One last thing to tell you about that you may want to get in before Christmas. This was sent to me and I haven't had the chance to use it yet, but did want to tell you about it so if you wanted to use them for Christmas you would have time to do so! This is the Eddington's Christmas Tree Decoration Set, angels.
The set consists of 3 Angel cookie cutters ranging in sie from about 2 inches up to 4 inches, along with some red ribbon for hanging and a spigot to cut a hole into the cookies prior to baking so that you can hang them up after.
The cutters are made from Stainless steel and are dishwasher proof. I think they are really cute!
They are available at most kitchen stockists in prices from £2.40 and up!
Many thanks to Eddingtons for sending these to me!
When I was growing up it was a Christmas Tradition each year for my mother to make Tourtiere. My father is French Canadian and the Tourtiere was a tradition in his family. Tourtiere is a type of a meat pie which is served in French Canada during the Christmas Holidays, normally on Christmas Eve during their Reveillon celebrations, which last pretty much all night. My father is from the Saugenay Lac St Jean region of Quebec.
My mother was English however and staying up all night was not an option in our home. Neither was meat pie on Christmas Day, and so we always had it on Boxing Day. Truth be known it was a very important part of our Christmas holiday celebrations no matter when we ate it and it was something all of us looked forward to each year.
I do believe that there are as many recipes for Tourtiere as there are families that eat it. Some opt to use finely chopped meat . . . pork, or veal . . . and others use ground meat, sometimes just pork, and often a combination of pork and beef. My mother always used just beef. I like to use pork and beef. My ex sister in law always used chopped pork shoulder. (She was Acadian French.)
Some use dried bread crumbs to absorbe some of the moisture from their filling. Some use grated raw potato cooked in with the meat. Some grate cooked potato into the filling . . . I like to use dried potato flakes because you don't get any lumps of potato, but it thickens the filling nicely.
All will have finely chopped onions and ground cloves. Garlic, savory, thyme, etc. . . . these are optional. I do use them, but my mother only used the savory along with the onion and cloves. I also add a few chopped celery leaves and some parsley. It changes each year. I keep fiddling with it a bit here and a bit there in my quest for the perfect Tourtiere. I think my sister always makes the best ones, but alas . . . she is 2,000 miles away, so mine will just have to do. The Toddster isn't complaining!
I do believe that there are as many recipes for Tourtiere as there are families that eat it. Some opt to use finely chopped meat . . . pork, or veal . . . and others use ground meat, sometimes just pork, and often a combination of pork and beef. My mother always used just beef. I like to use pork and beef. My ex sister in law always used chopped pork shoulder. (She was Acadian French.)
Some use dried bread crumbs to absorbe some of the moisture from their filling. Some use grated raw potato cooked in with the meat. Some grate cooked potato into the filling . . . I like to use dried potato flakes because you don't get any lumps of potato, but it thickens the filling nicely.
All will have finely chopped onions and ground cloves. Garlic, savory, thyme, etc. . . . these are optional. I do use them, but my mother only used the savory along with the onion and cloves. I also add a few chopped celery leaves and some parsley. It changes each year. I keep fiddling with it a bit here and a bit there in my quest for the perfect Tourtiere. I think my sister always makes the best ones, but alas . . . she is 2,000 miles away, so mine will just have to do. The Toddster isn't complaining!
*Tourtiere 2013*
makes two nine inch piesPrintable Recipe
one egg yolk beaten with a bit of water to glaze
For the filling:
Preheat the oven to 220*C/425*F/ gas mark 7. Place the two pies on a large baking try and bake on the bottom shelf of the oven for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4 and bake for a further 30 to 35 minutes, until the pastry is crisp and golden brown and crisp on the bottom.
I did a little one for Todd so you could see how flakey that pastry is and what the filling looks like. He really enjoys this each year, and of course he doesn't have to watch his waistline!
(My sister's pies this year! Yes we both like to take photos of what we cook and eat! It must run in the family!)
Note: If you only want to make one pie, just cut all the ingredients for the filling in half. Or make the full batch and freeze half of it for another time. You can also bake this in individual pies. My sister does and uses canning jar lids for the pans. Works perfectly!
I was recently contacted and asked if I would like to try out some sausages. HECK is a company owned by the Keebles who are a family of farmers and sausage enthusiasts. They produce a range osf 8 differen premium sausage varieties ranging from the traditional 97% pork to the more unique Chicken and square sausages. They also produce several gluten free varieties. You can read more about how they produce their sausages here.
