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May 13th, 2010
 I’m giving myself a break this year. Although I’m going to do hampers for everyone as usual, I’m starting into them well in advance so that I’m not chocka in October time when I’m going to be really busy with Cheeky Wipes and various trade / retail shows.
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.
Tags: frugal gifts, Home-made Gifts, three fruit marmalade recipe; edible gift recipe; cheeky baby wipes
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December 17th, 2009
It’s still not too late for those of you who haven’t made / bought your christmas presents. Home-made Lemon Curd makes a really lovely pressie and it’s easy to make too. If you’ve never tasted homemade lemon curd, then you should make this immediately as it’s just gorgeous, so different from the plasticky bought stuff.
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!)
Tags: home-made christmas, Home-made Gifts
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December 10th, 2009
I can’t let today go past without sharing my LOVELY piccalilli recipe which I made 6 jars of last week as part of my christmas hampers. Why today? Well, I just sampled some for the first time, with a cheese and ham toastie. It was perfect, good and crunchy, tangy with a bit of a bite to it. The recipe is dead easy but you have to start preparing it the day before.
 Cheeky Wipes: Piccalilli My recipe is from the fabulous book Preserved, by Nick Sandler & Johnny Acton which is available from Amazon and full of yummy things to make. Preserved lemons are next on my list to make from that book… Anyway, here’s their recipe, which I actually tripled because my cauliflower on it’s own weighed a kilo:
To make 3 x 300ml pots
- 1.2kg (2lb 10oz) mixed veg*, diced in cubes
- 2 tablespoons salt
- 1 tablespoon turmeric powder
- 50g (2ox) mustard powder
- 1 teaspoon ground white pepper
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 50g (2oz) plain flour
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 5 tablespoons cider vinegar, plus another 150ml (1/4 pint) cider vinegar
- 250ml (9fl oz) malt vinegar
- a dash of water
*The recipe recommends carrot, cauliflower, shallot, turnip, baby corn, parsnip and pickling cucumber. I used red onion instead of shallot which makes it a very pretty colour, sweetcorn for baby corn and courgettes instead of pickling cucumber. I skipped turnips, bleurgh yuck.
- Dice your veg & place in a large bowl.
- Sprinkle salt over and mix well. Leave overnight to draw out the liquid.
- In your biggest saucepan, mix the turmeric, mustard, white pepper, ginger, flour, nutmeg and the 5 tbs of cider vinegar to a smooth paste.
- Whisk in the remaining vinegar, then add the veg, malt vinegar and a little water – enough so that most of the veg are covered but not all.
- Gently heat the mixture until the sauce thickens (about 15 mins). Stir constantly or the flour will stick to the bottom of the pan.
- Store your piccalilli in sterilised jars (straight from dishwasher, or warm after spending 5 mins in oven at 180c)
- Piccalilli will keep for 6 months in cool larder and mature nicely. Once opened refrigerate and eat within 6 weeks.
Tags: home-made christmas, Home-made Gifts
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December 6th, 2009
I know that I said that this year I was focusing on mostly bathing related pressies, but I couldn’t help myself…I couldn’t let a year go by without making some chutneys. This year however, I made just one batch of chutney on my own (the spiced orange and apricot).
On Monday I got together with a couple of Mum friends of mine who were interested in sharing the workload and the washing up!. We brought our littl’est kids, all 4 of them and met after the school run. Fortified by a loaf of banana bread from my freezer (see previous post) and a cup of coffee each, we got to work on making christmas chutney.
After that, we moved on to the most painful part of the day – harissa paste. My friends had both had better luck than me in growing chillies, to the point of having a glut to use up. However we only had 250 ml jars which we all agreed were much to big to hold this pungent paste. I was dispatched to the local supermarket to buy some tiny jam pots – we decanted the jam into one of our bigger jars and hey presto, problem solved. The pain involved was through the heat of the tiny birds eye chillies – everything we touched stung like mad for about an hour afterwards!
Lastly, we finished off with some Green Tomato chutney. Again this was using up a glut of green tomatoes so it was rewarding to see them turned into something useful and tasty.
