The Best Mince Pie Pastry Recipe Ever (or so I think!) And Some Other Christmassy Things...

Here we have...
...my third Eva's shawl. I managed to finish it in good time for posting. I really like the grey now it's done though it wasn't terribly interesting during the making stage.

The (rather lovely and also free!) pattern is here. You can buy Drops Delight yarn here (though now Drops is in the process of being discontinued from this supplier).

As to the rest of Christmas, I don't think I'm as organised as I was last year but I think we'll be OK. Everything that needs bought has been bought which is always good. I managed a few makes (presents, decorations, baking), not as many as I'd have liked but enough. However, the house is a tip and I'll need to try and sort that tonight and tomorrow morning.

I made our usual Christmas cake - Nigella's chocolate fruit cake. The recipe is in her Feast and Christmas books, and I have found it on line in the past.

The little matchbox nativity is back in front of the clock on the mantlepiece...

...which is looking very festive.

Mince pies. This is how they look when you drop the camera in amongst them while trying to photograph them!

I noticed from my blog last year that I wasn't planning to bother making them again. However, one of my brothers and I had a mince pie contest last Christmas and his tasted delicious, far better than the ones I'd made last year and better than shop bought too. His secret - our Mum's mince pie pastry recipe. It has a small amount of sugar in it which I think makes a difference. Here it is for you:-

Mince Pie Pastry

6 oz marg / butter
2 oz caster sugar
9 oz plain flour
1 egg yolk

Cream sugar & fat. Add egg yolk. Add flour gradually while mixing.
Chill
Roll 1/4 " thick
Make up pies
Bake @ 400F / 200C/ Gas mark 6 for approx 10 mins (this leaves them pale for later reheating).

For this number of pies I used a double batch of pastry.

I still had some mincemeat left over, so I just added it to a batch of muffin mixture to make mincemeat muffins.

These dangling snowflakes are my favourite Christmas decoration.

I've made some more since taking this photo (the snow's gone now too). I've seen far more impressive snowflake curtains on flickr but I'll add to our collection for next year. I love how they twirl gently around (perhaps you need a draughty house for this particular effect). I am rather fussy about one aspect of paper snowflakes though - they must have six points as per real snowflakes. Folding your paper circle in half, folding this half by three, then folding in half again before cutting does the trick. Please, no more eight pointed snowflakes!

Fabulous shadows are cast by a Christmas cactus plant on a sunny day.

Hmmm, not seen a bird like that before.

The milk bottles have their Christmas tops on.

I eventually got round to taking the holly inside. There are still berries on the tree, the birds are very late to eat them this year.

Today I made more gingerbread biscuit with some new cutters. I couldn't resist creating this little woodland scene.

My helpers then decorate them before they are baked. I had expected the pack of mini smarties to last the whole batch of dough, I obviously underestimated the decorating density deemed necessary. We had to switch to currants half way through, which actually taste better anyway.

This will probably be my last post before Christmas though I will still be logging in to read other blogs. I hope you all have a lovely time. Good health & good cheer!

Getting Festive...

Phew, just had a busy few weeks what with Christmas Fairs and playing in end of season concerts. However, I have managed to fulfill my Pay-It-Forward obligations at last - a big thank you to Suzy @ Rustic Vintage Country, Jacquie @ BunnyMummy and Vicki @ VintageVicki who all volunteered to be my PIF recipients.

The parcels have been posted, I can't show you what's in them though as they've not all been delivered yet.

Now that that's out the way(!) I've been getting on with a few more Christmas preparations. All rather haphazard so far - decorations gradually appearing, rooms (very) gradually being tidied.

The tree is up. For the first time we have gone for a fake tree. Much less hassle. No lovely smell. The "needles" are staying put. Not as pretty. It'll go back in it's box for next year instead of lying round the garden till June. Too small.

I had fun with my camera after reading this post at BunnyMummy. The photo above was achived by waving the camera around while taking a shot on the firework setting. One of many.
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This seemed like a good idea. I started crocheting an Eva's shawl in lovely Drops Delight wool. It's for a Christmas present and has to be ready in time for posting. It uses three balls of wool - that's nearly 600 yards of yarn. What was I thinking! Since taking the above photo I'm now about 2/3 of the way through, my left hand is getting sore, but I think I'll make it in time.

We've been enjoying the school and nursery Christmas shows. This year hubby has taken holidays from work to come along and see them too. Yesterday was the school show. It was a lovely sunny winter's day (such a nice change from the very wet windy stormy weather we've been having for the past few weeks - even to the extent of the school being closed for a day due to high winds, something I've never known happen before).

The boys spend some time cleaning bikes together before the show. The show itself was excellent, A was a dancing cow and did a great job!

I decided it was time to pick some holly for the house.

The birds are just starting to eat the berries, usually there are none left on the tree by Christmas.

I looked out my cookbooks for some Christmas baking. From Feast I intend to make the chocolate fruit cake for our Christmas cake, as I've done for the last two years, it's yummy and we prefer it to a more traditional Christmas cake. From Bake I'll be making more gingerbread biscuits. The other two books I was using for mincemeat reference. I had thought this year that I would just buy mine pies rather than make them. However, while at Morrisons I noticed that a pack of six rather unappealing looking pies cost £2 - expensive I thought, I'll buy a jar of mincemeat and make my own. Next I look at the mincemeat, again, it doesn't really look appealing, and on checking the ingredients it would appear to be about 50% sugar - way too high. So...

...I now have a big bowl of this maturing.

The good housekeeping recipe recomends leaving it in the bowl for 2 days then putting in jars and make no mention of the weeks of maturing other recips seem to require, so that'll do for me.

I have to say that in the past I've very much liked the Co-op Truly Irresistible brand of mince pies, definitely my favourite shop bought option.

