"On the road to Beth Beth Beth"...

Ah, it became clear after all. That annoying song that has sounded like a rapsters tune for the last 3 weeks suddenly made sense as I sat watching littleuns school nativity yesterday. My little darling was a star both in behaviour and as a character. In a bid to involve all the younger children in the nativity they added a few extras. Least of which was a side story of an angel who hadn't got her wings. On her way to Bethlehem she was always late in catching up the others, till it became obvious that she would get her wings after helping several animals with ailments. A fun afternoon of enthusiastic children who despite having rather short attention spans and waving madly at their parents, gave it their all. And yes, I did have a tear or two.

Now we are sitting here this afternoon, putting together our latest Yule gifts, Rocky road in a bag...

ps, the snow is apparently on the way back, argh.

A Turkish offering

We all like a sweet or too, sticky indulgence that we know we really shouldn’t eat but oh just so have too. One of my dad’s favourites is Turkish delight. (Known as rahat lokum meaning giving rest to the throat). It’s pretty with its subtle soft colours and aromatic flavouring plus is a lovely thing to make at home and give out when our friends come and visit at Yule.

To make you will need:
3 tbs gelatine powder
400g sugar
1 tsp rosewater or to taste
2-3 drops of red food colouring
2 teaspoons cornflour
200g icing sugar
An 18 cm square cake tin wetted with water

Put 300ml water into a heavy based saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat then sprinkle in the gelatine and stir with metal spoon until melted. Add the sugar and stir continuously until dissolved

Return to the boil and continue boiling for 10 mins. Remove from the heat and stir in the rosewater and colouring.

Strain through sieve lined with muslin into the prepared cake tin and let cool. Leave to stand overnight to set.

Next day, sift the cornflour and icing sugar into a bowl, then sprinkle a thick layer onto a work surface. Transfer remaining powder mixture into a plastic bag.

Remove the Turkish Delight from the cake tin, loosening the edges if necessary with a wet knife and dipping the base of the tin into hot water for a few seconds. Turn out onto coated work surface and cut into 3cm squares.

Put the squares into the bag, together with any sugar mix left on the work surface, seal the bag and shake well until they are thick and evenly covered.

Pack into an airtight container and sprinkle over any remaining sugar mix.

Variations:
Orange Delight: Instead of the rosewater and red colouring add 1 tbs strained orange juice, 1 tsp orange flower water and 1 tbs ground crystallized orange rind at the same time as the sugar, prceed as above.

Lemon Nut Delight: Instead of the rosewater and red colouring stir through 1 tbs strained lemon juice. When mixture is beginning to set carefully stir through 40g blanched, chopped almonds or pistachios and proceed as main recipe.

Stained Glass Ginger Biscuits

Ok it’s still rubbish weather wise here so have warmed the house with the smell of ginger. We often make goodies as gifts for friends at Yule and this year is no different. We have hampers ready with yummy things like our chutney from the summer and the apple schnapps soon ready to be poured into individual bottles. But one of the other things we like making are decorations and if that can be combined with food all the better.

We have put together some bits and bobs that the Littleuns can make (with a bit of help from the adults) and our first foody one are these delicious biscuits. Make them, hang them or just eat them.

To make you will need:

Cookie/biscuit cutters, we used stars, bells and house. Two of each is helpful, one smaller than the other.
Baking sheet.
Greaseproof paper

For the biscuits:
350g/12oz plain flour, extra for dusting
1tsp Bicarbonate of soda
½tsp salt
2tsp ground ginger
100g/3½oz butter
175g/6oz soft brown sugar
1 free-range egg, beaten
4tbsp golden syrup
Packet of fruit flavoured boiled sweets, different colours.
To decorate:
Tube of readymade white icing
Narrow ribbon
Ice sugar/dust

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180c/350f/Gas 4
For the biscuits mix the flour bicarbonate of soda salt and ginger together in a bowl.
Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs, and then stir in the sugar.
In another bowl, beat together the egg and golden syrup, pour this mixture into the flour mixture and mix to make a smooth dough, kneading lightly with your hands.
Crush the sweets in a bag using a rolling pin.
Roll out the dough on a floured work top to about 5mm/¼inch thick, and then cut into the shapes chosen. Transfer the biscuits to the baking sheet lined with the paper.
Cut out the centre of each biscuit making sure you leave a good edge all around the biscuits, completely fill the hole in each biscuit with broken sweets.
Make a hole at the top of each biscuit so that you can later thread the ribbon through. Bake for 10-12 mins or until golden brown.
Remove biscuits from oven and whilst they are still warm check that the holes are still there if not gently re-make. Leave on tray until cooled. Once cooled pipe icing in patterns wanted around the biscuits, you can dip in the ice dust if you want a snow-ish feel to it. Thread ribbon and hang.

Happy Samhain and the Winner is...

Well it's here and it has slid in without enough preparation from us. The bug we have had has still got its hold on us and the only positive effect it is having is that it gives such horrible aches and pains that I can save a fortune on any zombie costume whilst having the walk down pat!

