Every since watching "Come Dine With Me" last week where one of the contestants made volcanic meatballs (I know it is a sad confession that I watch this but the voiceover man is so rude about all the contestants that it makes me laugh) I have been craving meatballs! So here is our version!
Herb Struffed Chicken with Lemon Sauce
Our new resident has made herself at home. I didn't realise what a full time job having a kitten was - we are both EXHAUSTED! But it is moments like this when, at the end of the day, she falls asleep on us, upside down, snoring loudly, that makes it all worthwhile! Thank you all for the lovely name suggestions - I definitely love cupcake but if I stood outside our backdoor shouting cupcake, our neighbours would think I was testing for the book again and that free samples were on offer! 
We have started to call her PeaPod and although not the most elegant of names, it seems to have stuck and suits her - this gets varied to Little Pea and Sweet Pea when she is being good (not often!!!!) and Pod is part of our village name so it seems to fit! 
Her personality has completely changed and far from the timid little kitten we took home a week ago, she is now leaping round my office, jumping on my keyboard and tipping everything over. It is chaos but we do love her.
Last weekend we had a wonderful trip to Buxton in the Peak District to see the Chinese State Circus - lots of amazing acrobatics
and aerial ribbon performances - just brilli
ant! Buxton is an old spa town with a wonderful opera house (complete with painted ceiling) and enormous conservatory and I could just picture Victorian ladies in crinaline dresses drinking the waters (we tried them and they were delicious!), bathing in the spa and walking in the park. Buxton even had old fashioned post boxes that are still in use. It was so 
lovely to be up in the peak district - I had forgotton how breath taking the scenery is. The wonky church tower is genuine - we saw it in Chesterfield on our way home.
I wanted to introduce you to the newest member of our family - a kitten we adopted from the RSPCA yesterday. She is a dear little thing - although very timid having been abandoned when she was just a few weeks old. It amazes me that people can be so cruel as she is so pretty and has such a sweet nature. She is a complete ragbag of colours - tabby, tortie, ginger cross with white front paws and grey back paws and a stripy tail! We are working on a name - Jemima, Lyra, Matila, Ginger Maisy (this is Josh and Rosie's choice), Pixie, Petal are all in the running. Any suggestions gratefully received! She looks contented already, doesn't she!
Although not edible, I have completely fallen in love with these Italian soaps that I discovered on my trip to London last week - tomato, pumpkin, lettuce and cucumber. They smell good enough to eat and are almost too good to use - although that hasn't stopped us. I am wondering whether they could be persuaded to develop a dessert range with pecan pie and lemon meringue perhaps!
Venison, Chorizo and Truffle Ragu
I have been tagged in a photo me-me by lovely Phillipa of The Genius Academy
On Friday I was invited to the studio where they are taking the pictures for the book. As you can imagine I was sooo excited! Suzanne the designer, Bridget the home economist and her son who was sous cheffing, William the photographer and his assistant - I would never have imagined that so many people would be there and how long it would take to do each shot. I really will never look at cook books in the same way again. 
My favourite part was the long tables of crockery and cloths of all different colours - lots of floral fabrics and dainty tea cups that I wanted to bring home (sadly they are all rented!). 
Bridget has such a dream job - cooking recipes for photos all day long. 
My Christmas stocking this year contained a lot of salt. This may sound slightly strange but they were very welcome gifts. Truffle scented salt from Amy - perfect for adding to scrambled eggs. 
Spiced welsh Halen Mon salt which adds a wonderful flavour rubbed onto roast beef or pork (I used this salt to flavour my tomato foccacia in the final of Masterchef) and 
chilli salt from Tina which is great for spiced roast potatoes or adding extra kick to curries. All packed with flavour so that only a little of each salt is needed. To make chilli salt yourself, place flaked sea salt in a clean jam jar with a level tablespoon of crushed dried red chillies. Seal with a lid, shake well and leave for a week or so for the flavours to infuse.
It is -8C outside today. My poor chickens are very cold and their water is frozen. What did I decide to do in this weather - make icecream!!!!! I know, I am completely mad. It came about because during out holiday in Suffolk we had snickers ice cream and since we returned, Sacha has been asking me to try and recreate it for him or to make peanut sorbet for him (which I think would be yukky). With our lovely German friend Maren staying for the last few days, we decided to give it a try. There was a debate about whether the chocolate chips were a step too far (I liked them but Sacha thought they were too crunchy) so these are optional!
With Christmas festivities behind us, the long winter months until Spring lie ahead. January brings with it hope of the new year to come and bobbing snowdrops. The best cure for winter blues is indulging in scrumptious treats! If you are like me and have some smoked salmon left over after Christmas, this is a perfect way to use it up
Preparation time 20 minutes Cooking time 25 – 30 minutes
Makes 6 tarts
3 large leeks, cleaned and finely sliced
85g/3oz salted butter, plus extra for greasing
100g/3½oz smoked salmon, plus extra for decoration
300ml sour cream
3 egg yolks
1 ½ tbsp finely chopped chives
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper to season
Crème fraiche, to serve
Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 5/190C/375F and grease six 4inch tart tins. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to ½ cm thickness. Cut out six circles of dough and press one circle of pastry into each tin. Trim the edge of the pastry with a sharp knife. Line each pastry case with greaseproof paper, fill with baking beans and bake blind for 12 – 15 minutes until the pastry is crisp and golden brown. Cook the leeks in the butter over a gentle heat until they are soft. Season with salt and pepper and then set aside to cool slightly. Whisk together the sour cream, egg yolks, chives, lemon zest and juice. Divide the leeks and smoked salmon between the pastry cases and pour over the lemon and chive cream. Bake for 12 – 15 minutes until the cream has set. Serve warm or cold, topped with a little crème fraiche, a small piece of smoked salmon and chopped chives.