We really love sausages in this house! Not the cheap nasty ones out there that are yuck, yuck, yuck . . . we are a bit more discerning in our tastes and those cheap and nasty ones just have a horrible consistency and are loaded with fat. We do NOT like those . . . so we are always up for trying something which is better. Getting to try new things is the best part of my job!
These are farmers market quality. It can't be bad and with Christmas coming up with all of the entertaining that entails, we were absolutely up for trying these sausages.
One package which was sent was their Smoky Chorizo-style sausages. Hearty and tangy with a smoked paprika kick. Gluten Free. (nice!)
These had a really lovely flavour. Nice colour. Nice texture and just enough heat, and a lingering afterburn . . . without it being overpowering in the least. Most pleasant. We quite enjoyed. I had only ever eaten the dried chorizo sausages that you can buy which come from spain and are pre-cooked. These were quite nice and I would buy these, absolutely.
Content: 85% British Pork Shoulder Corn Flour, Water Red Peppers (1%) Spices, Salt, Sugar Leek Powder Preservative (Sodium Sulphite) Stabilisers (Diphosphates) Herb Yeast Extract Colour (Paprika Extract) Antioxidant (Ascorbic Acid) Spice Extract. Filled into natural pork casings.
Next up "The Family Favourite." Good old pork. Comforting, noble and satisfying, this is the original favourite, a classic that’ll never lose its shine. These are the kind that I would use to make my Christmas Stuffing with or my sausage rolls. They are also gluten free, which is nice. Those cheap and nasty things use far too much filler. I want meat in my sausage, not filler.
Our verdict . . . meaty and moist without being greasy. Just what you would expect from a good breakfast or supper sausage.
We both enjoyed.
Content: 85% British Pork Shoulder Corn Flour Water Salt Rice Flour Leek Powder Cream Powder (from Milk) Sugar Spice Yeast Extract Preservative (Sodium Sulphite) Flavourings Natural Flavourings Spice Extracts Citric Acid Antioxidant (Ascorbic Acid). Filled into natural pork casings.
Next . . . the Plump Pork & Apple Sausage. Pork and apple are made for each other. They are a marriage made in heaven. The perfect marriage of savoury and sweet . . . did they live up to their promise?
These were gorgeous. Not greasy. Well flavoured. With just enough of a hint of apple flavour to bring out the best of the pork. Also gluten free.
Contents: 85% British Pork Shoulder Corn Flour Water Apple Flakes (2%) Salt Rice Flour Leek Powder Cream Powder (from milk) Sugar Spice Yeast Extract Preservative (Sodium Sulphite) Flavourings Natural Flavourings Spice Extracts Citric Acid Antioxidant (Ascorbic Acid). Filled into natural pork casings.
Heck 97% Pork. These lip smackers were my favourite of them all. Meaty and well flavoured and lean. Moist and not greasy. They were the overall winners with us both. Once again gluten free.
Contents: 97% British Pork Shoulder Salt Cream Powder (from Milk) Spices Preservative (Sodium Sulphite) Antioxidant (Ascorbic Acid). Filled into natural pork casings.
All in all we were very impressed with these sausages, and we would happily buy any of them. These tasty links are available at supermarkets throughout the country.
Thank you very much to Katy and to Heck Sausages for sending us these to try out. We now have a new favourite. Tis true.
Follow them on facebook.
Tweet them on Twitter @HeckFood
Check out the tastiness on Pinterest
Some sausage tastiness to get your tastebud juices flowing:
Oven Barbequed Sausages
Cider and Honey Braised Sausages
Bean and Sausage Hot Pot
(The chorizo ones would be fab, FAB in this!)
Hawaiin Sausage Casserole
Creamy Mustard Sausage and Pasta Hot Dish
Sausage and Squash Mash
Sausage and Bacon Toad in the Hole
Fruity Sausage Baps
Cherry Tomato and Sausage Bake
Sausage and Corn Bake
And that's just for starters! Thank you Heck Sausages!
I was recently send some really nice Tala Baking things to help with my Christmas Baking. Normally I like to put these things to use before I show them to you so that you can see how well they work, but I am running out of time and I do want you all to have the opportunity to go out and get some of these products to help you with your own Christmas baking if you can and so I am going to tell you about them now. I can say with authority however that I have never had a Tala Utensil yet that I did not like, or that did not perform impeccably or live up to it's promise!
