Golden celebrations

50 years ago today, this lovely couple walked down the aisle together.

Happy 50th Anniversary, Mum & Dad!

Tonight we're having a party with about 60 family and friends. There will be balloons, banners and booze, karaoke and dancing, and enough food to feed everyone for a week! A quiet weekend to follow, methinks. x

Lancashire Night

Time is just flying by and I'm finding it difficult to spare a few moments for blogging. I did promise to tell you about our Lancashire night though.

We had such fun on Burns Night back in January that me and my friends, Sue and Gordon, decided to try celebrating other occasions, momentous or downright obscure! Most recently, we had a Welsh Night in October for Dylan Thomas' birthday and next up was Lancashire Night.

We chose the Saturday nearest to 27 November which commemorates the day in 1295 when Lancashire sent its first representatives to parliament and I decided to steal a few ideas from Burns Night for the running order and entertainment.

Once everyone had arrived and was settled with a drink in hand, I proudly read out the Lancashire Proclamation, wearing my handmade brooch. The Proclamation is a bit long so you can read it here.

Next up was a spot of morris dancing to the Manchester Hornpipe. Imagine if you will, 5 fully grown adults ranging in age from 20s to 50s, including 6'2" Christopher, parading around the living room waving red roses in the air and making arches with the roses for everyone else to shimmy underneath. Well, you get the picture. My sides ached from laughing.

And so to the food. At Burns Night, there's an ode to the haggis, so it seemed only right to have an ode to the black pudding (which I found here).

Black pudding made us what we are.
It gave us wit and wisdom.
For the blood of pigs runs through our veins,
Or at least our digestive system.
Black pudding, black pudding, I give this ode
To you all, be you Scottish or foreign.

The Lancashire peeler was symbolically presented to the pudding and it was time to serve dinner.

While I dished up, the others listened to Chippy Tea by The Lancashire Hotpots.

Funnily enough, Lancashire hotpot was on the menu, made using this recipe (and very tasty it was too). There was also the black pudding and black peas, pickled red cabbage and pickled beetroot - all traditional Lancastrian fare.

While we ate, we watched the Wallace and Gromit classic, The Wrong Trousers, which is set in Wigan and is by Preston-born, Nick Park.

For dessert, more Lancashire goodies. We clearly like pastry very much! There's shop-bought custard tarts and Eccles cakes, and homemade Goosnargh cakes and jam slice. Sue's 8-year-old son had 4 of the Goosnargh cakes and they took the rest home with them! I hadn't made jam slice before even though I've eaten it many times - will have to share the recipe sometime as it was so simple and a brilliant use for my blackberry jam.

And there ended the Lancashire part of the evening as we then settled down to watch Maleficent. Hope you enjoyed hearing about all our silliness! We definitely did and I think Chris has invited himself back for Burns Night and probably all the other evenings he suggested we had!

I thought I'd end by giving you an update on my crochet blanket which I'm doing as part of Attic24's Crochet-A-Long. It's actually a bit longer than this now but I forgot to take a photo when the light was good. I'm more or less following her sequence of colours but have also added in a couple of my own, like the dark purple, just so that it's not quite the same as everyone else's. I'm enjoying it so much and can't wait to work on it each evening. Unfortunately it's going to have to take a back seat shortly as I have more urgent crafting matters to get on with. I foolishly offered to lead a session on mug hugs at my quilt group 'towards the end of next year' and found out last week that I've been pencilled in for February! I haven't even made one yet!! Keep calm and make mug hugs! x

By George and Will!

'Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table!' (As you like it, Act II Scene vii)

Today is St George's Day and also the 450th anniversary of the birth of Shakespeare. I need very little excuse for cake baking but this surely has to qualify.

While I was reading through Anna Del Conte's Classic Food of Northern Italy as part of my cookery book challenge, I came across a recipe for polenta and elderflower cake. Anna explained that the cake is eaten in Lombardy on St George's Day as he's also a popular saint in Italy - actually it turns out he's a popular saint in lots of countries.