Between times we had a rustic lunch. Seeded bread and a couple of big whacks of cheese served with a dollop of the christmas chutney – delicious! It was a lovely morning, well spent and it definitely reminded me of days of old (did anyone else watch ‘little house on the prairie’?) when women got together to ‘put up’ the seasons harvest, preserving and pr eparing for the winter ahead. Although we have no need to do so nowadays, it’s a great excuse to have a bit of a get together with the girls. And do your eco bit for christmas too.
Tags: Green Living, home-made christmas, Home-made Gifts
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November 28th, 2009
Last time I shared the Bath Salts Recipe and hopefully you’ll have tried it (and liked it). So I thought I’d share another favourite bath time recipe for Oat and Milk bath. After all, if it was good enough for Cleopatra, then it must be good enough for us!
Seriously though, because this recipe contains oats, it’s fabulous for sensitive skin and those with eczema. The addition of cornflour and bicarbonate of soda soften your water (and therefore your skin) without leaving your bath slippery.
All you need to add is a little essential oil of your choise to make it smell great. Lavender is a favourite of mine for this, but mandarin is lovely too.
Ingredients
1 cup corn flour
2 cups milk powder
1/2 cup bicarbonate of soda (increase if your water is hard)
1/2 cup finely ground porridge oats
1/2 cup dried orange peel or rose petals (can be quickly dried in the microwave on a paper towel for 1 minute)
a few drops of essential oil of your choice
Method
- Blitz Porridge Oats in a food processor or blender until finely ground. Add milk powder and process again until mixed.
- Pour into a bowl, add corn flour and bicarbonate of soda, mix well.
- Add rose petals or orange peel if you’ve got any. If desired, add a few drops of essential oil and mix well.
- Package in old, clean jamjars, kilner jars etc. Label and tie with ribbon. Fabulous presents!
Tags: eczema, Green Living, Home-made Gifts
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November 19th, 2009
I don’t like Christmas much.  There I’ve said it.Â
But I should clarify. What I don’t like about Christmas is the fact that supermarkets start getting ready for it in September (I’m sure you all saw the tabloid reports about mince pies on the shelves which were out of date by Christmas!). I hate the pressure we put on ourselves for what is, after all, just one day. I detest Christmas shopping in packed malls. And I loathe gifts which show the giver knows nothing about us….
So for a few years now (bar last year when we had a new baby arrive at the start of November) I’ve done home-made Christmas gifts. In the past these have been mostly food related:
- Vanilla Sugar
- Rosemary and Lemon Salt
- Chilli Oil
- Rosemary & Garlic Oil
- Spiced Orange & Apricot Chutney
- Christmas Chutney
- Chilli Jam
And I might well do one or two of those next week… But this year I’m focusing on bath-time smellies. I’ve made quite a bit of soap this year so it seems a logical progression. I made some bath salts last night which I’m recommending as a great pressie for Mums & Grandmas – after all everyone loves a soak in a warm bath. It’s also a good craft idea for your kids, as it’s VERY simple.
The Sea Salt and Epsom salts are great for relieving muscle tension and bicarb of soda is a good water softener. Both Epsom salts and Bicarb of Soda are available from local chemists, or try online for stockists. I use http://www.bathbomb.biz/ and got a massive 5kg of bicarb as I use it for washing too.
Bath Salts Recipe
- 2 cups Sea Salt
- 2 cups Epsom Salt
- 2 cups Bicarbonate of soda
- Food Colouring (optional)
- Essential Oil (mandarin or lavender are great)
- Clean Jars for storage
- Put salts and bicarb of soda into a large clean mixing bowl and mix well
- Add essential oil as appropriate. Start with 10 drops and take it from there
- Add food colouring is using. Mix well
- Put your bath salts into jars, label and decorate
And that’s it. If your kids are like mine and are eating lots of little mandarin oranges at the moment, you can save up the peel and dry it out, either on a sunny windowsill, or by nuking for a minute or so in the microwave. This makes a great addition along with mandarin essential oil.
Tags: cheap gift ideas, green gift ideas, Home-made Gifts, homemade gifts
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