This is the Tala Letterpress Cookie Set. With this set you can make personalised cookies with your own message.
Set contains three spring loaded cutters. There are one each of a heart, star and scalloped rectangle, along with a letterpress stamp, 7 pre-set words / phrases and 2 sets of alphabet letters in a bag. Perfect idea for a special gift, placesetting of for fun with children. The set is also dishwasher proof.
They are brightly coloured and look to be very durable.
You can slide an assortment of already put together phrases into the handy letterpress stamp, or use the individual letters included to create your own personal message.
You can cut the cookies out and stamp them separately, or you can slide the prepared stamp into a handy slot on the bottom of the cookie cutter which conveniently places it in the proper position on your cut out cookie. You can purchase these in a variety of places.
My search found them at:
The Craft Company for £8.14
Captain Cooks for £9.99
Amazon UK for £11.99
As you can see the price can vary a lot so do shop around.
Next is this handy set 3 Holly Leaf Plunger Cutters. Perfect for cutting out fondant icings etc. to help to decorate your Christmas Cakes or pies. There are three different sizes ranging from a very about 3/4 inch in length to about 1 12 inches in length.
These handy cutters feature a three holly leaf design with a veined effect.
Simply press into icing and use plunger to place the shape onto your cake without handling. They would be ideal for use with sugarpaste and flowerpaste. Easy to clean. Hand wash only.
These cutters are what I used to help decorate my Christmas Tortiere this year. (Tune in tomorrow for that recipe!) They worked really well as you can see.
You can also buy these in a variety of places in prices ranging from as little as £2.98 and as much as £5.99, so do shop around.
Finally there was this Spoon Shape Silicone Chocolate Mould. It has been my experience that silicone is always quite easy to use. This mould creates six chocolate spoons and has detailed instructions for making them printed on the back of the box.
They are also dishwasher safe, which is a bonus when it comes to using something as fiddly to clean as this might be. You can find them priced from between £2 to £3.95, so once again do shop around! Wouldn't a set of chocolate spoons be a great addition to a pot of homemade hot chocolate as a holiday gift? I think so too!
In any case I think they are all super! For baking ideas and tips, do visit the Tala page at Happy Baking Days.
I just love using mincemeat during the Christmas season. It's one of my favourite ingredients and I am sure I go through several jars. Each year I try to do something different with it if I can. There has been a photo circulating on the net and Pinterest over the past couple of months of a nutella bread which is layered and twisted and I got to thinking that the same thing done with mincemeat would be really nice.
I decided early on though that I would use puff pastry instead of bread dough however, because I wanted these to be like mince pies. I also decided that if they were going to work properly I would have to puree the mincemeat a bit so that it wasn't too lumpy.
As you can see they turned out really pretty. Golden on the edges . . . lovely to look at . . . flakey and sweet and spiced just nicely. I created a thin icing, lightly flavoured with cinnamon (if you want) to drizzle over top once baked and I sprinkled them with some white sparkle sprinkles.
I was really pleased with how they turned out! They tasted really nice as well. I think they were just that little bit different than the usual mince pies! In short, I fell in love with them. Very Festive. And no . . . they were not as fiddly as they look to make. Trust me.
*Mincemeat Snowflakes*
Makes 8
Created on a whim. Pretty. Delicious. Festive. Easy.Makes 8
milk
Cut 16 (4 inch) circles from your sheets of puff pastry. Place 8 on the baking sheet. Spread each with a heaped TBS of the mincemeat. Place the remaining 8 circles on top and press down lightly. Make four equal cuts almost, but not quite to the middle of the circle, using a very sharp knife and cutting all the way through. You will want to leave at least 1/2 inch in the centres, uncut. Cut again evenly in between the four first cuts so you now have 8 equal cuts. Twist each section in the same direction without pulling them off and keeping the pastry intact. It's not hard to do. Just persevere. You will only get about two twists maxium from each section.
Bake in the heated oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until golden brown and puffed.
Remove
from the oven and allow to sit for just a minute or two before scooping
off onto a wire rack to finish cooling. Whisk together the icing
sugar and enough milk to give you a thick drizzle icing. 
You can flavour it with a bit of cinnamon if you like. Drizzle this over top of the snowflakes and sprinkle with the sparkle sprinkles. Store in an airtight container. Will keep several days.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Social Icons