Elderflowers seem so typical of an English summer that it seemed appropriate for celebrating Shakespeare's birthday too. Anna used real elderflowers but, as they're in short supply in England in April, I've adapted the recipe to use cordial. The other change I made was to use both coarse and fine polenta flour but that's just because I happened to have some in the cupboard: you could just use the coarse kind.

Another thing to note about this cake is that it doesn't have the dropping consistency you'd usually expect of a cake mixture. It's more of a dough and needs to be spread out in the tin. As a result, the cooked texture is quite dry and it's therefore mandatory to serve it in a big puddle of cream :)

Polenta  and Elderflower Cake

100g coarse polenta flour
100g fine polenta flour
100g plain flour
1.5 tsps baking powder
pinch of salt
125g caster sugar
100g unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg, beaten
2tbsp milk
elderflower cordial
icing sugar (optional)

1. Heat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4
2. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add the beaten egg, melted butter and milk and mix well.
3. Butter and/or line a 20cm/8" tart or cake tin.
4. Put the mixture in the tin. Spread out and level with your hands or the back of a spoon.
5. Bake for 35-40 minutes until a skewer comes out clean and the top is golden brown.
6. Leave in the tin and pierce the top a few times with the skewer.
7. Make up about 100ml strong diluted elderflower cordial with hot water. Brush over the top of the cake. I did this part when the cake was cool and you can see in the photo below that the cordial didn't soak in very far - next time I'll use more cordial and do it while the cake is warm.
8. Leave to cool completely.
9. Optional: To decorate, mix together some icing sugar and undiluted elderflower cordial to a drizzling consistency. I made mine a bit thicker and put it in a piping bag to give a neater finish. Alternatively you could just dust with icing sugar.
10. Serve with cream.

Decorate with a St George's flag. This red and white checked bow was the closest I had!

Happy birthday Shakespeare! And Happy St George's Day to one and all! x

Burns Night 2014

Last night I hosted a Burns Night supper for our friends, Sue and Gordon and their son. If you've been reading this blog a while, you'll know I did the same last year. It was a real success and, as Sue has mentioned it several times over the last 12 months, I invited them over again.

I did suggest doing 'Burns Night Lite' but no, it had to be exactly the same. Well, exactly the same would be a bit dull so I kept the traditional running order but changed some of the entertainment.

One of my new elements was the decoration. I bought a metre of tartan fabric to make a tablecloth and added the purple and silver accessories which I already owned.

On arrival, the adults were served my version of a Loch Ness Mystery cocktail (whisky, apricot brandy, lemon juice, orange juice and lime juice).

Then onto the main festivities, starting with the Piping in of the Guests to the sound of bagpipes and a marching band.

The Selkirk Grace

Before the arrival of the food, a short prayer was offered, in best Scottish accent.

Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.

Piping in of the Haggis

The haggis was brought in to the sound of the national anthem, Scotland the Brave, and paraded around the table.

Address to the Haggis

Sue read the Burns poem, Address to a Haggis, and Gordon plunged in the knife at these immortal words,

Cut you up wi' ready sleight,

Trenching your gushing entrails bright

The meal

As well as the haggis, I served the traditional accompaniment of neeps and tatties: potatoes with honey and pepper roasted white turnip and chantenay carrots. There'll be more information about the potato dish in due course as the recipe was part of my Cookery Book Challenge.

Entertainment and Dessert

Before dessert it was time for some entertainment. Of course there had to be a reading of a poem by Burns (John Anderson, my Jo) and music with a Scottish flavour. 

With a 7 year old present, I was really pleased to find Kilts and Stilts from Veggie Tales. And we all laughed and sang along to Ye Canny Shove Yer Granny Aff a Bus before a rousing rendition of the traditional Skye Boat Song, which I remember learning at school. Finally, by popular demand from last year, we finished with Doon in the wee room.

Dessert was another traditional offering, cranachan.

Auld Lang Syne

Last but not least, with words by Robert Burns we held hands and sang along tunelessly to Auld Lang Syne, backed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and chorus.

