Freecycling

I am putting a lot of the unwanted clutter on freecycle... someone else's junk is another man's treasure and saves me the hassle of getting rid of things if someone else can take them off my hands.

So videos, audiocassettes (yes I still had some of these), blank tapes, furniture, printer, school desk, sideboard etc.. have all been listed and I am not done yet.

The bookcases have been pruned drastically, my aim is to go down from 3.5 large bookcases + the study to 1 large bookcase and a smaller one.

I have plans to take cuttings of some of the plants and transplant others to containers to take with me, I have to keep it limited so the Bay tree, myrtle and fuschia will be transplanted along with the lilac and hopefully the californian dwarf lilac. while cuttings will be taken of the clematis.. anyone know how to do that - any advice gratefully received.

I have to fill in the hole in the garden though, I am tempted to replant the container back in, and refill it with water to not have to do the work.

I have masses of painting and decorating to do, and being scared of heights gives me the heeby jeebies about doing some of it but I am hoping that some friends will give me a hand.

I don't feel bad about selling the house, I had always maintained that I didn't want roots here as it was where my parents chose to live; it was never mine. I found my roots were in Cornwall, and that is where I need to be, yes I will be sad to leave as it will not be possible to come back if everything goes pear-shaped but then again it will be my third attempt at leaving (prior I left to go to London and then Bedford) so perhaps third time lucky.

The list is endless, but I feel it has a purpose and I want not to be here but down in Cornwall sooner rather than later so it has to be done.

and the winner is ......

Thank you all and every one of you that entered to win the waterski-ing westies calendar.

The amount raised in the raffle at the BMW Midland Section Towcester meeting was £73.50 which included the donations as well as raffle tickets sold (see the picture on the right which was written out by Janet & John who host the meetings there).

Which means that there is an outright winner (who guessed £79.00) of the calendar and that is :

Trixie

I mentioned that there was a link between the number of individual entries (There was 11 entries) and that the Air Ambulance fund will benefit, so and I will put in £1 for each and every one of you for the Air Ambulance fund which will be a drop in the ocean for their finances but will count. Every motorcyclist supports this sort of charity but never wants to be a recipient of their services.

Commiserations to all those not lucky enough to have won but if want to get one of these calendars for yourself (they also do cats, jack russells and hamsters as well) the link to go to is here Paul and Steve would be pleasantly surprised to hear from you.

Trixie, can you email me at wise_herb at btinternet dot com with an address to send it to and hopefully you will get it before the New Year.

Home Decorating

Putting up the christmas decorations in our house usually involves the absolute minimum.

Checklist :

1 Tree
1 roll of lavender beads on a silver wire
1 roll of silver beads
12 glass stars and tree shaped decorations
2 beaded stars for the top of the tree
6 Candy Cane pipecleaners
1 Door Wreath
1 Door star light
2 Sets of Lights
1 Mantlepiece bough
numerous christmas cards from friends and neighbours

An abundance of love, mixed with laughter and happiness completes the picture.

How do you decorate your house?

Don't forget to put your guesses on the Giveaway post to try and win the Calendar - you have until Tomorrow - Friday 19th December at 12.00 Noon. The more people that enter, the more the Air Ambulance funds will benefit - I will explain in a later post.

Ever wondered about the 12 days of christmas?

Many of our Nursery Rhymes, like ring-a-ring of roses, have meanings that don't mean anything to today's children, yet still exist in a modern world. I did a bit of research on a christmas carol, which I felt had a hidden meaning but didn't know it. So I present to you, my findings on The 12 Days of Christmas - the Carol.

It has some belief that it is a catchism song, but no real evidence exists on this, however, that doesn't mean it isn't the case and even though you can bend the song to twist many meanings I quite like the idea that the following is the case :

The "true love" mentioned in the song doesn’t refer to an earthly suitor, but to God Himself. The "me" who receives the presents refers to every baptized person. i.e. the Church.

1st Day
The partridge in a pear tree is Christ Jesus upon the Cross. In the song, Christ is symbolically presented as a mother partridge because she would feign injury to decoy a predator away from her nestlings, willing to die in order to protect her youngsters. The tree is the symbol of the fall of the human race through the sin of Adam and Eve.

2nd Day
The "two turtle doves" refers to the Old and New Testaments.

3rd Day
The "three French hens" stand for faith, hope and love—the three gifts of the Holy Spirit

4th Day
The "four calling birds" refers to the four evangelists who wrote the Gospels— Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

5th Day
The "five golden rings" represents the first five books of the Bible, also called the Jewish Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

6th Day
The "six geese a-laying" is the six days of creation.

7th Day
The "seven swans a-swimming" refers to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord.

8th Day
The "eight maids a milking " reminded children of the eight beatitudes listed in the Sermon on the Mount.

9th Day
The "nine ladies dancing" were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit : love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

10th Day
The "ten lords a-leaping" represents the Ten Commandments

11th Day
The "eleven pipers piping" refers to the eleven faithful apostles.

12th Day
The ‘twelve drummers drumming" were the twelve points of belief expressed in the Apostles’ Creed: belief in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, that Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, made man, crucified, died and arose on the third day, that he sits at the right hand of the father and will come again, the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting.

Don't forget to put your guesses on the Giveaway post to try and win the Calendar - you have until Friday 19th December at 12.00 Noon. The more people that enter, the more the Air Ambulance funds will benefit - I will explain in a later post.

