No Suet Mincemeat

Suet in mince pies has never appealed to me for me i would rather have more fruit spice and booze in my pies than the addition of course fat.

Sophie and i have been tinkering with a few made up recipes in the kitchen for mincemeat for our Christmas mince pies.

150g sultanas
150g currents
150g raisins
150g semi dried cherries, i get the ones that have been dried but then soaked in kirsh or you can do this yourself
100g dried cranberries
50g semi dried dates
50g semi dried figs
3tsp heaped cinnamon
3tsp heaped all spice
3tsp heaped ginger
1 fresh grated nutmeg
grated rind only of lemon and orange
4 tbsp heaped course cut marmalade
1/2 35ltr bottle of brandy more if you want

you can pretty much do as you please with this recipe putting in more things that you like and leaving out what you don't, just place it all fruit in a blitzer and mince slightly to break the fruit up then put everything into a bowl and stir together before spooning into a preserving jar i always add a layer of brandy to the top of the jar so the fruit can have an extra drink, i then leave this for a week or two before using.

When i come to use it i spoon into a bowl and then add
50g chopped walnuts
100g chopped pecans
2 grated fresh apples skin too
flesh of a clementine chopped and added

Decorating the inside of our house

 Everything is glitter and sparkle in the house and our hall way is the welcome to the house with a lovely woodland wreath winding its way up the stairs, Frosty pine branches with pine cones and gold tinsel and lights topped with lots of woodland creatures, a deer, squirrels, hedgehogs, pheasants, owls and of course lots of robins

 We have 4 Christmas trees yes that right 4!!! One in the living room, as below a simple one for the kitchen, one outside which is a box hedge cut to a point but looks great covered in lights and the girls have their own tree in the play room, with loads of crafted felted decorations i made them.... Oh the fairies also have their own tree too so maybe that's 5.

 We have a mixture of lights white and coloured as i do like both and i remember a few years back coloured lights were snubbed as many people just went for white lights.  But these days the led lights are so good the coloured lights look fantastic.  I have white as well as i stuff our glass star that sits on the top with half a string of lights to make it light up and use the rest on the tree.

the rest of the house is also covered in light and my kitchen is super sparkly and i have branches that Sophie has collected from our walks sitting over cupboards with lights and frost

Gingerbread house

 Every year we love to do traditional Christmas activities, the gingerbread house is one fun make the girls love to do, especially when presented with lots of lovely and naughty treats to munch on.  This year Ella is able to join in and Sophie took the lead teaching her little sister how to resist stuffing loads of chocolate sticks in ones chops and using them as decoration for the gingerbread house.

Here is our favourite recipe for gingerbread

400g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
100g dark brown sugar
100g treacle
200g butter
1 1/2tsp ground ginger
1 1/2tsp cinnamon
1tsp mixed spice

add all the dry ingredients to your mixer sift the flour first
add the butter in chunks and mix till the mix turns to crumb
add the treacle and mix again till combined

pour the crumbed mix into your house mold and then chill for 30 mins before cooking in the oven 18 mins at 170c

Get that house to stick together and stay together
Loads of people have asked me how we manage to make our house stick together and stay stuck and i know a number of you use melted sugar and burn your poor fingers or you make water icing and your house collapses so here is our preferred icing recipe that will guarantee a good firm stick when bringing your house together.  

45ml water
250g icing sugar
1 x 8 egg white powder (some egg white powders are packed as 7g this is fine too)

Sift the icing sugar and egg white add the water and mix together.  The egg white really help make a firm set in the icing.

use a large glass or bottle to help hold the sides together while the set happens.

while the house is setting together we cover the remaining bowl of icing with cling film so the icing doesn't form a crust as the kids will need this to use as glue to stick all sweeties on the house.

A table for Christmas

Previously we all crowded round the kids small pink ikea plastic table for dinner, looking back i cant believe we did that for 5 years.  Christmas was difficult and i would pop up my craft table for the big day and try and make it look as festive as i could for a craft table.

 We are in our new house and this house we actually have a dinning table, hooray. So for our first year i want to make a bit of a sing song about eating round a lovely table with those i love so much, so i have been planning our table for the big day.  Sparkles and twinkle was my theme and i found these lovely silver beaded mats and runners, a pair of silver candle stick holders with candles to light to add a nice light. I also have a frozen berry wreath and placed a woodland poesy in the center of it to create a center piece and wrapped these in twinkly lights too, and just because you can't have to much sparkle at Christmas i found these crackled silver tea light holders to light. I also went with a white table cloth as i had silver settings to help lift and create lightness

 Many of you can guess i love Christmas and i wanted something special over the table beautiful baubles shouldnt just be lost in Christmas trees and there are so many different designs out there i just wanted to show some off, so i made a chandelier to hang over our table from a tree branch and hung some of the prettiest from the branches.  What do you think is it effective ?

Lights in the village

Well you might be forgiving in thinking that Ali is being boosted up to be the fairy on top of the Christmas tree, personally i think he would be a lovely one.

We have only been here 5 months and Ali was asked to decorate the villages Christmas tree, i think the wiley older men who have been decorating it the last 20 years are happy some fresh blood has come in so they can pass the buck baton to Ali this year, and i have a sneaking suspicion it wont be the last either.

