Well, this must be my final Christmas post (2008 tomorrow) but I couldn't pass Christmas without showing you my Christmas cake with its electric street lamps that light up! It got me thinking that they would be ideal for a Narnia magic forest cake complete with wardrobe. This was my first ever Christmas cake and it was pretty good! Very moist and strongly flavoured with amaretto!!!!

I can now reveal the embroidery I gave my mum for Christmas - the gingerbread garden! Very Christmassy and I think I am going to have to stitch one for myself for next year!

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?

Well Christmas Eve is here and we are almost ready! As you can imagine, the last few days have seen my Aga (which is luckily mended) cooking non stop - 150 mince pies, a ginger beer roasted ham, gingerbread, 15 litres of mulled wine! The turkey is stuffed and is waiting to go in the Aga to slow cook overnight! The last few days have been lovely. We had Christmas lunch with my Dad and visited Waddesdon Manor with a crisp winter walk - I have not been there since Masterchef and it was lovely to go back and not be under any pressure!! Friday was our village carol concert which included a rendition of the 12 days of Christmas by the village junior choir (the youngest member is 4), all singing solos! They were wonderful. We currently have the "travelling crib" (a wonderful knitted nativity - complete with knitted sheep, shepherds, kings and a knitted baby Jesus in a crib) which travels round the village spending a night with most families, ending up in the Church this evening - assuming that I do not forget to drop it off!

So, as Christmas Eve is drawing to a close, I wish you all a wonderful and heartfelt Merry Christmas with much love to you all and to all your families. Wherever you are tomorrow, I hope that you will be feasting well and that Santa remembers to leave you something nice under the tree. Happy Christmas one and all xxx

If you have young children staying with you on Christmas eve, keep the spirit of Christmas alive by making some magic reindeer food. Mix oats with glitter and foil stars and sprinkle outside your doorstep on Christmas eve to make sure that the reindeer know where to stop!

Winter is definitely here this morning...I am freezing! Our Aga is being serviced again this morning - I am getting a bit worried about whether we will actually be able to cook a turkey this year - fingers crossed that it will get fixed this time. So it is cold and I would rather be under a quilt, but that said, I would not change the views in our garden this morning for anything. It looked like a winter wonderland. My wonderful hens are miraculously still laying despite the dusting of snow in their pen this morning - I am convinced the porridge is doing the trick and am wondering whether it would be prudent to serve them some warm carrots for lunch! A bullfinch also came to visit outside my office window this morning and stayed for ages!

Christmas is primarily a time for children and today a few deserve a special mention. Firstly David Hall's (bookthecook) little girl Cerys who has very kindly bestowed on me a "Well Done Angel" award. I think she looks magical in her fairy outfit and am very honoured to have received an award from her! Thank you Cerys and I hope Father Christmas brings you lots of goodies!


The second mention is George who performed a wonderful puppet show for us all at our family party on Sunday - "Bob the Builder and Mickey Mouse follow the star". Whilst it may not have been a Christmas story that many of you will recognise, it had us laughing out loud and you will be pleased to know that they followed the star all the way to the north pole where Father Christmas made a guest appearance and gave them some presents!

My brother has arrived from America to stay for two weeks! It is so nice to see him after far too long. His new girlfriend Amy is arriving next week and we are all keen to meet her although we are hoping that meeting the family doesn't put her off him! Anyway, as if from something from We Three Kings, he arrived bearing gifts...Gold (a golden Sees Candies Christmas Hamper - we thought we had died and gone to heaven when we lifted the lid and saw the goodies inside)

Frankincense - some delicious smelling elderflower liquor with cocktail recipes - we will be trying these tonight! Oh ....and a turkey injector for injecting wine into the turkey flesh to keep it moist! Only my brother could find something like this! He bought it in Mexico! I have to say I am yet to be convinced by this but we will give it a try!

Well I have now finished work for Christmas holidays - how wonderful to have a whole week and a half to get ready for Christmas. The first task was to make the swag for our fireplace - always a tricky task as it is balanced on a series of nails across the top of the fireplace rather than a shelf. Anyway, it was finally balanced and secured with a lot of wire and help from Sacha and we had lots of fun decorating it (almost like having a second Christmas tree!)

I hope that your Christmas preparations are going well and that you are having as much fun as we are!

Freddie and Charlotte of The Great Big Veg Challenge have move to Q and requested suggestions for Quick Vegetable Recipes. I assume this means there are no Q vegetables and sitting here I have to confess I cannot think of any! So this is a super quick pea and mint soup, stove to table in 10 minutes!

In a large pan, fry a finely chopped onion in 1 tbsp of olive oil with a pinch of salt for 2 minutes until softened. Add 300 grams of peas and a good slug of calvados, sherry or maderia and cook for 1 minute. Add 1 litre of chicken or vegetable stock and a handful of chopped mint. Simmer for 5 minutes until the peas are soft. Add 100ml of double cream or milk and blitz with a handblender until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Hey presto - a super quick and tasty supper! Serve with some warm crusty bread.

As always Charlotte's team of dedicated followers and contributors have all come up with wonderful suggestions and she has links to all these recipes on her site.

