Christmas Food Shopping

I hate having to think about Christmas food shopping in October, but as per usual if I want the benefit of someone else going and getting it for me, I have to, as food delivery slots go like wild fire, even now in October, I delayed sorting the order out for a few days after the slots were released and already the closest slot I could get was 22nd December. Anyway, with the service I use (Ocado), you can only book your slot at Christmas, if you put over £90 worth of food in your trolley (average main weekly shop for us, about £60), so every year I face my computer screen thinking “how on earth can I think up £90 of Christmas food in October?” and then promptly find my trolley is showing well over £100 (thanks this year to my copy of Nigella Christmas, which I brought and used for last Christmas, thinking “Do I really need a cook book just for Christmas? That’s a bit of a waste isn’t it? I have so many Nigella Christmas recipes already, scattered around various cook books”,  but actually I’m glad I did sucumb as it is such a useful book to have, faced with the prospect of Christmas food shopping, it was the only book I could think of or want, everything in one place, with some darn fine dishes, so perfect).

Anyway, luckily I can go in and edit my order, way into December, so this is only very provisional, but this is what I ordered,

Cupboard

• 1 Bart Deli Organic Whole Cloves £1.99
• 1 Bart Fairtrade Cardamom Pods £2.29
• 1 Bart Fairtrade Ground Ginger £1.49
• 1 Bart Spices Bay Leaves £1.49
• 1 Beck’s Bier £5.98
• 1 Carrots Waitrose £0.44
• 1 Celebrations Large Carton £3.81
• 1 Chocolate Coins in Net £0.99
• 1 Continental Plain Chocolate Waitrose £1.88
• 1 Cooks’ Ingredients Sugar Balls Waitrose £1.24
• 1 Dark Brown Soft Sugar Waitrose £0.98
• 1 East End Coarse Semolina £0.59
• 1 Fairtrade Organic Bananas Waitrose £1.58
• 1 Garlic Waitrose £0.98
• 1 Greek Currants essential Waitrose £1.48
• 1 Green & Black’s Organic Cocoa £1.59
• 1 Green Basil Pesto Waitrose £1.88
• 1 Haribo Mallow Mix £0.97
• 2 Hovis Wholemeal Medium Sliced Bread £2.44
• 1 Intelligent Eating Eggs Waitrose £1.71
• 1 John Lewis Non-Stick Swiss Roll Tray £9.00
• 1 Kellogg’s Corn Flakes £1.93
• 1 McVitie’s Hob-Nobs Biscuits £0.61
• 1 NY Bagel Co. Original Bagels £1.00
• 1 Nestle Cheerios £1.98
• 1 Ocean Spray Craisins Cranberries £1.79
• 1 Organix Goodies Organic Raspberry & Apple Cereal Bars £2.25
• 1 Pampers Easy-Up Size 6 £8.98
• 1 Pink Lady Apples Waitrose £1.98
• 1 Pringles Paprika £1.95
• 1 Pure Apple Juice Waitrose £3.10
• 1 Reduced Fat Crinkle Unsalted Crisps Waitrose £1.34
• 1 Spiced Pickled Onions Waitrose £1.08
• 1 Tate & Lyle Fairtrade Icing Sugar £0.65
• 1 Walkers Cheese & Onion Crisps £1.15
• 1 White Potatoes essential Waitrose £1.37

Fridge

• 1 30 British Pork Cocktail Sausages essential Waitrose £1.88
• 2 British Pork Belly Joint essential Waitrose £5.77
• 1 British Wafer Thin Smoked Ham Waitrose £3.74
• 1 Catusse Grasse d’Oie Goose Fat £3.99
• 1 Cheese & Smoked Ham Tortelloni Waitrose £1.98
• 1 Cranberries Waitrose £2.48
• 1 Dairy Butter essential Waitrose £0.74
• 1 Del Ugo Gnocchi £1.49
• 1 Farm Assured Cubetti Di Pancetta Waitrose £2.38
• 1 Garlic Baguette – 2 per pack Waitrose £1.38
• 1 Green Celery essential Waitrose £0.77
• 1 Iced Fruit Christmas Cake Waitrose £3.98
• 1 Innocent Kids Smoothie Orange, Mango and Pineapple £2.96
• 1 Organic Fresh Semi Skimmed Milk 4 Pints Waitrose £1.81
• 1 Petits Filous Fromage Frais £2.88
• 1 Red Onions Waitrose £0.78
• 1 Red Peppers Waitrose £1.28
• 1 Satsumas essential Waitrose £1.98
• 1 Smoked British Bacon Streaky Rashers essential Waitrose £1.76
• 1 Wild Rocket Waitrose £0.98