I know most of you ladies out their know that when it comes to Christmas decorating, your men turn in to bah hum bugs and vacate the house as soon as they can, so imagine Christmas decorating on an epic scale.  The local farmer was on hand with his JCB and boosted my poor hubby up who is afraid of height but did really well keeping his nerve, but it all came good in the end with a lovely tree that is actually right outside our house so fairs fair i guess.  

Decorating the outside of the house

 December is here and we are preparing for Christmas, one of my favorite holidays to spend with my brood trying to making it special for them with magic and sparkle.  A new house means a new way to decorate, and now all our autumn decorations are gone pumpkins and leaves we can do a new display for our home.

Here is this years wreath we made now we don't have firs growing in our garden we couldn't make a traditional living wreath, oh i miss that pine smell, at least it gives us a chance to try something a bit more modern, so we spent time wrapping a white ring in lights and silver ornaments and hung a reindeer at the bottom which was to cute to leave in the shop and i knew we could use it somewhere.

The Winter/ Spring pots are still blooming well and i added a mini pile of logs to the front of the house and with Sophie we dressed them in lights and used our pointy box bush to pretend it was a mini Christmas tree.  We even got some stacking light up presents to put by the front door and they glow really well.

 We have been collecting little pots and dressed them in different pretty ribbons and each night Sophie lights these and places them out as the light starts to fall

 Ali had the job of dressing the outside of the house and every since i can remember i have wanted a house with a point on it just for that one month of the year where you can dress it in icicle lights.  Lucky for us the local farmer was kind enough to let Ali go up in his JCB but this was all after another adventure which saw Ali up a tree.

So here is the finished results of our new home complete with icicle light, log lights, candles and a cheeky laser light, well we had the perfect blank canvas and the house lent itself to it really well.

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Christmas round up

Christmas round up for 2013 and what a lovely time we had being all together with lots of much needed time with daddy being all together was fantastic.  Even though the fairies have left us to do their important job for Santa the magic has not left us. Christmas eve kicked off with the mulling of the wine and Sophie was excellent at stirring up the Christmasy brew. 

Christmas Eve means the girls got a survival pack each with new jimmy jammies, slippers, toothbrush, paste, flannels one small gift. Everything a girl would need for getting ready for bed with a nice bath to help bring on a good sleep to make sure that Christmas day comes swiftly.   Sophie is now the perfect age for totally getting the magic of Christmas so this year she was the Christmas Elf a very important job as the role come with all sorts of jobs one being the person that gives out the Christmas presents and to show how important she is she gets a very special hat.  Sorry the video below is sideways 

So much for the survival packs easing the girls off to sleep Sophie was so excited she didn't go to sleep until 11pm it didn't help that daddy kept her up making her more excited and in turn she made Ella excited who didn't go to sleep until midnight ! just in time for Santa's arrival.  Morning came and Sophie opened a never ending stocking and even little Ella got one of daddies socks with a few gifts from the big man.  Before Daddy encourage Sophie to go down stairs where she squealed with excitement at the sight of the tree and the gifts beneath it.

The number one present this year was all about Furby. Sophie has been wanting one of these for ages, and they have been inseparable ever since she has got it.  Ella got Furby's friend Willa which she also finds very captivating and they both got Yippit for good measure a friend and pet and when they are all together they interact with each other.  Above is Sophie in her Christmas day dress and sparkly shoe's.  Below in her Grufflo suit it was such a shame i couldn't get a tiny one for Ella.  After the mammoth present unwrapping where the Christmas elf got most of the gifts we all sat down to dinner of Christmas goose yum!

Candy window cookies

Sophie and i are finally in the kitchen after a long time so excuse the raggle taggle look as she has been a bit poorly and this is my attempt to cheer her up and get her back on track again.  We decided to make some Christmas cookies but a little different as i have always wanted to try melting boiled sweets in cookies to give the stain glass window effect.  Sophie made a basic cookie recipe bringing the cookie dough together in a bowl then rolling it out in between two bits of cling film, then we rested the dough in the fridge.

While the dough was chilling and relaxing we had a smashing good time with a rolling pin, some different coloured boiled sweets and a ziplock making sugary bits from the sweets.  Once the dough was chilled Sophie choose the star cutter as it is Christmasy and then we cut a smaller star inside before we sprinkled the centers with the boiled sugary bits we smashed up then popped them in the oven for 10 mins.  After the cookies have come out and cooled the sugar centers set hard and add a lovely flavour to the cookies, we decorated the edges of the cookies with icing sugar covered in lots of edible glitter to make them sparkle

Sophie offered to help clean up after but i will think twice next time 

5 Home made drinks for Christmas

Click on the images to get the recipes


This Christmas favourite can be wizzed up in the blender  



Just love the smell of mulled wine filling the house and such a welcome warmer to come in from the cold to 














Refreshingly easy and so tasty your have to stop yourself finishing the jug, this is a great drink to use in puddings too.


   Foragers delight in a bottle

This last one may take some time, so patients as the years add flavour but well worth the wait