I do draw the line at using vanilla essence. It’s manufactured and not terribly pleasant….or maybe I’m just a snob…. But the little bottles of madagascan vanilla that I’ve been buying from lakeland are pretty expensive at £5.50 for 115ml. Good, but pricey.

Then I came across a recipe in the Ballymaloe cookery book for making your own vanilla extract. I had quite a few old vanilla beans left over from my christmas vanilla sugar making, so I thought it was worth a punt. The end result is yummy – mine has been soaking now for a few months and tastes divine! And all in all would have cost me about £2.50 for the vanilla from vanilla mart and £9 for the vodka, so £11.50 in total for 700ml – less than 1/3 of the price!

Ingredients
700ml bottle of vodka (or rum)
5 vanilla pods

Method
1. Run a sharp knife to lengthwise down each vanilla bean, splitting them in half.

2. Insert the split vanilla beans into a bottle of vodka or rum. Pour a teeny tiny bit out of the bottle if you need to make space…

3. Shake the bottle now and again when you remember. You can use the extract after 2 months but store in a dark, cool place.

This will keep pretty much forever. You can even top up the bottle with rum or vodka if you’re running a little low. Just chuck in another vanilla pod or two to keep up the flavour…

Ingredients
- 450g dried apricots
 - juice and zest of organic or unwaxed lemon
 - 1.8kg granulated sugar
 - 6 almonds, peeled and split

Method
• Chop the apricots into quarters and place in a bowl.
• Add the lemon zest and juice and 1.8litres of warm water.
• Cover and soak overnight.
• Next day, pre-heat your oven to 180c, then warm your sugar for about 15 minutes.
• Put the apricot mixture into a wide greased saucepan, then add the warm sugar.
• Heat gently and stir until all the warm sugar is dissolved.
• Increase the heat and boil rapidly for 20 – 30 minutes until setting point is reached. The almonds can be added half way through cooking to give a nutty flavour which is very yummy.
• To test for setting point, put a tsp of jam onto a plate which has been in the freezer and then pop in fridge for a few minutes. When you take it out of the fridge, see if it wrinkles when you touch it – if it has, you’ve reached setting point.
• Fill into sterilised pots (heated at 180c for 5 mins) cover and store.

 Have a fantastic Christmas & New Year everyone!

I’m enough of a food snob that I couldn’t bring myself to nip to Tesco’s for a packet of mince pies – and besides this was cheaper and I had all the ingredients in the cupboard!

I’ve made some more for the teachers pressies and it looks very pretty, but bear in mind that after a few days it gets a bit sticky so best made at the last minute. Not that this is a problem, it takes about 5 minutes to make and 2 hours cooling time.

I’ve tried a few different recipes but recently was watching Masterchef Australia and they had a couple of brilliant tips which I think make it fool-proof.

Ingredients

• 200g sugar
• 4 tablespoons golden syrup
• 1 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda
• A BIG saucepan
• A 2 litre pyrex bowl & greaseproof paper / silicone paper

Method

• Put the sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan and mix together off the heat.
• Place on the hob and heat gently until the sugar dissolves, then heat for a further 4 or 5 minutes.
• While the sugar mixture is heating, line your pyrex bowl with either greaseproof paper or silicone paper
• As soon as the sugar starts to change colour at the sides of the pan, take it off the heat and stir in the bicarbonate of soda.



• The mixture will foam up, pour it into your lined bowl and leave to cool for 2 hours.
• Lift the set honeycomb out of the bowl and peel away the greaseproof paper / silicone paper.
• Place the honeycomb back in the bowl and break into shards (I used the end of a rolling pin).

You’ll be left with lots of shards and some honeycomb dust, which is fabulous stirred into melted chocolate or sprinkled on vanilla ice cream!

Vanilla Sugar

I can’t believe the price of vanilla sugar! It works out at more than £15 a kg which is outrageous given that you can buy 20 vanilla pods for £6, so a kilo of home-made vanilla sugar works out at about £2! It makes fantastic ice-cream and custard as you get to appreciate the pretty speckles of vanilla all through it.

