Angel Jem's City Cottage

I love Christmas, a lot, and I promise to post my #christmasisntchristmaswithout posts even if I have to post them throughout the new year and back date them! But today will not be the day that I do that; today I am prepping for Christmas At Home. We spent Christmas Day at my brothers house (27 for dinner) and, although I loved it, I get over-faced by that many, and I ate my dinner sitting back from the table due to NO arm space at all, so my Christmas Dinner was not at all restful (or even really enjoyable; turkey is not made to eat off one's knees) but the craic was really lovely, and the time spent with everybody was worth the pain. Today my Mum and Dad are coming. We were going to have a turkey cooked by me.... but it smelled off. I mean really bleachy and not fresh, even though I only bought it on Christmas Eve and it was good until the 26th, so I won't risk anyone's health. Life is too short to eat bad turkey. That bird is binned and two small chickens bask in t...

There are parts of the year that are fun, fun, fun, and parts that are both good and bad. I find September is balanced on a knife edge. I like the start of a new school year, the renewal of intentions, the creation of fresh new pages of plans and the planning for life ahead through to Christmas, but I also dread the start of new things; new classes, new people to relate to, new timetables and new pressures. Yes, I know, I'm classically conflicted. Very Dickensian; it's the best of times and the worst of times, the most exciting and the most nerve racking, the happiest and the saddest. So last week I sat and planned my month worth of meals. I do a month at a time to save me sucking the end of my pencil more than once a month. Here are the meals we will be eating this month Chez Nous. (I've included the days already gone by for archive reasons) 1;  Baked Aromatic Chicken 2; Lasagne and broccoli 3; Salmon with tomato pasta 4; Hotdogs and chips/ Peter to choose our m...

My spices don't go in my spice cupboard; I've tried all sorts to store and have spices to hand, including keeping them on shelves, in a revolving rack and in the drawer of my butcher's block. But all to no avail. They need to  be at hand, but covered so the sun and heat doesn't affect them. Not in the drawer out of sight so I never think to add spices or herbs to my cooking. I thought I had a solution in the spice rack that I found at Amazon; YouCopia 18-Bottle Original SpiceStack, Silver Spice Organizer/Rack looks really useful, and it would solve my problems spice wise, but I haven't got the spare spondulicks at the moment, so I needed a similar solution for the total cost of nothing. Enter a plastic set of drawers I had used for card and sticker storage in the past. With a little pattern making, alphabetising and an investment in some new spices (ground spices lose their pungency after a while and some of my spices were getting on), my spice drawer...

After seeing the Cunard liners (do you know the joke? Keep reading to the bottom to see it!) on Monday we went into the toon (sneaky Newcastle reference there!) and went to Waterstones. After having bought books for Sarah, promised books to David and tried to force something printed on James ("Listen, Mum, I'd rather have more money on my Steam account")  I spent a happy 15 minutes (I counted) looking at cookery books. Have you seen my sidebar? I now have a direct link through to Amazon and my favourite cookbooks. If you click through and buy from there, I actually make a little cash, now I'm an Amazon Associate. (not a lot; I won't be living the highlife on the percentage I get) I am still loving all things Scandi, so I went looking at the regional cookbooks. There are a few that tempted me to pull out my birthday cash, but then I saw The One, the one that I knew I wanted to buy, to use and to share with you, my friends. Fika; The Art of the Sw...

Monday; Today. I had Hairy Biker's Cheat's Doner Kebabs planned, and then we went out for the day and I asked my eldest (17) what he wanted me to do with the mince and he said lasagne. I avoid lasagne like the plague (it's fussy, it takes ages, I never quite get the pasta cooked through) but we took a deep breath and went for it. It was lovely. Tuesday; Chicken bake. I have to joint a whole chicken because Mr AJ says it is the cheapest way to buy chicken at Aldi. I know it is, but, really, somedays the last thing I feel like doing is jointing a bloody chicken. I suppose I can always stick Mr AJ's face on it and get some anger therapy at the same time. Wednesday; Chow Mein. Noodles and bits with soy sauce. Yum. Thursday; Friday; We are out at a quiz night with a free hotpot supper provided. I am going to make cheese on toast as a tide-me-over beforehand. I think I might zhuzh mine up into welsh rarebit. Saturday; Pork. I shall slice the pork and coat it in b...