And thus concluded our Burns Supper. 

The meal over, we headed out to the garden to wave around a few sparklers, before retreating to the living room for the DVD of Brave.

We had such a good time that Sue is now planning an English evening for St George's Day and I already had in mind something Welsh for an event later in the year. I think this is the start of a trend!

Yesterday I noticed that Shortbread and Ginger is hosting a Big Bloggy Burns Supper so I'm linking up with all those celebrating around the world :)

Staircase & Stockport

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I was meeting some friends in Stockport for the afternoon. It's not generally the first place which springs to mind when planning an outing. However, we're always looking for somewhere new to try and I'd heard about a couple of interesting-sounding museums which were worth investigating. Our destination on this occasion was Staircase House which dates from the 1600s, though there's been a house on the site since the 1400s.

Surprisingly, the House isn't named after its most famous feature but after a cafe, one of the last businesses to operate there - the House has been used both as a family home and as business premises. You might be thinking this staircase looks very new for such an old house, and you'd be right. In 1995, a fire swept through the House and badly damaged a lot of the interior and it's taken them years to restore it.

Carpenters rebuilt the staircase, incorporating as much of the original wood as they could.

The rooms are decorated to represent different periods of the House's life, like this 1650s kitchen.

I really liked this blue dish, complete with fake fish.

One of the best aspects of the house is that there are several interactive elements. In the Counting Room, we practised writing with quill and ink.

In the bedroom, we dressed up in period costume. Well, ok, I did - my friends were less keen on putting on thick wool coats and hats on a very hot day.

Another lovely dish on the chest in the bedroom. Like most of the furnishings and decoration in the House, it's a reproduction which means that you can touch and handle almost everything on your tour round.

 You can also sit on the chairs and be thankful you don't have to sit on hard wooden seats every day. This reproduction was 'dated' 1683. Not the most comfortable, even with this pretty tapestry cushion.

By coincidence, Chickpea and I went to a fete last weekend and, as we passed by one of the stalls, I remarked that one of the chairs on the stall looked very similar to this one. It turned out that the stallholder was the person who made it!

All of the lovely curtains and bed linens were embroidered by volunteers.

They've done such a wonderful job.

A really interesting place to visit. We easily spent over an hour there and didn't even listen to all of the audio guide (which was a bit too long).

Back outside it was still hot and sunny. At the front of Staircase House is the market and the Market Hall. Beautiful Victorian architecture.

There were some lovely stalls and, in particular, this one selling plants. I saw some real beauties and, if it hadn't been such a very hot day, I might have bought a few. As it was, I rationed myself to something from the indoor market which I'll be telling you about next time.

I thought this building toned in beautifully with the awnings on the stalls and had such lovely detailing. Unfortunately, as so many shops in town centres, it was empty. You'll also have noticed that the street around the market isn't exactly teeming with people. However, it was mid-afternoon by this point so maybe the rush happened earlier in the day. I hope so because the market hall in particular is a real gem of a building inside and out, and it would be a shame if it fell into disuse too.

One of the other things I enjoyed about our trip to Stockport was a glass of Dandelion and Burdock. I'll be hunting down some of this brand because it was soooooo good. It was one of my favourite drinks as a child but I haven't had it in years. It made us reminisce about visits from the 'pop man' who used to bring round all kinds of pop in his van. That and the milkman who brought orange in milk bottles. And does anyone remember the craze for homemade ginger beer in the '70s when neighbours would pass on their 'starter' for you to feed up to create your own? Funny the things you remember :)

All in all, we really enjoyed our day out in Stockport and there are some surprisingly pretty parts amongst the urban sprall. We'll be going back in a couple of weeks as we still have a date with the Hat Museum.

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Hope you're all enjoying the weekend. I'm having a long one as yesterday was my birthday :) After shovelling potatoes and carrots on a market stall on my 17th birthday, I vowed never to work on my birthday ever again and have pretty much stuck to that ever since!

