The Twelve Yums of Christmas: Part Two

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without my mum's homemade mince pies.  Notice how she makes them in two sizes, large and small, so you can never argue that you're too full for an extra mince pie?  Now that's clever.

The Twelve Yums of Christmas: Part One

Hello!  Have you missed me?  The past few weeks have been crazy busy, and silly things like WORK and PARTIES have got in the way of blog updates.  To make up for this inattention, I offer you a bumper package (ooh!) of all things food- and Christmas-related.  Yay!

My birthday is a couple of days before Christmas.  This is rubbish, for several reasons (guaranteed bad weather, having to wait all year for presents) but it does mean that the Christmas holidays are extra super-duper fun for me. 

This year my mother put on a traditional birthday tea for me. Complete with egg sandwiches with the crusts cut off, cheese-and-pineapple on sticks, iced gems, party rings, and mandarin-flavoured jelly.

Oh, and champagne.  I don't remember that turning up at my seventh birthday party, but who am I to quibble?

(The daffodils were sent by post from Truro by B's sister.  Aren't they beautiful?  So nice to have a little touch of spring in the middle of deepest darkest December.)

My sister-in-law made cupcakes for pudding, iced in blue, green, pink and purple. 

They were delicious. 

Quick & Easy Cheese Straws

Tis the season to be jolly!  Fa la la la.  Tis also the season to over-indulge on stale mince pies and get drunk on cheap wine in front of your colleagues:  yes indeed, tis the season of the Work Christmas Party!

We were all asked to pitch in for the Christmas party at the tin mine this year, so having sent B on a mission to source Santa hats and adding tacky decorations to the supermarket shopping list, I had just one task left to complete:  party food.

I always find party food a bit tricky.  You just know that fourteen people are already bringing mince pies, so they're off limits.   You could bring carrot sticks and hummous, but let's face it, nobody eats healthy things at parties, and you run the risk of your contribution sitting sadly untouched on the food table at the end of the night.  You could just buy some multi-packs of crisps and call it a day, but some ridiculous alpha-female urge in you wants to rock up with something homemade. 

But this year, I think I have it sussed:  homemade cheese straws.  While these look like you've laboured over them lovingly for hours, they're actually the biggest cheat going, and take all of 30 minutes to throw together and bake.

Ingredients:

2 handfuls grated Parmesan
2 handfuls grated mature Cheddar
1 tsp English mustard powder
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed and unrolled

In a bowl, combine your cheeses and the mustard powder and stir well.

Unroll the pastry sheet onto a lightly floured surface.  Cover half the sheet thickly with grated cheese, then fold the other half of the pastry sheet over the top.  Roll out until about 3mm thick.

Slice the pastry sheet in half, then slice each half into eight or so 1cm-wide slices. 

Butter a baking tray, then, using a fish slice, carefully transfer the straws onto the tray.  (A word to the wise:  if you don't use a fish slice, the cheese will all fall out in transit, and that's annoying.)  Scatter the slices with any leftover cheese, then bake at 200 degrees for about 20 minutes until the pastry is puffed-up and golden.

Hey presto!  Super quick, super easy, and super impressive.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to dig out my festive jumper and 'ironic' Santa-shaped earrings. 

Ham Hock Slow-Roasted in Apple Juice

We're lucky enough to live within walking distance of Victoria Park, which means we have the following wonders on our doorstep:

1.)  Coffee at the Pavilion Cafe.

2.)  The Ginger Pig, where, it turns out, you can buy a ham hock for £4.  Yay!

We studded the hock with cloves, then nestled it carefully into the slow cooker, where it got covered with apple juice and surrounded by shallots and garlic.

Slow cooker on, sofa and telly action for us.  After about five hours, the hock looked like this:

SCRUM.  Some roasted parsnips and cabbage completed the meal.

The best thing about a roast hock?  Cold ham for the next couple of days for sandwiches.  A ham, tomato and mustard sandwich takes some beating, I think you'll agree.

Baked Eggs & Celeriac

Happy December!  How many mince pies have you eaten so far?  My tally stands at a very modest one.  I will addressing this in the coming days.

Since the weather has turned so cold that I feel like a chilly penguin from Frozen Planet, my food focus recently has been on hearty, filling dishes that can warm up the long dark evenings.   Baked eggs and celeriac is a recipe that comes from this book - and it's fantastic, for the following reasons:

1.) It uses celeriac.  Thank goodness!  Else what on earth would we do with this weird knobbly vegetable that's such a feature of the winter veg box?

2.)  It uses lots of butter.  Big plus point.

3.)  As the book describes, it's a hearty winter dish that isn't brown and sludgy.

Method (serves 2)

Peel the celeriac and chop into smallish pieces.  Boil until tender, drain and mash with tons of butter, salt and pepper. 

Put the celeriac mash in a baking dish and spread out evenly.  Make four indents in the celeriac, and crack an egg into each.  Sprinkle with a little more pepper, and dot a piece of butter onto each yolk. 

Bake at 180 degrees for 20-25 minutes until the eggs are set and the celeriac is turning slightly golden.

Serve with plenty of hot buttered toast and you have the recipe for a delicious winter's feast.