Back to school :,( We are all back to school today. Is it raining? Or is it only raining in my heart? A week is not long enough. But there are only 6 weeks until our next holiday so we can survive. Meals this week are easy and quick; I'm getting over a bad cold that laid me low on Friday and Saturday so I'm cutting some slack. Monday; Party leftovers; chilli or ham or whatever is left. Tuesday; Cowboy Casserole Wednesday; Twice cooked pork Thursday; Meatballs, pasta and sauce. Friday; Fish and Chips Saturday; ?Pizza Hut? or Sainsbury's pizza Sunday; Welsh Lamb with potato gratin and leeks We have 2 out of 3 children away this next weekend, so Middle Son finally experiences life as an only child. He will either love it or hate it; for 14 years he has been part of a close family and, as far as I can remember, never been alone. I'm looking forward to it because he really needs some confidence building. We want to take him to a science centre, either E...

I'm guessing my Christmas Eve this year is pretty much like anybody else's if you've got Christmas dinner to cook the next day. I want as little as possible to do on Christmas Day so I plan.. plan and plan a bit more. My list this year ran; 11am make stollen dough ( Paul Hollywood's recipe ) and leave to rise. 11.30 make biscotti. Chocolate orange and cherry in the sort of style of the Hairy Bikers' Chocolate Orange and cranberry. Noon Stollen stage 2; incorporate marzipan and swirl into shape. Leave to prove. 1pm bake the stollen. Watch the daughter decorate her Christmas cake with buttercream icing and wonder how she can get quite so green in 5 minutes. 2pm make the chocolate mousse cake. Put the pork on to roast. 3pm prep the veg; brussels sprouts, carrot sticks, carrot and swede mash chunks, broccoli cauliflower cheese cooked ready to baking stage, parsnips, sausage and stuffing balls wrapped in bacon. 4 or 5pm prep the turkey...

Oh my! You want to see my cookies? Is it heresy to say that we very rarely make cookies any more? In fact, I think the last time I went to town and actually made cookies was last Christmas Eve, because Santa insisted on freshly made cookies. However, I'm sure you DO want to see my cookies, so here is the best I can do; From 2006 to 2009. The children are not this small and cute now. We used to spend some time on Christmas Eve decorating the cookies with EVERYTHING; icing, sprinkles, silver balls, writing THE WORKS. Which is lovely and cute and the children loved it. But Poor Santa had to eat those cookies and, like me, Santa prefers his cookies chocolate flavoured and quite plain NOT covered in everything. Whoops. My favourite cookie recipes are Nigella's Chocolate cookies , her cut out butter cookies and (for the grown ups) the Hairy Bikers Chocolate and Orange Biscotti. Have fun baking! I'm going to try some other recipes this year; I l...

I am taking it as read that you realise we eat turkey with all the trimmings here, and that some of the Great Feast is a favourite Christmas food... apart from which, the Great Feast itself gets a post of its own later on in the month, so I won't do a great sell on the recipes and versions of turkey et al here. Instead I'm think of the food that we get in as treats, extras, seasonal specialities. So, what food summons up Christmas for me? Let me think.... I don't feel Christmas is really here without a big bowl of these in the house. Somehow grabbing a photo of them before this monster eats them is impossible.  He will eat a netful in a sitting. His record at aged 9 was 15 in a day. And then he was sick. It didn't put him off and now, aged 14 he will still eat 15 in a sitting if nobody puts a stop to it. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I usually write on at least half of my bowlful to remind him that I like them as well! A few goo...