As you can see; a) I have no optimistic hope of toilet training Boy Lacer by December, b) I’ve ordered a lot of spices (my spice racks are really running low, as I shift out all my out of date, saw dust tasting stuff),  c) no turkey (or our usual chicken), we’re having pork belly this year, I was really surprised how cheap it was and after seeing Jamie Oliver using pork belly so many times, I’ve really fancied a go and was getting fed up of poultry that no one ever eats, d) I’m buying my christmas cake this year.

The christmas cake in particular, it’s sad how much thought, debate (and research), I’ve put in to deciding not to make my own christmas cake this year. I’ve been making my own christmas cake for several years now and I really loved doing it (specially after settling on the idea that Nigella’s really is the best) but I’m the only person who eats it and most of it ends up in the bin at some point after Christmas, so it’s such a waste. So, I decided to buy one, just a small one, so that I could still get my Christmas cake but not have so much laying round the house, but then looking at the Christmas cakes already in the shops and how they were either massive and expensive or tiny literal small mouthfuls, I was coming to the conclusion that forget waste, I had to make my own anyway, it’d be cheaper, but then I saw a really cheap, quite small cake, enough for one to get through in a few days, on Ocado, so that solved that problem, I just hope it’s edible (unlike the Rachel Allen one I made last year).

Feel quite sad though at no Christmas cake baking (I’m working on my children slowly, they do eat Christmas cake, but they only ever want a tiny slice, just the once, each Christmas, which at least is more festive than Mr. Lacer who doesn’t eat it at all, so maybe after a few years more training, I can go back to bigger Christmas cakes (and when I say ‘bigger’, the ones I make are always the smallest I can make anyway), so I can start making them again). I’m also thinking of not doing the gingerbread house either, as that never gets completely eaten to, I’m thinking of maybe treating ourselves to one of those really small, but amazingly intricate, ready made ones, the kids would love it and we’d be able to finish it it one sitting. So no Christmas cake and no gingerbread house, what am I going to bake? Well, each year I always want to make a Christmas yule log, because it’s chocolate and everyone’s going to eat that, but I never get round to it because I’m too busy with the Christmas cake and the gingerbread house, so the Christmas yule log will get done this year. I will also be making Nigella’s cranberry mince pies, which I made last year and are absolutely delicious and do get eaten (and I hate mince pies normally), Girl Lacer in particular is excited about those, as she’s recently discovered she loves cranberries. So there will be baking, just more realistic making based on what my family will actually eat, instead of what I think my family should eat. I ponder to whether I should just extend that principle to the actual meal itself, although I’ll be trying something new by moving away from chicken (which my kids won’t eat and Mr. Lacer only tolerates), I’m not convinced my kids are going to eat the pork belly either, I tell you, serving the ‘required’ poultry and potatoes in the form of chicken dippers and waffles, is very tempting!

Finally of course, there’s the left overs, which to me is the best bit about Christmas food, so there’ll be a bit of a downer on that this year, as from Boxing Day, we’ll be away visiting and although the first house will probably have better left overs than I’ll have, that’ll only be for one night, for the rest of the trip, it’ll be a bit of a food wasteland unfortunately.

In which Girl Lacer turns 6 and Mrs. Lacer makes possibly the worst ever birthday cake

Happy Birthday Girl Lacer, 6 today. Girl Lacer’s birthdays have a tendency to fall into almost royal like levels of activities and preparation, so we’ve had a very busy weekend prior to this and I’ve been working my little sewing and cooking fingers off.