Ingredients
1 kg granulated sugar
4 juicy vanilla pods

Method

• Put the granulated sugar into your food processor with the blade fitted.
• Split vanilla pods and scrape out seeds, add to food processor.
• Chop vanilla pods roughly and add to food processor.
• Blitz until fine.

Fennel and Lemon Salt

This lovely fennel and lemon salt is great with fish…

Ingredients
Coarse Sea Salt
Lemons – 1 lemon for every 100g salt
Fennel Seeds 1 tbs for every 100g salt

Method

• Peel Lemon rind with a potato peeler.
• Dry strips of rind in the oven at 160 c for 10 minutes
• Put salt and lemon rind into feed processor and blitz a little (not too much!)
• Add fennel seeds and bag / store in jar

Lemon & Chilli Salt

Use this to add a kick to just about anything!

Ingredients
1 lemon per 100g salt
2 dried chillies per 100g salt (or to taste!)
salt

Method

• Peel Lemon rind with a potato peeler.
• Dry strips of rind in the oven at 160 c for 10 minutes
• Put salt, lemon rind and whole dried chilli into feed processor and blitz a little (not too much!)
• Store in bag or jar

It wasn’t marriage, or the birth of any of my three lovely children which helped me pass this momentous milestone, nor even finding myself in an expectant state with no4.

This year, for the first time ever, instead of asking my Mum to make an extra Christmas pudding for me, I asked her to give me the recipe! How about that for daring? My Mum’s christmas pudding is fabulous, more pudding-y than fruity and much lighter and less dense than standard christmas pudding. Traditionally there isn’t any alcohol in the pudding itself, but it is served with as much brandy butter as you like which gives it a kick.

It’s really easy to make, and doesn’t have to be made a month in advance, in fact you could make it on Christmas Eve, no problems. If you do make it in advance as I have, it freezes really well, just cut each pudding into quarters, wrap in greaseproof paper and a bag and freeze individually. It can then be microwaved a portion at a time, meaning no hassle on Christmas Day.

I didn’t plan to made our Christmas Pudding in advance but used it to pass the time with eldest son as we were snowed in, so I’ve varied my Mum’s recipe. The ingredients list below shows what I actually used in brackets.

Ingredients

• 8oz brown sugar (I used 5oz dark brown and 3oz light brown sugar)
• 8oz butter (I used 5oz butter & 3oz margarine)
• 2oz plain flour
• 4oz grated apple
• 1/4 tsp mixed spice (I didn’t have any mixed spice so made the other spices heaped 1/4 tsps)
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 beaten eggs
• 12oz sultanas / raisins (9 oz sultanas & raisins, 3oz dried apricot)
• 6oz breadcrumbs (I used brown, Mum uses white)
• pinch salt
• Orange or Lemon rind, grated

Method

• Cream butter/ marg and sugar together until fluffy.
• Add baking powder and spices to flour.
• Add alternating spoonfuls of flour/spice, egg and apple to the and mix, mixing them in well.
• Add the breadcrumbs, dried fruit and orange/lemon rind. Stir well.
• Place the mixture into a well-greased pudding bowl. I used a plastic one and as the pudding mix didn’t come right to the top I placed a layer of greased, greaseproof paper on top of the mix before I put the lid on. My Mum uses a pyrex bowl, but places two layers of greased, greaseproof paper on top and ties them on with string.
• Steam for several hours, making sure to keep your steamer well topped up with water. I took this to mean about three.
• Remove carefully from steamer, leave to cool, then remove carefully from cooking bowl. Serve or freeze as appropriate.

If you try this recipe, let me know, would love to hear what you think (and so would my Mum!)  Mum, hope I’ve done your pudding justice!

I have to say that it’s a bit of a fluke that I’ve made this as a christmas gift because the main ingredient, tomatoes, obviously aren’t in season. And because we timed our house move poorly this year we didn’t get to harvest all the tomatoes we’d grown in the garden.

However when I popped into my new favourite local farm shop the other day they had VERY ripe tomatoes on clearance, at £2 per kilo. So I grabbed a kilo, some ginger and chillies and knocked up 5 pots of this lovely savoury jam. The chillies I used were the standard red chillies rather than birds-eye ones so the jam has a nice kick without being too hot. It’s great with cheese sandwiches, potato wedges and goats cheese!