I had a lovely day and went for dinner (lunch) with Mum and Dad and Chickpea. The place is known for its enormous desserts and ice cream flavours - we all got a different scoop so we could try out as many flavours as possible.

In the afternoon I wandered around in a tiara, only taking it off to mow the lawn.

If only the birthday glow had lasted. Today I suffered the torture of taking Chickpea to look for shoes for the party she's gone to tonight. She ended up going in some shoes she already had - aaghhh! I'm going to pick her up in the early hours so tomorrow will be a quiet day of sleeping and resting. Hope your Sunday is a bit more exciting! x

Cherry dumpers

Well, I promised you sausages and instead you get cherries! Did you know that tomorrow, 16 July, is National Cherry Day here in the UK? Neither did I until I stumbled across a reference to it recently. Cherries are one of my favourite fruits and I wait eagerly for the summer glut when prices start to fall. 

Amazingly, 95% of the cherries we eat are imported which is not good news for the fruit growing industry in Britain. And which therefore makes me ashamed to admit that my favourites are the sweet picota cherries from Spain: I'll probably be thrown in the Tower of London for treason. However, to celebrate this Day and redeem myself, I'm going to share with you a very traditional recipe for Cherry Dumpers, which originated in Buckinghamshire.

I love traditional recipes and who could resist one with such a great name! They're also known as Bumpers and were usually eaten on Cherry Pie Sunday which is the first Sunday in August. They really couldn't be simpler to make.

You'll need:
Shortcrust pastry (home made using your favourite recipe, or bought)
100% British cherries, pitted
Granulated sugar
Milk or egg to glaze
Caster sugar

Make the pastry and roll out. Use a small plate to cut out circles - the size of plate will depend on how big you like your dumpers. We're pretty greedy when it comes to sweet things so I used an 18cm tea plate.

Pile some cherries in the middle of the circle and sprinkle with granulated sugar. Brush the edge of one half with water using a brush or your finger. Fold over one side to meet the other to make a half circle. You'll probably need less cherries than you think as I had to pop a few of these in my mouth to get the sides to meet! Crimp the edge using a fork and brush with milk or beaten egg. Place on a greased baking tray and pop in the oven for 20-30 minutes at 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6.

Remove when golden and sprinkle with caster sugar whilst still hot. You can serve as they are or with cream or ice cream. I found them a little plain so, if I made them again, I'd probably experiment by using a more buttery pastry or by tossing the fruit in liqueur or cordial, or even in some ground almonds.

If you don't fancy a Dumper, how about celebrating with a different recipe? One of my own favourites is Cherry Eton Mess. In America, you could almost celebrate lovely juicy cherries with a different recipe every month. 17 May 2014 has been declared National Cherry Cobbler Day. Doesn't appeal? Well what about Cherry Tart (18 June)? Or Cherry Cheesecake (23 April)? Or Chocolate-Covered Cherries (3 January)? Or even the August double whammy of Cherry Popsicle (26 August) and Cherry Turnovers (28 August)!

Which one would you choose? Or do you have another favourite? x

Birthday girl

Today was Chickpea's birthday. She is now older than I was when I gave birth to her. Which is weird. And scary.

But she's still my baby.

She thought she wasn't going to have any presents to open this morning as that nice Amazon has been a bit tardy and not delivered them yet. However, I'd sneaked an owl necklace and a pair of cat socks in without her knowing. Our friends from Oxfordshire showed up too with some gifts. As we hadn't seen them in a while that was a real treat in itself. They have a 5 year old who kept us all amused by dressing up in Chickpea's shoes and playing 'beauty parlour' by painting everyone's nails. I do wish they lived closer.

For once, I decided to make Chickpea's cake. She's had the same kind from Marks and Spencer since she was little and no amount of persuasion will convince her to have something different. 'It's tradition!' is a constant cry in our house! Well, at least I had a clear idea of what was expected.

