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Ham Soup With Dumplings
This ham soup with dumplings is a great one-pot meal. You could even freeze the cooking water from the ham on Christmas Day and reheat it to make the soup at a later date. NB: Soup mix is a dried mixture of pulses that you can buy in your supermarket. There are 2 types. One requires presoaking, I only buy the ready to use version! You’ll typically find a mixture of barley, wheat, lentils and small beans in the mixture. Very handy for bulking up a soup or stew and adding fibre to your diet.
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Make ahead homemade stuffing recipe
The beauty of this stuffing recipe is that it can be made well in advance. No more faffing around the day before Christmas, if you make this stuffing this week and lash it into the freezer then it’s all good to go on the big day.
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Christmas Fruit Parcels
These Christmas Fruit Parcels are a lighter alternative to cakes and puddings and have no suet and very little fat, no eggs and can be prepared quickly. They can easily be adapted for vegans too.
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Dishwasher Vodka
Normally when infusing alcohol with spices or fruit you have to wait a number of months for the best flavour. This is a cheat’s version, called dishwasher vodka, which if made today will be ready for drinking or gifting tomorrow!
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December 2018
With the Toy Show being on last night Christmas season has officially kicked off in Ireland; in fact I have a Christmas party to go to tonight. The kids are obsessed with Christmas and their pure joy and delight in decorations in the shops and music playing on the radio is brilliant. As usual for the start of December though I don’t have the decorations up and I’ve no Christmas Tree in the sitting room quite yet. I know I’m not the only one. I suppose it’s a hangover from the days of being so stressed out about money that we tried not to put the decorations up early or…
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A Sort Of Minimal Christmas
Just to warn you this isn’t a big pontificating blog about how you shouldn’t buy stuff for Christmas for your kids, or how my family is better than yours. Of course I’m going to think my family is awesomely flawed (like every other family) but I’m biased. 😉 I am one of the biggest Christmas nuts there are out there. I plan for the next Christmas from St Stephen’s Day, I start saving from 1st January; basically I blooming love Christmas. I love the lights, the family time, the music, the telly, the children’s awe and wonder. It’s blinking brilliant (not just the lights). There are a few things that…
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Savoury Crumble With Mustard
I was recently contacted by Maille, who asked me to review a gift box of their premium mustards. What better way to review a product than to try it in a recipe and see how it stands up to my Savoury Crumble with Mustard?
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Cinnamon Rolls
A few weeks ago my friend Deb posted a picture of some screen-lickable cinnamon rolls she’d baked. Seeing as she’s in Tipperary and I’m just outside of Dublin it’s not as if we can arrange a delivery so I decided to give them a go and bake them myself.
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Turkey Carrot Rice Crackers
This day fortnight (insert shriek of panic here) you will probably get to the point where you don’t want to see another piece of turkey or ham for a month. Yet sitting in front of you is half an uneaten turkey and likewise a ham. Christmas can be a time of excess and you’ll always spot it at the Christmas dinner table.
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Toffee Apple Cake
I’ve been testing this recipe for a while, in fact since Hallowe’en. I know it’s a long time to be playing around with a bake as important as Toffee Apple Cake but it was important that I got it right. My taste-tester-in-chief has declared it the best apple cake he’s ever tasted. He always says that, I think because he’s afraid if he doesn’t flatter me then his steady supply of cake will dry up. No matter, I have plenty of willing volunteers to take his place!
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Last Minute Christmas List
Well I never did get to do all the 12 days of Christmas blogposts.
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Low Sugar Orange and Grapefruit Marmalade
It is, I think, the 10th of my 12 Days of Christmas blogposts. Today I made a batch of our low sugar orange and grapefruit marmalade. It is still sweet but uses far less processed sugars and so theoretically is good for you.