This recipe is based on one from Darina Allens Ballymaloe Cookery Course however I’ve tweaked it slightly as the original recipe used golden caster sugar. I only had soft brown sugar and standard sugar available, so used equal quantities of these instead.

Ingredients

• 1 kg tomatoes
• 8 red chillies
• 2 inches of peeled ginger, roughly chopped
• 8 cloves garlic
• 60ml fish sauce
• 200ml red wine vinegar
• 550g sugar (golden caster, or mix soft brown / granulated)

Method

• Place chillies, garlic, ginger & fish sauce in food processor and process into a paste.
• Put vinegar, sugar, tomatoes and chilli mixture into a saucepan and heat gently until sugar crystals.
• Bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 40 minutes – 1 hour.
• Once cooked, store in sterilised jars. Ready to enjoy immediately!

But then I got to thinking about what we’d do for christmas pressies for everyone, especially those hard to buy for male relatives. There’s nothing they particularly want or need and I don’t want to buy random slippers / toiletries / scarf and hat sets as it just seems a waste of money.

So I’ve worked out a plan of yummy things to make and I’m going to make two things per week between now and Christmas. I’ll be sharing one of the recipes each week with you and aiming to make the ones which need time to mature first.

This week I made spiced pickled pears. It’s based on a delia smith recipe that I’ve made a few times which my Father-in-law especially likes, however I’ve varied the quantities, sugars and spices used based on what I had in the house! The quantities given filled two x 1 litre kilner type jars and two 500ml ones.

Ingredients

• 2.4kg conference pears
• 800g sugar (I used a mixture of soft light brown sugar and caster sugar)
• 1300ml good quality vinegar (Delia recommends 50/50 white wine and cider vinegar, however I also threw in some raspberry vinegar that I’m trying to use up)
• 7 or 8 inch cinnamon stick
• 2 lemons cut into thin slices
• 1 1/2 teaspoons (or a bit less) whole cloves
• 1 teaspoon schezuan pepper berries
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns

(Delia recommends juniper berries and mixed pepper berries but I used what was to hand).

Method

Put all the ingredients except the pears in your largest saucepan and slowly bring to the boil over a low heat. I didn’t use my biggest saucepan initially and had to transfer the contents part way through making. Give everything a stir round now and again to dissolve the sugar crystals.

While that’s happening, peel the pears using either a very sharp knife or, best of all, a really good potato peeler. Leave the stalks and the base florets intact. As you peel each pear, put it into a bowl of cold water to stop it going brown before cooking.

Once you have all the pears peeled, check that the sugar has completely dissolved into the vinegar, drain your pears and add them to the saucepan. Bring everything back up to a gentle simmer and let the pears cook for about 20 minutes or until they look slightly transparent and feel tender when tested with a knife.

In the meantime, sterilize your jars, either by washing thoroughly in warm, soapy water, rinsing, drying and heating in a moderate oven for 5 minutes or run through a hot dishwasher cycle.

Using a draining spoon, transfer the pears and slices of lemon to the clean jars. Try to get slices of lemon pushed down the sides of the jars as it looks pretty like that – I used kitchen tongs to do this.

Now boil the syrup furiously for about 5 minutes until it has reduced and gone a little syrupy. Pour in enough to fill the jars right up to the neck and completely cover the pears. Then scoop out the spices and add them to the jar as well. Any leftover syrup can be discarded. Cover and seal the jar and, when the contents are completely cold, wipe and label it and store it in a cool dark place for about 1 month before using.

The pears will keep well for 6 months.

With the holiday season looming and the prospect of showing off more flesh becomingly increasingly scary, I realised that I hadn’t shared the wonders of my brown sugar body scrub with you. If, like me you’re 30 something and beginning to notice that your skin sin’t quite so elastic and springy as it once was then you should definitely give it a go. It does a great job of exfoliating really gently as the sugar contains AHA’s, but the olive oil leaves your skin really smooth and supersoft, it’s gorgeous. Best of all, it uses just two ingredients (three if you’re feeling flush) which you’ll probably have in your kitchen store-cupboard already!

