Angel Jem's City Cottage

Chez Angel Jem this Yuletide we will be eating; Christmas breakfast Stollen (homemade) using either St Delia's recipe or last year's heart throb, Paul Hollywood's recipe . The rest of the cookies that Santa didn't eat. Salmon, cream cheese and Sandwich thins. Mulled wine cupcakes . I saw the recipe in a random Christmas magazine and I will give it a go! Fruit and Fibre. Because if The Princess decides to make ANYTHING on Christmas Eve, I won't get near the oven long enough to make a blind thing. The Main Event No starters... there is already too much food going on! Turkey cooked a la Delia. She hasn't led me wrong in 21 years of marriage, so I'm not changing the system! Of course, I don't like everything she does, so I'll tweak the recipe and be daring by using smoked streaky bacon instead of plain cured. Braised red cabbage. I'm putting this on to cook now. Two weeks is just about long enough to soften it up! Brussels sprou...

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...

The British Weather is so wishy-washy we get neither burning sun nor deep dark snow drifts. We get a lot of wetness. It's no wonder that  the preferred building material of choice is either brick or stone instead of wooden boards that would just shrivel and moulder away. Our winter items we desperately need therefore are not the chains for the car nor the snowsuits that keep out the sharp cold of icy blasts but the ones that either keep you dry or get you warm after your poor tootsies have got damp. My essential winter kit; A decent umbrella. Actually a few decent umbrellas for different purposes. A big golfing brolly to share on the touchline or on a wet walk, a small fit in the bag brolly for shopping and a medium sized car brolly are the very minimum, but since it pays to be prepared, a few of each means that if anyone pops by without their own essential kit (obviously not a Cub Scout leader) then the required item can be loaned. My bestest favourite one is a long brolly...

Santa Baby, for Christmas this year I would like; A new Cath Kidston purse . You can never have too many. Seriously. And this one is red. A matching umbrella. I know my Mum has bought me the bag as well (because I ordered it for her) so to be all matchy matchy with this print (it's red roses) would be lovely. Perfume. I love perfume and I have just run out of the expensive stuff. I'm happy to wait a little longer and pick up a  bargain in the sales. Mmmm Sensuous Nude A microwave. One of the first videos I even took was S watching her heating pig turn round and round. It was so funny. Our microwave broke at Easter and we never replaced it, but I think the depths of winter might be the right time. I want the red one, the Princess wants a purple one. .... A clear work surface in the kitchen . Seriously, I am cooking Christmas dinner today and the only surface that is ever used for prepping and cooking is less than a metre square. I need more space. I...

In past years I have painted presents, heat-etched boxes and decorated plates, mugs, glasses. I have sewn bags, knitted toys and crocheted things. I have made biscotti, tried to create truffles and dreamed about making sloe gin. I decorated Christmas paper one year (pre-children) and had my poor child on a conveyor belt of painting (just one more picture of Thomas, please; you have one last Auntie to delight with it...) What are my favourite presents to give or get? I have to admit to a fondness for my painted boxes. For a few years I gave every pair of adults a painted box; snowmen, angels, nativity, dogs, whatever suited their personality. Some of these predate the blog and I didn't think to take photos, others I KNOW I have a photo of somewhere but just cannot find. These are just the ones I could find on my computer. I know I have a couple more; I'll find them and put them on. I love making these boxes because they take time. They make me think about t...

Christmas Day. Mostly. Everybody gets a small stocking on their bed or near their bed. I think last year I got so fed up of waiting for the children (teenagers) to go to sleep that I threatened to put the bl**dy things outside and make them get their own in the morning. But Christmas goodwill prevailed. It might be something small like a lip gloss, or a cd or a joke. Some years the ubiquitous socks make an appearance here and several years a toothbrush and paste popped up. The contents don't change much and usually include something to read, something to eat and something really stupid that nobody knows what to do with but everybody has a fiddle with during the day. Don't ask. Big Presents are sitting under the Christmas tree in three neat little piles and waiting until the time is right and we make it down. Pyjamas must be worn, often a clean and new for Christmas and we try to space them out nowadays after a few good grab and unwrap as quickly as possible years.  I s...

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...