted some decorations and this week i've been baking....my Christmas pudding.

I've never made our Christmas pudding before, but this year our local church was doing a Christmas pud making evening. It was great fun. All we had to take was a bowl, a spoon and a £5 note.

We went from table to table with our recipe, adding cups of this and that, a bit of booze, some chopping and grating, and then we got a lovely bag with a tag on to take it home in. Met some lovely people too :o)

It was easier than i thought. We even have the recipe to use again next year. Yesterday I steamed it for 8 hrs which was easier than i thought too...the only difficult thing will be to not eat it before Christmas!! hee hee! It smells delicious.

Check out your local church/ scout group/W.I. /village group for a "stir up" evening, or make a "stir up" group with your neighbours.

 While the pud was steaming away I thought I'd make our ginger bread for this year. In our house we have a tradition of decorating gingerbread on Christmas eve. Its great fun and keeps the kids distracted from the coming excitement. Usually we buy our ginger bread, but i'm sure home made will be more yummy.

 Munchkin no. 2 had great fun helping me out, and got rewarded with one of these for her efforts!

We used this recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/gingerbread_men_99096. It made 35 men.

The rest of them are in the freezer waiting to be decorated with icing and sweets! Oh i LOVE this time of year!

On another note, presents wise, this year I am trying NOT to buy things from big on line super chains. Have you ever tried that?

In an effort to support our local shops and retailers I have bought everything locally. It has taken me more time, but it has actually been more fun. I've chosen a different couple of shops each week and bought from them. I've been to 6 or 7 shops so far and come back with some lovely things i wouldn't have otherwise noticed by trawling the internet in the middle of the night. Also, i was surprised to find i got things cheaper in the shops than on line...sometimes half the price. Something i was not expecting.

More Christmas updates soon. I'm linking up with Gina at Cold Tea:  http://www.coldteaandsmellynappies.co.uk/ with this post.

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apple day jam scrapbooking

Good morning all, and its half term , yippee! Phew. We have survived our first ever half term at big school. I don't know who is more tired, me or the kids lol! Hopefully lots of fun times this week to photo and scrapbook.

Here is my latest layout. Its of my first ever jam making success! My first attempt at jam making, blackberry jam, solidified over night :o(. However, this apple day jam is still going strong and tasting yummy. Hooray! Made with apples fresh from a friends allotment.

Materials:

apple cider papers : Bo Bunny  2012

wooden tree : Hobby Craft

buttons

gems

punched leaves

borders and phrases: Bo Bunny

alphabets: Crate Paper and We R Memory Keepers

oven glove brads

Ranger pearls

Tim Holtz distress ink

Tools:

leaf punch

Techniques:

inking

tearing

punching

ranger pearls

I was inspired by the scrap365 sketch challenge :http://sketchbook365.blogspot.co.uk/ and have entered it into the competition.

I hope you like it

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Apple Day

Hello!

So who celebrated Apple Day this Year then? Apple day is traditionally on October 21st. The first one being held in 1990 in Covent Garden, London.

We have done various things including National Trust events and Coast &Country side events which have included cider tasting, juice making, apple throwing games, apple story telling...etc but this year we decided to have our own apple weekend at home :o)

We have 2 apple trees in the garden but they are still too young to produce much fruit, (only 4 yrs old), but a friend had given me 3lb of cooking apples from her allotment so I thought i'd make some jams! You can see the results above. This is the first success I have had with jam (mine tend to solidify overnight) . Hurrah! I have even given one to a friend, so we shall see what the verdict is. 

We also had some old apples left in the fruit bowl so we did some apple painting and printing with them. The kids had great fun.

We combined our apple day/weekend with some conker and leaf hunting. We collected 123 conkers, that was good counting practice for the kids! We made leaf rubbings, conker animals, conker collages, conker rolling with paint and some other ideas from pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/pieceoflittleme/conkers/.

I love taking the kids outside for the weekends and helping them to have fun in nature. I think too many young kids seem to spend time indoors on computers or in front of the TV.

What did you do for apple day?

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River Cottage day

With the starting of the new River Cottage series last night (wasn't it great), I thought I'd write about the day I had at River Cottage HQ last summer (Aug 2013)!

As a wedding anniversary present my husband and I went. It was also a welcome day out without the kids for the 1st time in 4 years, yes, FOUR years!! I love River Cottage and what it stands for too, and I've watched all the series, so where better to do a cookery course?! Plus, being a mum, I'm always wanting to feed my munchkins the best food and embed in them a love of cooking. I thought this would inspire and equip me a little better.

So the day of the cookery course arrives and I think "are the kids going to be good", "did I pack enough lunch for them", "are we leaving home early enough", "will it be worth the money", "will it be fun too", "what should I wear"?????...

Well, yes yes yes. We had a fabulous day with like minded people :o). After our arrival by tractor, down the hill from the car park, and after our welcoming snack awaiting us of scrambled egg on toast with a hot cuppa, we cooked four dishes.

Our Chef for the day was Andy, and working with him was Chef Leon. They were excellent teachers, they didn't talk too fast , they were very encouraging and made the day informative and interesting, as well as fun. The first meal we made was a "snack" of pigeon on polenta. This was delicious, even if I did make it my self , and we even had fresh flowers on our tables to add to the experience! I've not eaten pigeon before. It gave my husband and I the confidence to try cooking it at home.

We then made a starter of home-made bread, minestrone soup with home-made pasta, fresh veggies picked from the River Cottage garden. We followed this up with mackerel and greens, and then finished with blackcurrant ripple ice cream, yum!

I've never made from scratch before. it was surprisingly easy and really good fun. we were allowed our own artistic license to design our pasta shapes. ..I think I still need a little practice as bows and twists were rather chunky!! still tasted great though!

The mackerel came as a whole fish we needed to fillet. I've never really realised what a beautiful looking fish it is until we saw 20 of them ready to be used, all glistening and shining. Andy showed us how to go about the filleting and advised us on freshness of fish, knives, sharpening and obviously kitchen safety. It was a very open atmosphere where you could ask questions.

The desert was fun to make. We all made our own custards , joined forces and created one big batch of ice cream using River Cottage blackcurrants. The ice cream was DIVINE! The best I have ever tasted, so smooth , creamy and fruity.

We had such a fun time, cooked loads, ate loads and made nice friends. We even got a chance to look around the River Cottage site, meet the chickens, and go inside the house/veg garden for ourselves :o).

I would definitely do another course there. In fact whilst we were there there was a meat curing course too, that smelt and looked amazing, so I might have a go at that at our next big anniversary!! I am cooking more with the kids and being more adventurous in my own cooking now, also going for fresh and made from scratch more often as it tastes SOOOO much nicer doesn't it?!

I suppose the only grumble I would have was that the wine with the meal, (you could order wine if you wanted to go with your meal), actually arrived after we had finished eating! Also, i would perhaps prefer to have the handouts at the start of the day so you know what bits to take notes on, and what bits are already written down for you. other than that it was a great day out.

If you fancy a River Cottage course then take a look at their site.

http://www.rivercottage.net/shop/

How about you? Have you been on any cookery courses? Did they inspire you? Would you recommend them?

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