Snowed in and a nasty experience.

I guess I am snowed in. It has not even been especially heavy, but when I drove back today I just made it up the hill and then as I approached my house, my car went into a slide. It was SO frightening. I lost complete control and my car slid down down down the hill and into the neighbours wall. Don't worry, nothing broken on either me or the car. By some complete miracle my car had no damage at all, simply because of the angle it came in at but I couldn't move it and it could have been so much worse. It wouldn't reverse back up the hill and in the end I had to go forward and let the car slowly slide to the left and back onto the road. It then went into freefall down the hill and, again, by some miracle there were no other cars parked on the road. At the bottom of the hill I managed to turn it around and slowly get it back to the top of the hill, roaring in first gear. I have dumped it now and daren't use it again until the snow is cleared. Sadly gritters never make it onto my road, so I will be busy with a shovel tomorrow morning. Luckily I don't really have to go anywhere - it's a good job!
The important part is that no-one was hurt and my car is fine. But I was a bit shaken up by the experience and had to have a glass of limoncello to calm my nerves, haha. The thing is that I probably need new tires. I was told on the last service that the tires would soon need replacing. It is somewhere that I need to find the money, because safety is worth way more than cash.

Bingo

What is it about Bingo adverts? Every time I turn on the TV at the moment there is yet another different online bingo advert on promising you huge winnings if you just invest your hard earned cash in their website. This is where the money must lie because there are so many of them and they are all spending  thousands on advertising. They make it look fun, exciting and social, where the reality is a bit sad and lonely with a sense of clutching at straws.


I think I'm going to start my own online bingo guide, it would go something like this:

88, two fat ladies. You can get nicely fat with good honest home cooked food, no nasty 'extra' unexpected or hidden ingredients. Eat like a king without it costing a kings ransom.

Legs 11 - save petrol and get a bit of free exercise using your legs. Go for a nice walk, it's free and a lot better than playing online bingo!

Heinz varieties, 57 - Not every meal has to be a gourmet feast, beans on toast will do just fine.

61 Bakers bun - Bread is going up and up in price. Invest in a bread machine and start making your own, it doesn't have to cost the earth if you get it on ebay and you will soon be reaping the rewards. A loaf of bread in my machine costs pence and is delicious. If you have more time on your hands, make bread from scratch with your hands. I have not bought a loaf of bread for years.

Bingo - Here's my way of gaining those winnings, stop shopping for needless rubbish, stop using money (or the promise of gaining more money) to entertain yourself. Find a low cost hobby or even better a free one. one that is more worthwhile than online gambling and then use that money you saved to free yourself from debt.

You think that would go down well as an advert in the Coronation Street advert break? What would your advert have?

Christmas present success.

Well I was successful in getting ALL of my Christmas shopping/presents done by the beginning of December, I got my last presents today so a day late, but who's counting and that included my mums birthday present for the 31st December - believe me, trying to get her a present between Christmas and New Year is even more of a nightmare than high street shopping on the 24th December!

So I will do some wrapping tonight. There are still a few home made food gifts to make, but I am not so worried about those as the ingredients can be gradually picked up along with my usual shops. I noticed when I popped into ASDA on Friday that the supermarkets are already beginning to be heaving and we have 23 days to go yet!

It is such a lovely feeling to get things sorted so early and I am definitely converted to early organising from now on. The gifts I need to send by post can be sorted in plenty of time with no mad rushing now and I can spend December feeling smug and doing enjoyable things like decorating the house and cooking nice things.

No debt was gained in my Christmas shopping but I still think I managed to get the right present for the right person, throughout, it is so enjoyable giving something when you know that the recipient is really going to enjoy it, even if it is just a bottle of home made Christmas pudding vodka and chutney which I will make this week.

Besides this, cake is made, mincemeat is made and cherry brandy is made. I still have a couple of bottles of elderflower champagne which I made back in June so I will just get some Christmas food shopping on about he 19th and that is me done.

Good stuff all around.

Christmas Pudding Vodka and mincemeat.

Hello Folks,

It's been an extraordinarily busy week, hence my lack of posts. I won't bore you with all the mundane stuff, but it has been a full but very good week.

So as a result I was a few days late bottling my Christmas pudding vodka. Oh well, a few extra days steeping can't hurt.

So the unpromising brown liquid, still has a rather unpromising look, but in actual fact it is absolutely delicious! Very Christmassy and very tasty indeed.

I have 2 bottles for presents and a small half bottle for ME.

I will decorate the bottles somehow before Christmas, to make it look as good as it tastes.

As promised, with the steeped fruit residue, I made Chirstmas Mincemeat, to use as filling for all my mince pies and anything else I can think of.