Really has been a rotten few weeks sadly so haven't managed to post anything here as just getting ourselves up and about has proved to be a bit too hard at times. But we do need to do the announcement of the Bloggerversary winner. So this morning we have sat here, entered each name the appropriate amount of times into our very special sorting hat and here we are with the winner being (drum roll)..... Kally!

Kally is relatively new in the world of Blogging and is celebrating her first Samhain today with her littleuns. So if you can, do take a wander over to her blog, she has some lovely things to tell you all about.

Hope to be back next week with more of our ramblings, showing you hopefully how we managed to celebrate today. Am now off to make a brain jelly for my mums Hallowe'en party. Good Samhain blessings to you all.

Seed box gifts

Over the last few weeks we have been gathering the seeds from our flowers and veg ready for use next year. This is something the gardeners used to do a lot but in this “must buy” society is something you don’t hear about that often any more. So far we have several packets drying out and apart from being in brown bags or envelopes haven’t done much with them. Cue the need for a box to put them in. Now we could have just got a box and that be that but Littleun said he fancied making one for his grandfather too so we have come up with an idea for cheep but meaningful gifts. A seed box with home-grown seeds.

You will need,

A shoe box
Pictures from mag’s, papers, seed envelopes etc of flowers, veg or anything you can think of that you would associate with gardens.
Glue
Scissors
Sticky backed plastic
Seeds, envelopes and pictures

Cut out the pictures in non-uniform shapes. Glue onto the lid and the base, cover with the plastic so all smooth and slightly water-drip proof. I have added a couple of recipes that we love doing jams and chutney.

With the seeds we have split them and decorated each envelope with pictures of the plants to show what is inside them ready to add to the box.

Simple but effective little gift for the Littleuns to make.

Eostre Chocolate Eggs

It just wouldn’t be the same for Littleun without them would it?! Well that’s my excuse for having some and I’m sticking to it. We thought it would be nice to make our eggs this year to give to our friends. It was very messy and the best bit must have been licking the spoons when we had finished.

To make our eggs we used:

Two large egg moulds
Small egg moulds
Glass bowl
Pan with hot water
Pastry brush
Yummy scrummy (Cadburys in our case) chocolate about 250gm for small eggs, 500gms for larger
Patience

Break the chocolate into the bowl and then put the bowl in the pan so the already heated water is gently simmering till the chocolate is melted

Don’t let the water get into the chocolate as this will make it all mucky and no good to use. When melted gently fill the small egg half moulds, level off and pop into fridge to set

With the large halves lightly brush a thin layer on the inside and leave in fridge to set.

Remove after 15ish mins and add another layer, repeating until you have built up a thickness which is stable. Whilst waiting for the bigger halves to set, remove the smaller ones, tip out of mould and tidy any messy edges up. Splodge on a small bit of melted choc and push two halves together. Put back in fridge to reset.

When ours were finished we put them in cellophane bags and decorated with tags and ties. Hope you have fun and actually manage to give them away before eating them yourselves!

Saint Nicholas, Sinterklaas, Santa Claus

We know that our Pagan customs have been adopted and changed to suit the needs of other religions and beliefs over the years and this got me wondering to what else has been adapted and changed for this time of year.

When I went to Brugge last month I saw many items to do with a character called Sinterklaas and his helper Père Fouettard. Not really knowing the original story, only the basic one my mother used to tell each Christmas, I thought I’d look it up.

Whichever you may call him he originates from the same story of a man called Nicholas of Myra. The patron saint of Pawn Brokers. This story is Catholic but many children believe in him regardless of their family faiths. The main custom is to put out a slipper the night before and if they have been good they would receive a gift of sweets or a few coins. But the scarier side of the story, the bit my mum forgot to mention, was what happened if you had been naughty. I remember her telling me that I had to be good or Father Christmas wouldn’t visit but she didn’t say about Père Fouettard and his punishments. In accordance with tradition the Catholics have made it a rather harsh thing to be naughty. The simplest punishment would be that you’d get a rod for discipline in your slipper; the worst, tied up in his sack, taken to a forest and beaten! When we were in Brugge we asked a gentleman the reason for the coloured helper and strangely he didn’t know nor did anyone else we asked. Can kind of work out why now! Most countries have dropped Père Fouettard from the story; they don’t like the racist implications which I understand however a few have changed the origin of Père to that of a chimney sweep hence the delivery of the gifts via a chimney. The hay or carrots left out were originally for a horse though latterly he has changed to the deer and Father Christmas’ red clothing comes from the fact that St Nicholas was a bishop whose robes were red. The date has also changed for Father Christmas, he now visits America, the UK and some other countries on the 24th December, tying him to the Christmas celebrations but St Nicholas’ day is actually 6th December so the shoes would be left out on the 5th. So for those of you who put out stockings you've now got an idea where it comes from, so don’t be naughty!