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Reaching the final of Masterchef 2007 was a rollercoaster of emotion, with huge highs and lows, but I loved every minute and learnt a huge amount. I owe a great deal to John and Gregg who had faith in my ability when I did not believe in myself. Since competing on the programme my life has changed considerably. I now write cookery columns for two magazines, give cookery demonstrations and am just working on my 13th cook book - unlucky number for some but not for me!!! I love all forms of country cooking, using seasonal and locally sourced produce. This blog is to enable me to share with you a few of my recipes and baking ideas. Enjoy Hannah xxxx

Thursday 27 December 2007

It is hard to believe that after all the weeks of preparation, Christmas has been and gone. I hope that you all had a lovely time. My brother's lovely girlfriend Amy has departed back to New York (I am not sure whether she survived the madness of our family!!!), the rest of the family have gone home and my husband is back at work so the house is feeling eerily quiet today. Perfect for a long soak in the bath and a spot of tidying up! We had a wonderful Christmas. Christmas Eve was spent with Kathy Brown and supper with her lovely family - see Jonathan's photos of the delicious food on his blog. We had fun playing party games and I even tried to play the piano - sight reading was never my forte - it must have provided entertainment for those watching as Simon (who sings very well) tried to keep pace with my awful timing! These are the photos Jonathon took of the Christmas fondant fancies I took as a present! Very bright icing!!!

Christmas lunch with delicious (if I say so myself) The turkey cooked for 14 hours and yet was really moist. There are two theories for this - my brother is sure it was the turkey injector that he bought from Mexico (and which we had all dismissed as a joke) which I had used to inject ginger wine into the turkey whilst it was cooking. I was convinced it was the mascapone and wild mushroom stuffing under the skin! In truth it was probably a combination of both. My mum's Christmas pudding (made to our family recipe) was the best we had ever tasted.

I had some wonderful foody presents which I will share with you as soon as my camera (which died on Christmas Eve) is fixed! What did Santa Clause bring you?

6 comments:

Marie Rayner said...

Beautiful fondant fancies Hannah! Where do you get your food colouring for them and all your other lovely creations. I did some what were supposed to be green Christmas wreath cookies this year and they ended up looking decidedly like "sick" so I was unable to use them. I could not find a green colouring that was strong enough to make them really green. Any help would be much appreciated! My favourite gift has to be the "Larousse Gastronomique" that my oldest son gifted me with! Now that's some *Heavy* reading and in more ways than one!

Hannah said...

Hi Marie! Lucky you having Larousse Gastronomique - my mum bought me that as a present for being on Masterchef!
I usually just use the ordinary food colouring from the supermarket but use a lot of it to make a strong colour. For really strong colours you can use food colouring paste - I get it from my local cake decorating shop. It comes in a huge range of colours and it strong that food colouring. They have some on www.almondart.com!

Hope this helps

Hannah
xxx

Anonymous said...

My Christmas pressie was my Dad coming home for the day from Hospital when only a couplke of weeks ago we were told "time only " now .
Susan xx

David Hall said...

Hi Hannh, glad you had a good one, and happy Xmas, hope you got my message of thanks for Cerys' lovely gift.

We had a great one. And I got a digital radio. Cerys was spoilt.

Al the best
David x

Hannah said...

Susan - I am so glad that your dad made it home for Christmas. It must have made it an extra special day for you all.

David - thanks for your txt! Glad the book went down well. I saw it and immediately thought of you and Cerys.

Marie Rayner said...

Thanks Hannah for your help. Am off to check out almondart now!