I made this in the slow cooker, because I didn't really fancy having the oven on for 3 hours just for that. It works perfectly in the slow cooker and really doesn't cost much to run.

All the steeped fruit went in, with some soft brown sugar, suet, orange and lemon juice (I had this frozen already from when I used the zest for the vodka), some almonds, spices and a chopped up bramley apple. I then had this on high in the slow cooker for an hour, then on low for 2 hours, stirring every half hour or so. When it was finished I left it to go cold in the slow cooker and then added a couple of tablespoons of rum. This went into 4 sterilised jars, 2 large and 2 regular.

It smells wonderful (OK, it tastes wonderful, couldn't resist a little taste). I now HAVE to perfect my pastry to make the most of this mincemeat in my mince pies. I have had some good tips from all of you, in your comments for the last few posts, so I will be making use of those, thank you all.

Silk purse out of a sow's ear and Christmas gifting.

Thank you to all those suggestions about rescuing my rather nasty homity pie. In the end, I scooped out the rather nasty potato mush gloop and mashed it with herbs and butter to make a surprisingly nice mash, shoved it back in the pie which was beginning to resemble Frankenstein's monster, put it in the oven with some chips, and had the whole thing with peas and loads of gravy. A bit of a carb fest, but you know what? It was actually quite nice. I am certainly happy to eat up the rest of the 1 and a half pies now (sigh).

I have been trying very hard to get all of my Christmas shopping sorted before the 1st December and I am thrilled to say that I am almost there. In fact I have got all of them sorted except for one. I even started wrapping some of them this weekend. The home made Christmas pudding vodka is nicely steeping and will be ready to bottle today, I have to stir it once a day and I couldn't resist a little taste when I did that today - it is absolutely gorgeous, so tasty and I am sure everyone who is getting a bottle is really going to enjoy it.

The only person I have not bought for yet is my mum and I am not sure what I will be getting her. Also there may be one or two people who get some Christmas gift extras from the kitchen, in the form of biscuits or cakes or chocolates and I will obviously not be making these until the week of Christmas. But besides that, I am saved from the high street through December and if I play my cards right, I can do one food shop when my friend comes to stay on the 17th (it is more bearable when it is with someone to share the Christmas supermarket horrors) and that will be me done with shops through December.

I know that I am going to feel unbearably smug now when I hear others moaning about having to go to the shops on Christmas eve :-)

It turns out that Nigella has nothing to worry about.

I do enjoy my cooking and trying new things and then sharing the yummy results with you here on my blog, but don't let that make you think that things always run quite so smoothly in my kitchen! Sometimes I have disasters!!!!!!!

Yesterday I thought that I would make a homity pie for the first time, this is a very frugal dish with onions and potatoes and cheese and in principle should be delicious.

NOT SO IN MY CASE.

I really did a very poor job of it, even though I followed the recipe carefully. The pastry is not that nice (as you know, pastry is not my strong suit), the potatoes were overcooked which meant that they are more of a mush (that's mush, not mash, mash would be an improvement) and the whole thing has a rather bland flavour and unpleasant consistency.

And do you know what is the worst thing:

I made two of them!

I actually just want to throw them away, but that really goes against the grain. I have frozen the little one and half of the big one (it will lurk at the bottom of the freezer now in the hope that the pie fairy will go in there and transform it into something delicious) and I will eat the remaining unfrozen part this weekend. What a prospect. I'm thinking that maybe with some chips and SMOTHERED in gravy, it might improve slightly.

Anyone any other suggestions to make this unappetising feast better?

Home made Christmas present number 1

This rather unpromising brown, sludgy liquid is, believe it or not, going to become 2 Christmas presents. I am making Christmas pudding vodka which I will decant into two 350ml pretty bottles and tie up with ribbon for 2 of my friends.
Here is the recipe.

300g mixed dried fruit
75g sugar
2 cinammon sticks
6 cloves
a teaspoon of grated nutmeg
2 teaspoons of mixed ground spice
zest of a lemon
zest of an orange
1x 700ml bottle of cheap vodka.

Most of this stuff i had in the cupboard, but the total price comes in at about £11 if you use the cheapest vocka, not bad for two Christmas presents.

Simply put all the ingredients in a bowl together and cover it with clingfilm and put it in the fridge for 3 days, stirring every day. After this drain it through muslin or a coffee filter paper and bottle in 2x350 ml sterilised bottles, prettier the better. Decorate the bottles with some ribbon and a nice label.

The great bi-product of this present is that I will use all of the alcohol infused fruit after I have finished to make some nice mincemeat - so not only a good present, but a useful one for me too!

I'll let you know how i get on with it.