I started using this because I found commercial body-scrubs to be way too harsh for my sensitive skin. I immediately saw an improvement in how my skin looked and felt – particularly over my chest where it’s really dry because of eczema.

I used the last of mine in the shower this morning, so made another batch this afternoon which took me all of 15 seconds. Here’s how.

Ingredients
1 cup Soft Brown Sugar (not demerara)
Olive Oil
Essential Oil*

Method
Take a clean wide-necked jar and add your sugar to it
Add oil and stir well. You want to have a little excess oil floating on top as per the picture
Stir in a few drops of essential oil* of your choice – this is optional but makes it smell great

*I’ve used our lavender and chamomile oil blend before and it’s lovely, but today I went for May Chang which is an astringent (will hopefully help the dreaded cellulite!)

I keep my body scrub in the shower and it should stay fresh for ages, although I always end up using mine quite quickly. It’s not as if it costs a lot to replace though!

Even if you don’t normally make things like this and think I’m a bit weird for even trying it, please give this a go and let me know what you think – I know you’ll love it!

I’ve deliberately avoided the use of the ‘christmas’ word to avoid scaring everyone out there. You all think I’m weird enough anyway. But in all seriousness, this would make a fantastic gift for anyone at any time of year – make a stash and you’ll always have a dinner party gift on hand.

This recipe is from the book Ballymaloe Cookery Course by Darina Allen. You might remember that I made her fabulous Orange Marmalade back in January when Seville oranges were in season. I have to say that particular marmalade is the nicest one I’ve ever tried as it’s not sweet, but has a really dark flavour and I’ll often have it on toasted crusty bread for lunch.

This recipe is for the Orange, Lemon & Grapefruit Marmalade and is great for this time of year as it doesn’t require seville oranges. The marmalade produced has a deep rich flavour, more orangey than I had expected, rather than grapefruit-ey? However this could be because I didn’t stir it enough while it was boiling to it had started to caramelise! Whatever, it made a fantastic marmalade that I’ll definitely be trying again. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 2 sweet oranges & 2 grapefruit weighing 3 lbs in total
• 4 unwaxed lemons
• 6 pints water
• 6 lbs sugar

Method:

Wash the fruit, cut each piece in half and squeeze out the juice. Cut the halved fruit in half again and scrape off any membrane with a knife. Set aside scraped off membrane and then slice the rind across ways.
Put the juice, rind and water in a bowl.
Put the membrane and pips into a muslin bag and add to the bowl ( I use a Cheeky Wipes Mesh Bagwhich is perfect for the job).
Leave overnight.
Next day, simmer the fruits and water in a big stainless steel saucepan for 1 1.2 – 2 hours or until the peel is really soft, covering the pan for the first half hour. The liquid should be reduced by half to two-thirds of the original volume.

Towards the end of this period of time, warm your sugar in the over at 180c for 10 minutes.Then remove the muslin / mesh bag from the pan and stir in the warm sugar.

Bring to the boil and boil hard until it reaches setting point (wrinkles when dropped on a cold plate) (mine took almost an hour, but was supposed to take only 8 – 10 mins?)
Pour into sterilised jars (warm from the dishwasher is fine) and cover while hot.

With this recipe it’s really important that the rind is really soft before you add the sugar, otherwise it will harden. Yuck.

Unlike the chutneys etc that take a while to mature before they’re ready to eat, this can be made and handed over the next day.  It will keep for a few weeks in the fridge but is best eaten within 10 days.

Ingredients

• 4 Lemons (Zest & Juice)
• 4 Large Eggs
• 12 oz Golden Caster Sugar
• 8 oz unsalted butter (softened & chopped)

Method

• Whisk the eggs together with a balloon whisk in a saucepan
• Put pan on medium heat, whisk other ingredients in immediately
• Keep whisking until mixture thickens (about 7 / 8 mins)
• Turn heat to low and simmer for 2 mins
• Pour into sterilised jars (warm from dishwasher, or 5 mins at 180c)

This is great on toast but also makes a fantastic lemon meringue pie (very old-skool, I know!)