I have always said that the potato is one of my favourite vegetables.  I am also really fond of cheese, especially good cheese, which is surprising really when you consider the fact that I grew up on plastic cheese and had never ever really tasted good cheese (I was a cheese taster chicken) before I moved over here to the UK.  Oh sure  . . .  my mom used to get in some Cracker Barrel every Christmas, but  . . .  I was too chicken to try it.

I had some leftover chicken which needed using up today and so I put it together with some bits and pieces and came up with a delicious casserole.  I know  . . . it uses tinned soup, but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do, and I will confess right now, I am not a tinned soup snob.  It has it's uses, and this is one of them.

I have always loved potatoes in any way shape or form. I think they must be one of the most versatile vegetables in the kitchen.  You can do anything with them.  I was recently sent a cookbook to review, entitled Make It Easy Cookbook, by Jane Lovett an d as soon as I saw the recipe for Slow Fried Lemon and Oregano Potatoes in it, I knew that I had to make them!  Simple ingredients, simply prepared with extraordinary taste results!

I got a package the other day from The Beautiful Book Company.   Just look at how beautifully it was wrapped!  I was so excited to see what was in it!  The Beautiful Book Company is a gifting service that personalises and creates book bundles according to a person's interests.  Mine is cooking, so my book was a cookery book!



Around the World in 80 Dishes, a compendium of classic recipes from the world's favourite chefs.  Right up my alley!



Born from a life-long passion for books, combined with the frustration at a lack of options for literary based gifts, The Beautiful Book Company was founded in 2014. They create beautiful, bespoke literary-based gift boxes and tailored book subscriptions  which are  perfect as a thoughtful gift for someone you love, or even for keeping yourself!

Personally I feel that there is nothing better than the look, feel and smell of a physical book. I love the smell of a new book and the feel of the paper beneath my fingertips. Simple pleasures which an e-book just can't replace.

I love the packaging.  It's attractive and well put together. Perfect wrapping.  And I love the butcher twine bow.



Look at the tape!  It's prose from books.




And the gift card . . .  a quote from Louisa May Alcott . . .  one of my favourite quotes!  I love it.   I had a book addled brain, especially when it comes to cookery books or books about cooks!



This book I received is the perfect example of what might be received as a part of their "Chef's Collection," where one might receive a cookery book each month, specifically tailered to your culinary preferences. This is just one of the many collections available as subscriptions.  



They also offer Book Boxes, which consist of six books, gift wrapped and presented in a Kraft box.



Children's selections are also available, which makes for the perfect Christmas Gift for that special child in your life.



They offer Stationary and all sorts!

I am in love and I think you will be too.  Do hop on over to the website to check out more about this fab company and subscription service.

Also I am happy to offer a lovely giveaway to all of my UK READERS only.  The Beautiful Book Company will send one of my UK Readers a personalized Book Bundle.  To be in on the Giveaway just leave a comment on this post.  This giveaway will run for three weeks and end on the 21st of December.  Please state in your comment that you are from the UK.  Thank you very much!   I wish it could be for all of you, but for now they only operate in the UK.

Many thanks to the Beautiful Book Team for sending me this book and for allowing me to offer you a giveaway.

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GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED

Now that the calendar has rolled over into December, I don't feel guilty at all about sharing Christmas recipes with you!  It's full steam ahead now for the holidays, and with that in mind I wanted to share with you today a tasty recipe from the people at Schwartz which is perfect for holiday meal celebrations!  Braised Red Cabbage is a delicious side dish that goes wonderfully with your holiday roasts, be it turkey, beef, pork, gammon, bacon . . .  whatever!

Here is a really fun idea that would make fabulous and unusual gifts for your friends and family this Christmas.  They are cute, tasty and really easy to make . . .  a really fabulous edible novelty gift!  And of course it uses everyone's favourites Malteasers Chocolate Malt Balls and Terry's Chocolate Oranges.  (Which come in all sorts of flavours now instead of just the orange flavour.  AND, I picked up some for only £1 a piece.  If you buy the big box of Maltesers, you will get enough malt balls in it to cover several oranges.)  These are really cute!!

When my children were growing up I did a Gingerbread creation for them every year, without fail.  I always enjoyed doing and they really enjoyed the fruits of my labours.  This is a recipe which I had shared on my old Oak Cottage Blog about 8 years ago now, but I thought it was worthy of sharing here in my English Kitchen.   The pictures are not the best, but I am sure you can get a good idea of what it should look like.

Well, I guess the holiday season is well and truly upon us now.   Time to get baking! Often during the years when my children were growing up I did not have a lot of money to buy gifts for other people and so the thing that I would love to do most of all was to prepare a tray of baking to gift people with.  I would spend several weeks baking up my favourite cookies and cakes and freezing them.  You could buy cheap Christmas trays at the dollar/pound shop and then in the days just prior to Christmas, I would place an assortment of baking onto each tray, wrap them up in cling film, attaching a pretty tag and ribbon and that is what they would get.  I never had a person that was disappointed to receive this gift! Ever!  Today I an presenting you a round up of some of the tasty morsels I would include!  This type of gift is always most welcome for neighbors or friends, even family.

I know that all of my North American friends cooked  their Thanksgiving turkeys yesterday.  I also helped to cook aThanksgiving Dinner this year for all of the Missionaries in our District.  Not too many leftovers here, but I know that many of you have refrigerators bulging with leftovers, and that some of you will be scratching your heads and trying to come up with new and interesting things to do with them.  Here are some tasty ideas this morning to help you use up some of those scrummy leftovers. Of course you could just have a reheat of the leftovers, but it's also nice to dress them up in a few different ways too!

You Brits and Canucks might want to bookmark this page as Christmas is less than a month away and you 'll be wanting to figure out what to do with your Christmas Turkey leftovers then! (And yes, this is a repeat from last year.  This stuff just never gets old.)

This is a recipe I got from a Women's Weekly Cookbook entitled  "Muffins, Scones and Bread."  I like the Women's Weekly books.  I have a few of them and the recipes always turn out well and are delicious.  These little damper buns are no exception!

Finding a dessert during the holidays that is diabetic friendly and good for those who are slimming can be a real challenge.  I think I have come up with the perfect solution.  It is diet friendly, light, sugar free and it actually tastes delicious.  It will never quite replace cake or pie . . .  but it's nice nevertheless.

In my quest for eating healthier I baked us some delious Mini Turkey Loaves  for supper the other night.  These are FAB ulous!  Moist and filled with lovely flavours.

 The people at Rachel's sent me over some fresh new Autumn/Winter recipes for me to try.  Boy do they ever look delicious.  With my diabetes I have to be a bit careful what I eat at the moment, so the first one I tried was the Avocado on Sour Dough Toast with Chilli Scrambled Egg & Bacon.  (I used sausage instead of bacon.)  There is also a recipe for A Salted Caramel Malt Cake and Lemon, Coconut and White Truffles.  Sooooo delicious!

One thing I despaired of when I first moved over here to the UK, was the lack of cake mixes.  Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy made from scratch cakes and more often than not I make my cakes from scratch, always have, always will . . .  

My Todd really loves a spice cake, and this applesauce cake is one of his favourites.   He loves apple anything to begin with, but when you combine the flavour of apples in a cake along with the warm baking spices, he is in cake heaven.  He would probably rather have an apple pie for sure, but this is a close second on his list of teatime loves.