This morning it was the nursery show. N was a star, one of about 8. He didn't sing any of the songs as he only wanted to sing Robot Robot Robot - a made up song which, unsurprisingly, wasn't part of the show. Still, he sat well, though did look rather bored, and yawned a lot.

Hubby and I had planned to go on a bike ride as he was to be in nursery all day, but this morning we woke to snow. Most unexpected - I love a snowy surprise on opening the bedroom curtains in the morning (so long as I'm not needing to take the car anywhere though).

I took another visit up to the holly tree for a snowy holly berry photo.

Snow on the whirlygig wires.

So instead of a bike ride, hubby and I went for a lovely snowy walk.

Up out the village past fields and trees.

I like how each fence post has a little hat of snow.

The tree at the corner. I have photos of this tree for all types of weather and seasons, but until today, I didn't have one of it with snow.

Under the troll bridge.

Snowy hogweed and straw bales.

Birds on wires and a straw bale.

Trees and straw bales.

Lines in the snow (no straw bales)

If you look closely there's a straw bale between the fence posts!

A lovely walk of about 4-5 miles. It felt like a good old Christmas day walk even though we didn't have bellies full of turkey and weren't returning home to relax on the sofa with a Bond film and Christmas sweeties.

Ahhh, home. Just wish it was a little better insulated!

After school we went sledging in the dark. It ended in tears as it often does - N didn't like going too fast on the sledge and needs better gloves. A, though, had a great time.

Lastly, an update on our orchestra's appearance with the BBCSSO a few weekends ago -it was a fantastic morning, you can hear the results here.

Getting Sorted, Clearing Out, Paying It Forward.

A confession...

Back in November 2009 I took part in a Pay It Forward venture hosted by Diane @ Heartshaped. I received lots of lovely goodies from Diane and promised to obtain three volunteers to pass on more presents to, they would then each pass on three more sets of gifts to three more recipients, etc, etc. At the time I only managed to get one interested party and failed to deliver the goods (it's OK, Country Mouse is also a "real" friend and I don't think she minded really, and has probably completely forgotten about it - till now...)

I would like to try and re-start the pay-it-forward. To enter you need to volunteer by commenting on this post and indicating that you're interested. I'll put the names in the hat and will pick three (as my original volunteer no longer blogs I will send her a seperate gift too but with no obligation to pay it forward). To enter you need to have a blog and be prepared to continue the PIF by posting it on your blog and finding a further three bloggers to receive handmade items from yourself. Officially you have a year in which to do this (umm, I took 2, sorry!). It'll probably be no surprise to learn that most of my intended gifts will have a Christmas theme. In addition to the handmade items I will also be giving sets of my favourite fair trade Christmas decorations which have appeared in this post (2009) and this post (2010).

Christmas 2011 is approaching as quickly as ever now that December has begun. I'm still feeling relatively organised (just because I'm not thinking too hard about it all!)

On Saturday it was the nursery fair.

I prepared a small army of gingerbread men...

...some of whom were scoffed in house...

...but most made it safely out the door, accompanied by my usual tablet donation.

One evening before the fair a few Mums got together to make some owls - after selling all the ones I'd already made at the school fair the previous weekend I needed a hand to make more, and people were keen to have a go at making their own.

It was a good opportunity to try out one of the mulled wine sachets, it worked a treat and I liked the wine stained orange slices left in the pan.

I managed to make two owls for hanging...

...and one little spicey owl cushion.

I dug out some Christmas lights for using in Santa's grotto. It seemed daft to put them away again so a few are already hanging round the house. Normally I decorate for Christmas all in one go, but this year it's more of a gradual accumulation of decorations and lights. To be honest I'm not quite ready for decorations yet as I like to give the house a good clean and tidy before bringing them out. But not to worry, noone will notice the difference I'm sure.

I have some advent herbal tea, a gift from a German friend. I've never been keen on ordinary tea or coffee but over the last couple of years I've grown to like herbal teas. In winter they can be pleasantly warming and soothing without the cloying sweetness associated with other hot winter drinks. I do find I'm preferring the berry based ones, but it's good to try different ones and this pack with two of twelve different flavours is ideal for that, though so far there is only one flavour I'd actually buy again.

I have some other works in progress - I'm really liking the spiced pillows and am making a few more as gifts.

This one will probably be for A's teacher.

One of these I've already finished and have posted to one of my brothers who has just moved house (after 23 years in his last home).

We've not had a chimney pot view from the back door for a while. Here we have some rather threatening clouds moving in, and as usual there are several jackdaws perched atop various chimneys.

The clouds didn't disappoint and we've had our first snow of this winter. Not a lot, enough to make the world look magical for a while but not enough to cause any annoying travel issues.

Footprints.

Some wintry scenes.

To today...

I'm in the middle of a pre-Christmas clearout and have been listing items on ebay and sorting out bags for the charity shop. While at the charity shop...

...I bought this lot (plus a purple forklift truck not photographed as it was in use) for the grand total of £4. Such bargains! Look at the lovely threads, perfect for more owl crafting.

One bobbin in particular caught my eye. It was made in a local mill, the buildings of which dated back to 1782 and were believed to house the world's oldest surviving machine factory. However, last April vandals set fire to the buildings and the mill is now no more. I find it sad that another link with the past has been destroyed in such a mindless way.

To finish on a happier note, here is the shelf with A's lovely Phoenix Cards advent calendar house on it. It's beautiful, I'd have loved one like it when I was young. It is nice occasionally to be able to indulge the children a little with one's own childish desires.

PS. Remember that if you want to enter the Pay-It-Forward please say so when commenting - fingers crossed I'll get more than one volunteer this time round...
PPS. You don't need to be UK based to enter the PIF.
PPPS. Entries for the draw will close at midnight on Sunday 11th December.