If like me you have lots of visitors staying over the Christmas period, there is always a dilemma of what to serve for breakfast. I try to serve something different every day but don't always have time to make waffles or cook an English Aga breakfast. If you are short of time and want to serve something yummy, make french toasts with cinnamon raisin bread (I usually have a bag of this in the freezer as standby). For 6 slices, whisk together 4 eggs and a few tablespoons of double cream or milk, a pinch of ground cinnamon and a teaspoon of caster sugar. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a large frying pan and soak your cinnamon bread slices in the egg mixture for a minute (don't leave it too long otherwise the bread will go soggy) making sure that all the bread is covered with the egg mixture. Fry the bread in the butter until it is golden brown on both sides. Serve with a drizzle of maple syrup and a spoonful of whipped cream if you wish! What more could a girl ask for when it is below zero outside and her chicken's water is frozen!!!

I have recently collected four of my embroideries from the framers and thought I would share the results with you. They have done such a lovely job and the colours they pick for the mounts and frames are always perfect. The fourth one will have to remain a secret as it is a Christmas present for my Mum and the surprise would be ruined if she saw it here!

Yesterday was our niece's birthday and we had 18 people for lunch, eating in three sittings! My niece had asked for an ice cream cake and loves strawberries (yes I know they are out of season and yesterday we discussed moving her birthday to the summer so that she had better strawberries on her cake next year!) This cake is very quick and easy to make but won't last long as the ice cream melts! Line two 8 inch cake pans with cling film and fill with ice cream - you can use any sort! Leave in the freezer to set, remove from the cake tins, cover with another layer of cling film and return to the freezer until 5 minutes before you are going to serve the cake. Make three sponge cakes in the same size cake pan - once cooled, I topped mine with white chocolate, pink icing, strawberries and white ferrero roche. When you are ready to serve, layer the cake and ice cream and serve immediately.

Today's project was a Knights, Dragons and Princess' cake for a birthday party in London tomorrow. I had to take the cake to London by train, arriving at Kings Cross at 5pm in the rush hour and managed to get it to its destination in one piece. What a relief - I think I must be mad to have even attempted this!

I collect many things - baskets, jugs, teapots, samplers, picnic hampers...to name but a few! Our house could legitimately be called cluttered! My favourite collection is my walking stick basket collection, pictured here leaning against our pantry cupboard, which are perfect for collecting things from the hedgerows on country walks. I do not find sticks with baskets very often and my collection totals only three so far (which is probably already more than we need). My mum is also an avid collector - particularly of jelly moulds - and I have used one of hers this morning for my Country Kitchen recipe - a rhubarb and custard jelly - which is looking pretty with its pink and yellow layers as it cools in the fridge. I do hope it will turn out of the mould in one piece when the photographer comes later today!

So what lovely collections do you have? And how many collections are too many?! Can a girl ever have enough wicker baskets?

I am just back from being in London and I must say that it is nice to be home! My hens have laid me three eggs (they had stopped laying for a few weeks as it was so cold) including a rather unusual brown egg with white speckles on it! I am not sure which hen is laying them and will have to keep an eye out on the coup! Steven and my brief appearance on cooking the books is being shown this evening at 6.30 and tomorrow at 12.30 lunchtime on Channel 5. I am hoping that my orange and fig cake will look nice on the camera!

Mince pies - Two Ways
Makes 12

500grams shortcrust pastry
flour for dusting
1 jar of mincemeat
Filling 1 - Lemon Mascapone pies
2 tbsp mascapone cheese
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
Filling 2 - Ginger pies
2 preserved gingers, finely chopped
1 tbsp stem ginger syrup
1 tbsp ginger wine
Milk for glazing
Icing sugar for dusting

Roll your pastry out thinly, sprinkle with flour to ensure that it doesn't stick and cut out 12 circles, approximately 3 inches in diameter. Grease a bun tin with butter and press the circles gently in each hole. For lemon mascapone pies, add a teaspoon of mincemeat to each pie and top with half a teaspoon of mascapone cheese and a small amount of zest. For the ginger mince pies, mix 3 tbsp of the mincemeat in a bowl with the preserve ginger, syrup and wine. Place a small spoonful in each pie. Roll out the remaining pastry and cut 12 x 2 inch circles or stars or flowers! Top each pie with a small circle and then brush with the milk to glaze. Bake in a moderate oven Gas Mark 5/180oC/Aga roasting oven below a cold shelf for 10 - 15 minutes, turning the tray half way through cooking, until golden brown. Transfer the mince pies to a cooking wrack and dust with icing sugar. Serve warm with brandy butter!

Our Christmas Tree Seller!

The 2nd December is our wedding anniversary (six years since our Christmassy wedding in Islington) and we traditionally put up our Christmas tree on this day. So yesterday, despite the storms, wind and rain, we wrapped up warm, went to a lovely Christmas tree farm near here and spent a long time picking our tree. Every year I think I must drive Brian Pell, the owner, crazy as I ask him to pull out tree after tree so that I can inspect them all! I know we say it every year, but I think this year we have the best tree we have ever had! Not too wide but nice and tall although I am slightly concerned about the lack of space under the tree for Santa to leave presents! So here is our tree in full decorated glory - just the swag for the fireplace and wreaths for the doors to make and we will be ready to welcome Christmas visitors (the first of which arrive next weekend). We had our first mince pies for supper last night, together with mulled wine and a roast chicken supper and crackers (we all refused to wear our novelty hats on account of it being early December) - so Christmas has definitely arrived in our cottage!