The history of the Mince Pie

I love learning about cooking, stems back from hearing my Nan (who used to be a cook in service many years ago) talk about the old style of cooking, and working in the kitchens at Windsor Castle simply added to my love of history so combing the two loves is a match made in heaven. TV programmes such as Tales from the Green Valley, or people like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recreating old style foods whet my appetite for more.

So on to the topic of today, the humble mince pie. Not the sweet pastry ones of today, when they were first derived in the medieval era they were known as chewet - which was a fried or baked pastry containing chopped liver and other meats mixed with boiled eggs and ginger. The latter possibly to cover the taste of the meat which might have not stored very well and was possibly getting a bit rancid. For variety, dried fruit and other sweet ingredients might be added to the chewet's filling if the household could afford the luxury of these goods.

The mince pie (or Shred Pie) became a christmas speciality by the 16th century, and in the 17th century, the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell and his Parliament Men passed a law that made it illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas Day. Nb this has not yet been repealed so if you do you are breaking the law :-).

By the mid-17th Century, meat was replaced by Beef Suet and by the 19th Century meat was no longer used in the making of mince pies. I use the vegetarian version of Suet as it helps to keep the pies lighter in texture and taste.

But there is a little bit of me, that would like to try out the 'older' style of Chewet... what do you think SOH might say?

Don't forget to put your guesses on the Giveaway post to try and win the Calendar - you have until Friday 19th December at 12.00 Noon.

Giveaway Time

I did promise a give-away today, and was trying hard over the weekend to come up with some witty way of writing something challenging.. but haven't managed to come up with anything but the following.

Where the 144 mince pies went, all and every single one was designated to go to another home. 36 went to some friends that can no longer make them, so giving them mincemeat wasn't an option this year instead I just added theirs to the big batch I made on Saturday. 72 went to the BMW Club for the Sunday meeting held at Towcester, something I started to do a couple of years ago as we have a festive gathering on the second Sunday in December.

Finally the remaining 36 are for work, we have a staff meeting on Wednesday that I was 'volunteered' to provide the mince pies for.. then SOH and I want some to take down for his family in the New Year so I still have a few more to make before I can hang up my chef's hat this year.

Anyway, back to what I was saying about Towcester, 32 people came to the meeting, plus 3 helpers in the kitchen and a raffle was held in aid of the local Northampton/Warckwickshire Air Ambulance fund with prizes brought/donated by the members who attended.

Including donations it was a good sum of money and if any of you would like the giveaway, please put a comment to this post with the amount you think we raised (I will give you one clue it was under £100 and over £1 [For the US guys £1 = $1.50]) and the person with the nearest guess will win the prize (if more than one person is closest we will put the entries into a hat and draw the winners name) . All entries to be posted by Friday 19th December 2008 at 12.00pm (so I can get it in the post this week if possible).

I had a contact from one of the creators of the Waterski-ing Westies calendar and now have a copy to give away to one lucky reader of the blog.. I had a look at it and it is very cute and appealing, not to mention extremely functional and useful calendar format. Will make a useful addition to your walls next year.

So let the entries commence and good luck to you all.

Mince Pies - Stage II

The pastry has chilled nicely in the fridge, turn the oven to 220 degrees C, and the fun factory is about to commence.

1. Take one pack of pastry out to warm up a bit, not too warm as it will go too sticky to roll or cut out.

2. Take out the baking trays, with 12 indents, and liberally grease them with butter

3. Take a bowl full of mincemeat, add a bit more brandy if it looks a little dry, but you don't want it to be too wet.

4. Beat an egg, with some milk in a jug (for brushing on the pastry)

5. Put some caster sugar in a small container (for sprinkling on the pastry before cooking).

6. Get the cutters out, one large for the bottom piece of pie, a smaller one for the lid. I use a star cutter for the top decoration, but you could use anything you like, heart, diamond etc.

7. Roll out the now cool pastry (don't let it get too warm), on a floured surface until fairly thin (you don't want it too thick or at least I don't).

8.Cut out 12 larger rounds for the bases and put them in the tins, put a teaspoon of mincemeat in each base.

9.Cut 12 tops and 12 stars and brush the underside of the top with the egg wash and place over the base and mincemeat. Brush the top with egg white and put the star on top and sprinkle with sugar.

Whooooooo first tin down, only 11 more to go...

10. Put the completed tin to one side, as likelihood is the oven is not quite to temperature and in any case this makes the job a bit quicker.

Repeat actions 7 through to 9 again and by the time you have done this the first batch can now go in the oven, while the second one waits patiently you can do the third tray and so on until you have as many as you need.

When they are ready to come out of the oven, and you will get the most lovely scent out of the baking process... or at least I think I do... they will be lovely and golden brown.. usually takes between 10-12 minutes (longer if your pastry is thicker or you have used shop brought pastry rather than try the pate sucre in Stage I)...

It is important to leave them in the tin to cool, very important step this as taking them out of the tin when they are too warm will just mean they break and you have to eat all the broken ones.. hmmm I think that's right though I am sure SOH will be helping me at this stage lol.

Now when tin 2 comes out of the oven onto the cooling rack, tin 1 should be about ready to take out. I use a plastic spatula to gently ease them out and onto the cooling rack

Serve warm with clotted cream, or brandy butter, or anything you like.. I usually dust mine with icing sugar but I believe some people leave the tops open and create an icing top.

Enjoy

ps - any orders let me know :-)
pps - competition for the giveaway will be tomorrow's post