I didn’t mention it yesterday (forgot) but there was cake involved in Girl Lacer’s bowling party (cake was about the only thing I had to provide, other than money of course). As I was planning a proper cake on the actual birthday, I made cupcakes, using my usual bastardised Annabel Karmel recipe (she separates her eggs, I think who can be bothered?) and topped them with a Peggy Porschen cream cheese icing from the Sainsbury’s magazine (go here to the Nigella Lawson message board, quite close to the top, someone has given the recipe). The cream cheese icing recipe is great, with cream cheese, a little bit of butter and lots of icing sugar, it makes a really thick paste where you really can’t go wrong and considering I normally completely muck up my icing, I’ve just found my life long icing of choice! I flavoured mine (as per one of the suggestions), with a tablespoon of jam (seedless raspberry, as Girl Lacer is allergic to strawberries), which turned the icing pink and gave it a nice raspberry flavour. So, the cupcakes were really nice . . .

On to the actual birthday day and Girl Lacer gets a good haul of presents, a cardboard house (as she liked Boy Lacer’s cardboard house), this time though from ELC instead of Paperpod, as it was a bit cheaper, but I think the Paperpod ones are probably a little bit more environmentally friendlier and they certainly fold down more easily, you also get more choice and you’re supporting (I think) a smaller company, so feel a bit bad for going to ELC now, but was trying to stick to a budget. She also got an Annabel Karmel cookery set and my handmade gift was a stationary folder complete with stationary (she loves writing letters, so much so, she actually gets into trouble for it sometimes, as she’ll much rather write a letter, than say get ready for school). From other people she got a CD player with two microphones, well I actually brought that, but it was with money from the relatives, she absolutely loves it (as does Boy Lacer) but oh, was it a good idea? Because it is very, very loud, sorry neighbours! She also got more stuff for her train track, some craft stuff and some CDs, plus quite a bit of spending money.

Design: my own, embroidered pockets on an ‘envelope’ of fabric, with stiff cardboard inners.

Fabric: the other half of a gorgeous fat quarter bundle pack from Fabric Rehab (the other half was used to make this), unfortunately (because I’d quite like some more), the fabric seems already to have gone.

We went out today to spend the money, she didn’t initially grasp quite how much the amount she had, would get, so she was automatically going for the cheap pocket money toys she can normally afford, but the reality hit by about the second toy shop and she brought out a very large chunk of the shop. My favourite was the Sleepy Timmy, from the spin off from a spin off (from Wallace and Gromit) cartoon called Timmy Time, Timmy is a baby sheep (i.e. a lamb duh) who goes to pre-school with some other animals and it’s done to the usual high Wallace and Gromit standards and is absolutely enchanting to watch, amazing how they can emote with just some baas, meows, oinks and quacks, it always brings my two to a complete stop when it’s on. Anyway Sleepy Timmy complains if he’s awake (upright) and then shuts his eyes when he’s laying down and starts snoring. Needless to say Sleepy Timmy has been removed from the kids’ bedroom tonight.

Once home again, I set about making the birthday cake, now what with everything, the dress making, the gift making, the cupcake making, the going to Legoland, the bowling party, I hadn’t actually expended much thought about actual birthday cakes and I ended up grabbing the first likely book out of my cookbook selection yesterday (Rachel Allen’s Bake), whilst on the way out to the bowling party, flicked to the first likely looking recipe and wrote the ingredients down for that (was going to Sainsbury’s after the party). It turned out to be Allen’s iced orange cake. So, I made it today and it didn’t particularly work, it’s a bit of an odd cake, not much of anything really in it than sugar and egg, with just a bit of flour and it didn’t rise, it also stuck to the bottom of my tin and tasted rather dry, so not a success.

We also made more chocolate butter cut out cookies, using the remains of the dough (which I had frozen) from the other day. Girl Lacer wanted to try out her new cookie cutters and Boy Lacer wanted to join in and I wanted to make some number 6 cookies, as I do number cookies every birthday. So we made an assortment of cookies, slightly traumatic though, I (and I don’t like this) rarely cook with my kids, because the kitchen is so small and all three of us crowded round the tiny food preparation area, sandwiched between the hot oven and the dishwasher, Boy Lacer balanced on a step, things were knocked over, repeatedly. Must try and do it more often, if anything it would be really good for Boy Lacer, as although he is loving nursery, I have a feeling he isn’t getting himself involved in the guided small group activities (like making mashed potato, the other day, although not just in cooking) as I think he probably finds them a bit daunting / may have trouble following the instructions / doesn’t want to stop doing what he’s doing in his own little world, so maybe a bit of cooking at home would help, it would be a shame if he does miss out on the small group activities, I remember Girl Lacer doing such fun stuff at nursery .