We have just been on a family holiday to Suffolk - it has been a long time since our last family holiday (so long ago that I can't even remember the last time)
and it was so nice to spend proper time with everyone. We all visited Southwold - one of Mum's and my favourite places. Despite the bracing wind, we enjoyed the pier, 
with its wonderful water clock and the mechanical museum (
Sacha got slobbered on by a mechanical dog and
my Aunt tried out the Keep Fit machine - I don't think we have laughed so much in ages). 
We also went to the lovely old Harbour Inn and played in the penny arcades like we did when we were children. It is amazing how long £1 will last on the 2pence waterfall machines - we kept trying to loose all our money so we could leave and kept winning just when we thought we were done. In the end it took a team effort of all 10 of us to get rid of the final coins! We also had our traditional Wishing Well - this has been in our family for a long time (at least as far back as my Mum's Grandma) - a basket filled with little presents for every one which is normally had on Boxing Day to extend Christmas at little further! We impose a £5 limit and everyone bought something little for everyone else - we ended up with 9 wonderful presents each. Gareth gave Sacha some chive and onion flavoured crickets (yuk) but we got our revenge by getting the hotel to make some petit fours with them in which Gareth ate without realising until it was too late (we cried with laughter and luckily my brother saw the funny side!!!)
Last week, just before Christmas, Mum and I had a special Christmas lunch at Claridges. It followed some shopping in a rather manic London and we therefore welcomed the calm and tranquility of Claridges and the chance to recover from the shopping. The Christmas tree in the foyer was spectacular. Claridges offer a three course lunch for £30 - although I wouldn't call this cheap, it has to be one of the best offers in London - four courses if you include the Amuse Bouche of Michelin star food at this price is definitely reasonable - it was all so delicious! We feasted on wild game terrine with pistachio brioche, mackerel with cauliflower volutee, cod with razor clams and clam sauce and I had the most perfect pudding I have had in a long time - 
balsamic ice cream, gingerbread crumbs, apple sorbet and cranberry syrup, topped elegantly with an apple flower (which tasted delicious). One of the chefs in the kitchen had made it to the quarterfinals of Masterchef Professionals and we were given a tour of the kitchens - it amazes me that they manage to create so many wonderful dishes in such a small area and at furnace temperatures! It brought back many scary memories of Masterchef, but we were very pleased to be shown round.
Happy Christmas Everyone - I hope that wherever you are today and whoever you are with, your Christmas will be filled with good cheer, delicious food and lots of lovely presents from Santa. This is the sampler I have stitched for my mum this year and am giving to her this morning - an unusual Santa with sunflowers (my Mum loves sunflowers so I hope she will like this!) Have a wonderful day and Christmas blessings to you all
The presents are all wrapped and last minute Christmas cards posted and finally it is the eve before Christmas. My advent candle is down to its final day and we have ceremoniously light our new wood burning stove (installed earlier this week with a cloud of dust as the fireplace was cut away - not ideal a few days before Christmas!!!!) I know that for many of you, like me, Christmas eve will be full of last minute preparations and rushing about, but I hope that you will find time to sit and have a cup of tea (or a tipple of sherry) and spend a few minutes looking at your tree and breathing in the Christmas spirit before it is all gone by too quickly.
Even if you haven't had time to make your own mincemeat you can easily jazz up shop bought mincemeat to make extra special mince pies. Try mixing the zest of a grated orange, 100g/3 1/2 oz white chocolate chips, 1 tsp ground cinnamon and 2 tbsp amaretto with a jar of ordinary mincemeat. Keep some ready made pastry in the fridge and a jar of mincemeat in your cupboard and you will be able to rustle up scrumptious mince pies for any unexpected visitors!
Sacha loves ham and even though I know that by Boxing day everyone will be too full to eat much, I always make a ham - just for Sacha. This year I poached our ham in prosecco for an extra special Christmas treat!
Boxing Day Ham
Our lovely friends, Susan and Peter, came to supper on Saturday evening. Susan used to live in Sweden so kindly made us some traditional Gloegg. Mulled wine - only nicer as it has sultanas and almonds in which you eat with a spoon when you finish your drink (and a lot of alcohol which is always a bonus!). The last time we drank this was during a visit to Tivoli gardens in Copenhagen - a truly magical evening with fairy lights in all the trees, ice skating and sipping glasses of warm wine whilst browsing the winter market. If you look closely you can see my reindeer decorations above the aga!
Place a spoonful of sultanas and flaked almonds in the bottom of each of your serving glasses and ladle over the wine. Serve with a teaspoon so that your guests can eat the soaked fruit and almonds.
We do not have lights on the outside of our house. I have enough of a job persuading Sacha to let me decorate the inside of the house and I think I would be trying my luck to do outside as well. I think it must be the effects of the credit crunch but there are far fewer displays this year. The best display we have ever seen is near Marston Mortain just near Bedford - we go every year to see the lights there as they are spectacular in a very kitsch way! This is my Mum's neighbour's house - he has also decorated in the back garden into a santa's grotto - I imagine his grandchildren are so thrilled to see it - I was and I am 34!!!