I used Nigella's recipe for a Victoria Sponge from How to Eat to make 3 layers and then sandwiched them together with vanilla buttercream and homemade crab apple and blackberry jam. It was then covered with white fondant icing. It was the first time I'd decorated a cake this way and I rolled the icing out a bit thin but luckily some ribbon and a few butterflies and flowers hid the worst! And you can't beat a bit of edible glitter - there'd have been a lot more if Chickpea had had her way!

For the last few years we've gone out to restaurants for birthdays but this year we decided to have a celebration at home. In total, there were 7 of us: me, Chickpea, her boyfriend, his parents and my parents. Mum helped me with the food and between us we served up chicken casserole, roast potatoes, mini corn on the cob and minted peas. For dessert, as well as birthday cake, there were strawberries and cream. Lots of chatter and lots of laughter.

And now the house is quiet. Chickpea has gone to spend the week with her boyfriend and will be back Friday. I'll be back tomorrow with more news and photos from this long bank holiday weekend.

But, of course, I can't leave without saying, Happy Birthday darling. x

Mother's Day

I hope you've all been enjoying Mother's Day, whether you're a Mum or not. This is what my lovely Chickpea gave me this morning :-) Such a pretty card and I love orchids.

Sometimes we go out for Mother's Day but, more often than not, it's a quiet one and that's how I'd planned it today as I'd been out at a quilt event yesterday (more on that next time).

After I'd opened my card and present we headed round to see Mum. I decided to make Mum's card again this year and enjoyed creating these little paper cupcakes on an 'Emma Bridgewater' polka dot cake stand. I did debate whether it was a good subject for her as she's diabetic and doesn't eat much cake. However, she's always baking, so cupcakes it was. Of course, Dad, always the joker, made the comment 'and this is what you could have had' when he saw it! I think Mum liked it though, and she definitely liked the heart tealight stand and tulips.

Last year I made this card. The design was from Papercraft Inspirations magazine and you can download the template and motifs here - there are different ones for people who like baking, DIY, gardening etc. As soon as I saw the design, I just had to make it. The pleated frill was a bit fiddly and awkward to stick down but, otherwise, it was an easy make and I had great fun choosing the papers and trimmings.

There was more card making this afternoon, this time for the daughter of my American friend who turns 16 in  a couple of weeks. The Russian dolls were free with Craftseller last year and the paper and wording came free with other magazines. I really enjoyed making this one and it came together quite quickly, unlike the Easter ones which I'm still deliberating over.

After the card making, Chickpea and I enjoyed a crafternoon doing some decopatch. She's never shown much interest in crafting but I keep trying! As she'd admired the decopatch I did last year, and spying an opportunity, I bought her a papier mache letter for her birthday and we primed it last weekend. I worked on something for my German friend whose birthday is in a couple of weeks - so many March birthdays - it was my best friend's and my brother's this week too! I'll reveal all after the event.

And that's been our day. Tempted by the bright sunshine, we did set out for a short stroll but the wind was so bitingly cold that we headed straight back home! Enjoy what remains of the weekend. x

Burns Night Supper

Robert Burns by Alexander Nasmyth

Today is the birthday of the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, and all over Scotland and parts of the world with Scottish connections, people will be gathering to celebrate his life and poetry. These gatherings are known as Burns Nights or Burns Suppers.

As our friend, Gordon, is Scottish, and it was his birthday recently, we invited him, Sue and their little boy over for a night of food and entertainment (though for scheduling reasons we celebrated last weekend).

They arrived dressed for the occasion: Gordon in tartan pyjama bottoms and Sue in a handmade sporran!

And so to the festivities. Formal Burns Suppers have a traditional running order and I adapted this one from the BBC web site.

Piping in of the guests

With the meal ready to be served, our guests were invited into the dining room to the sound of bagpipes. Well, you can't have a Scottish celebration without bagpipes!

The Selkirk Grace

Before the arrival of the food, a short prayer was offered, in best Scottish accent.

Some hae meat and canna eat,

And some wad eat that want it,

But we hae meat and we can eat,

And sae the Lord be thankit.

Piping in of the Haggis

The haggis was brought in on a 'silver' platter to the sound of the national anthem, Scotland the Brave, and paraded around the table.

