Chilli Jam

I know it's only October but I have started to think about Christmas already and how I can be a bit more frugal this year with the whole present buying thing. I always tend to go over board and so have decided to make every ones presents in the form of little food hampers.This is a really easy recipe for chili jam that I got from Nigella Lawson and this the first addition to food hampers!

• 150 grams long red chilli pepper
• 150 grams Red peppers
• 1 kilograms Jam sugar
• 600 ml cider vinegar

 First thing you need to Sterilise your jars and leave to cool, I did this by washing them in boiling hot water and washing up liquid and then put them in the oven for around 10mins on a low temperature.
To make the chilli jam first cut-up the chillies and put into a food processor and pulse until they are finely chopped. Next add the chunks of red pepper and pulse again.
Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar in a pan over a low heat without stirring and although it is tempting to stir you must make sure you don't!
Next you need to add the chilli-pepper mixture into the pan and bring to the boil, then leave it boiling for ten minutes and after that take the pan off the heat and allow it cool-
After about 40 minutes or when you can see the jam is beginning to settle ladle into your jars and seal tightly.
It's a really easy recipe and looks gorgeous, when it's closer to the time I will cover with fabric, tie a ribbon around them and attach a tag with the date I made the chilli jam.

Christmas Day

I spent Christmas at my mum's house in Kent and took my camera with intending to take photo's of all the lovely food but my camera ran out of battery before I got to the food!
We had lovely little canapes including smoked salmon and dill sauce on blinis, chicken parfait on toast and brown shrimp. For our starter we had a seafood platter with snow crab, prawns, mussels with home-made aloi.
We never have turkey at Christmas because none of us like it and we always have rib of beef and goose instead and everyone has there special side dish they ask for at Christmas, mine is always cauliflower cheese!
For pudding we had trifle and plum pudding with brandy butter and of course there was a cheeseboard! Hope you all had a lovely Christmas!x

Random Recipies #6 Nigella Lawson Macaroni Cheese De Luxe with Honey Roast Gammon

I even put the book on a festive red blanket!

This will be the first time I participate in Dom's Random Recipe Challenge and I'm really happy to be taking part and it's about bloody time I did so here it is.
I have a huge collection of cookbooks and I love them all, I'm one of those people that reads cookery books in bed and I bloody love it I do!
It was really hard to choose due to my undeniable love for each and every one of my precious books, It could have been 'The Prawn Cocktail Years' by Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham who both also wrote and contributed to 'Roast Chicken and Other Stories' which is another all time favourite and regarded as one of the best cook books ever written. I adore all Nigel Slater books especially 'Good Food' that I am pretty sure I have cooked every dish from! Or what about a recipe from Sam and Sam Clarke from 'Moro' with their rustic bowls of beautiful food......
Well I came to my decision and I know it's July but the weather has hardly been that fabulous and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that Nigella Lawson's book 'Nigella Christmas' was not one of my all time favourite books and the fact I have a year round obsession with Christmas may also have something to do with my choice, I would have been fully prepared to do roast goose with all the trimmings, no joke.
I adore the photography in Nigella's book, it's just so beautiful and I love the way she writes a little story and her own thoughts on each and every recipe which is why it's exactly the kind of cook book I will snuggle up in bed with.
I got my boyfriend to flick through the pages and I closed my eyes and shouted when to stop and it turned out to be 'Macaroni Cheese De Luxe', now I'm not gonna lie I was a teeny bit disappointed because Ive made macaroni cheese a thousand times before and was hoping for something new and exciting but I have never made one using evaporated milk so that was a little bit exciting, every cloud and all that.
I will admit that I did not stick to the recipe exactly as I forgot the Dijon mustard and I almost halved the quantities because it felt slightly excessive to use three cans of evaporated milk so I just used one and omitted the mustard. Here is Nigella's full recipe that unless your cooking for a small army you may want to scale down.

Nigell Lawson's Macaroni Cheese De Luxe
175g Soft butter, plus more for greasing
150g plain flour
2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard
3 cans evaporated milk 500g in total
1.5 litres of semi-skimmed milk
2 550g packs of macaroni
275g of Emmental, grated
300g Cheddar
75g Parmesan
salt

You make this as you would any other macaroni cheese and I'm pretty sure you all are accomplished cooks here and can make a macaroni cheese so Im not going to write out the reipe and some may say that's lazy but hey ho I say it's paying you all a compliment! The only difference with this one is mixing your semi-skimmed milk with the evaporated milk and use that to make your cheese sauce with when adding to the roux.


Accidentally picked up 'light' evaporated milk, I hate anything that's diet or light so was not impressed when I got home.


I bought a small gammon joint and boiled it before covering in honey and roasting in the oven. And yes there is a bit missing because I ate it alright.




Starting to add the mountains of cheese, you can never have enough cheese in a good cheese sauce and that is a real fact


Yes there is a hell of a lot more sauce than pasta and even I think I may have gone over board this time as that is a very deep saucepan with the macaroni just resting on top, but it was inevitable I like sauce, I always make to much and I always will


Ready to go in the oven


Ohhh....


So gooey and cheesy with a delicious golden crust


You may have noticed that my tomato's are un-roasted and that's because I forgot but still included them because you really do need something to cut through the richness of the cheese sauce.

After trying Nigella's version of macaroni cheese with evaporated milk I don't think I would make it again as the evaporated milk gave it a strange taste and I much prefer when I make it using just normal milk. I usually love the taste of evaporated milk so was a bit surprised by that but there you go. Thanks Nigella and thanks Christmas, I love you both! And Thanks Dom for coming up with such a great idea, I will be taking part far more often!

Christmas Treats

I have started to make a few lovely things to eat over the Christmas period including these mini caramelised cheese and onion tarts which are the easiest thing in the world to make, just caramelised some onions in butter and a sprinkle of brown sugar, make an egg custard with cream and an egg, throw in lot's of good quality mature cheddar cheese, add the onions and mix together. I just used shop bought puff pastry because that's how I role, put it into Yorkshire pudding trays, put a blob of my cheese and onion mix into each one and put it in the oven for 25 mins and voila!!!



I also made some chicken liver paté by trimming any yucky or green bits off the livers, sauté some onions in butter the add the livers and a good slug of brandy making sure you burn the alcohol off and as it's Christmas I put a dash of double cream in and then seasoned. To finish it off pour clarified butter over the paté and put it in the fridge to set and you are done.
And to celebrate my culinary achievements I'm going to have several drinks of the mulled variety!

Christmas Shopping list....Done!

I am cooking Christmas dinner for the first time this year as it would usually be my Mum but she is currently living in Portugal on a foodie adventure so I am cooking for Mercer's family and there are 12 of them.
I'm sure it will be fine as I am one of life's obsessive list writers and have had everything planned for around a month, Ive got my Christmas and boxing day menus written down with corresponding shopping list's (don't laugh) and have already made my mincemeat for my mince pies and enough sausage rolls to feed a small country.
This year I am planning to do a rib of beef and goose, normally it would just be the goose but as there are 12 of us it's not really feasible, and of course a glazed ham on Boxing day!
I'm also going to attempt a salt caramel cheesecake, chocolate roulade, damson trifle and some Bompass and Par style jellies for the munchkins!!!
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hope all your culinary dreams come true!xx