Haggis is a national delicacy and is basically pig offal, oats and rusk cased in pig stomach, though ours was cased in plastic. They can be microwaved, baked or steamed. I chose the latter so it could be kept in the casing for the next important element. I'm guessing that some of you reading this will be thinking 'bleurghh', but it's actually very tasty!

Address to the Haggis

Gordon read the Burns poem, Address to a Haggis, and I plunged in the knife at these immortal words,

'Cut you up wi' ready sleight,

Trenching your gushing entrails bright'

I have to tell  you that the entrails really did gush! As soon as the knife went in, the contents erupted through the hole!

Toast to the Haggis

A short toast with a wee dram of Crabbies Green Ginger Mac, a blend of ginger wine and whisky. Yum! I  usually can't stand whisky but this was delicious.

The meal

As well as the haggis, I served the other traditional accompaniment, neeps and tatties, otherwise known as potatoes and swede, using this recipe. Plus chantenay carrots and gravy.

Entertainment

After the main course, it was time for some appreciation of the works of Burns. Gordon read his poem, My luve is like a red red rose, and we listed to a rendition of Rantin' Rovin' Robin.

Toast to the Laddies and the Lassies

We raised our glasses to salute first the gentlemen present and then the ladies.

Dessert

Not at all Scottish, but Sue brought chocolate cake so we ate that with cream. A more traditional offering would be cranachan or clootie pudding. We listened to some classic tunes such as (our favourite) Doon in the wee room  and Donald, where's yer troosers.

Auld Lang Syne

Words by Robert Burns and probably his most famous though, luckily, I'd printed out the lyrics as no-one really knows the words! We held hands and sang along to the the tune everyone will recognise from New Year's Eve celebrations, backed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and chorus. However, I wanted to share this hauntingly beautiful version with you which Chickpea and I haven't been able to get out of our heads.

And thus concluded our Burns Supper. The meal over, we retreated to the living room for one last dose of Scottishness: the DVD of Brave.

I hope you enjoyed the Home Jules version of a Burns Supper. We had a great time and laughed a lot. Maybe it's time to introduce Supper nights to honour other national poets? Which poet would you choose and what would you include?

New Year's Day

As Mum provides Christmas dinner, it's my turn to provide dinner on New Year's Day. I don't normally do formal table settings but this time I fancied a change. I went for a green and silver theme inspired by a green table cloth I already owned and the silver runner I picked up for a bargain price in the sales. I also did these little tealight displays using some glass jars which originally had some kind of pudding in them. The napkin flower was courtesy of Kirstie Allsopp as demonstrated in her latest series.

In honour of the New Year, we rolled out the glitter ball!

When Mum and Dad arrived, it was time for a cocktail, White Christmas Dream. Not something I usually do as you can see from the fact that this isn't a cocktail glass, but I came across this recipe and, by chance, had all of the ingredients in the house. To serve one person: 30ml vodka, 30ml amaretto, 30ml double cream, pinch of grated nutmeg. Yum!



For dinner, it was minted lamb stew with carrots/peas/soya beans, roast potatoes, broccoli and green beans.

Dessert was a new recipe which I'll tell you about next time.

Before settling down with coffee and mints, we headed into the garden to use up the last of the sparklers from Bonfire Night. Even Mum and Dad enjoyed whirling these around!

Then a couple of games. First up was High Five. I bought this set last year but you could easily make your own. You need a set of cards with the letters of the alphabet and a set with categories (TV programmes, countries of the world, flowers etc). Draw a card from each pile and each team/person has a minute to come up with 5 of the category beginning with the letter. My team won!

And then our all-time favourite, Cluedo. I think my brain was too addled by tiredness, cocktails and wine by this point and I was finding it hard to remember which was my character let alone who they might have murdered where! Dad, however, was on fire and won every game.

And that was my New Year. A perfect one of family, good food and fun. Hope you all enjoyed your New Year's Day, however you spent it.

Back to reality and work tomorrow.