Happy December!

The countdown has begun! I dug into my first dairy free chocolate from my advent calendar this morning; well, half of it because Ryan hasn't bought himself a calendar, doh! Being a teacher, my countdown to Christmas started long before December 1st. We have been practicing our Christmas play since early November! 'Gabriel's Big Break' is a re-telling of the classic nativity story but from Gabriel's perspective. It is quite good actually once you get past the cheesy songs that need to be practiced. Feel free to listen to the snippet of the songs below. I just sang them to Ryan while he was cooking breakfast... he was less than impressed haha :P

Even though we have only dipped our big toe into December, I have pretty much bought all of my Christmas presents. Largely thanks to my Mum who is ridiculously organised... and has time to peruse the shops in Chester with my sister on a Monday afternoon! However my Mum can't help me buy presents for my Secret Santa selections, friends and Ryan's parents. Yesterday I managed to get a few little presents....

Lush Father Christmas Bath Bomb - £3.25

Yankee Candle Christmas Cookie Sampler - £1.80 in Clintons

M&S Sugar Plum Cookies Tin - £4

As hard as I tried not to I also got a few treats for myself ;) With Christmas and a Birthday coming up in December it's iffy territory going shopping for things I like. With the big 22 coming up in just two weeks I should be keeping my spending at a minimum. I really don't think a Big Knit Innocent Smoothie and a Salted Caramel Yankee Sampler will really ruin my Birthday/Christmas surprises though!

To appease my inner shopoholic, I did buy some really cute Christmas wrapping paper from Paperchase. I love making my presents look pretty, even if it just to get ripped off and thrown away. My choices this year however are made from recycled paper so that does make me feel slightly better about the amount of waste paper at Christmas time. Look how cute the trees are!! 

Some of the shop displays this year are so awesome! I love this iced sprout in the window of White Stuff, it makes me chuckle every time I pass it in Harrogate and York. You can actually win a trip to Brussels by entering a sprout competition on their website.. go on, click the link! I took the photo of the advent display a couple of weeks ago and now I can't remember the name of the shop. I thought I'd share it with you anyway because it's so darn cute. I definitely haven't captured how good it actually is with my phone camera! I hope you are all enjoying the festive season, decorating trees and eating mountains of mince pies. I know I am :D

Harrogate Christmas Lights

Hungry?

Last Sunday Ryan took me to see the YUMI community garden as he always talks about it and I am helping out with their street festival in York on Saturday 31st August. We were all talking about baking with vegetables, because Ryan had made his first ever beetroot brownies, and I was inspired to do some baking myself!

Apple Cake with Honey Icing 

This recipe is from Innocent Drink's cookbook that's full of really good stuff, Hungry? You can buy yourself a copy here :) I got this recipe back in second year and some of you might remember the beetroot brownies that I had a go at making; as well as egg frittata muffins and lentil curry it seems! Anyway, apple cake...

Ingredients:
250g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
200ml olive oil (I used sunflower oil)
75g caster sugar
seeds from 1 vanilla pod (I used vanilla essence)
zest of 1 lemon
2 free range eggs
2 apples - peeled, cored and chopped

200g icing sugar
4 tablespoons of lemon juice
4 tablespoons of honey

How to:
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C/ 350 degrees F/Gas Mark 4. You'll need two 23cm cake tins, buttered and the bases lined with grease proof paper. (I made smaller individual cakes with a silicone tray)

Mix the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and backing powder in a bowl and set aside.

In a second bowl, whisk the oil, sugar, vanilla seeds and lemon zest. Now whisk in one of the eggs, followed by the apples, and mix again.

Start to add the flour bit by bit, whisking as you go, until you have a smooth batter. Leave to stand.

Seperate the second egg and keep the yolk for another time (if you want to). Put the egg white into a bowl and whisk until stiff peaks form (um what? I just did it until it was more foamy than runny). Carefully fold the whisked egg white into the batter. You want to be delicate here, to keep as much air in the mixture as possible.

Pour the mixture into the lined cake tins and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Once golden on top, allow to cool on a rack while you make the  icing.

Sieve the icing sugar into a mixing bowl and add the lemon juice bit by bit, followed by the honey. This is a loose icing that will dribble off the sides of your cake, so don't worry if it seems a little runny.

Once the cake is completely cool, dot a few holes across the top with a metal skewer and spoon the icing all over, allowing it to dribble down the sides of the cake.

Red Thai Pork

I picked up a book called 'Easy everday healthy' by Lesley Waters in TkMaxx last summer (you can buy it here) and to be honest I haven't really used it! So I decided to try out this recipe on Thursday night. Poor Ryan and Tom were my guinea pigs but it actually turned out okay after what felt like HOURS of stir frying on our rubbish induction hob.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 red onion, peeled and finely chopped (watery eye alert)
225g of pork tenderloin
2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste
500g carton of passata
1 tablespoon of sugar
350g French beans, topped and tailed (I used spinach instead)
Freshly ground black pepper
Coriander or small basil leaves to garnish (naaaah, not that fancy)

How to:
Heat the olive oil in a large shallow pan (ha, good one induction hob), add the chopped red onion and cook over a gentle heat for 10 minutes until soft and golden.

Meanwhile, cut the pork into 5mm (1/4 inch) pieces. Turn up the heat under the pan to high, add the pork and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes until evenly coloured. (Again, induction hob fail... 20 minutes)

Stir in the Thai red curry paste and cook for 1 minutes. Pour in the passata and the sugar and stir well. Bring to the boil, lower the heat and gently simmer for 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, (if you want beans) blanch the French beans in boiling water for 1 minute, then drain and refresh under cold water; drain again and cut into short lengths. Add the beans to the curry and cook for a further 1 minute. (If you want spinach just add it to the curry and let it wilt)

(The fancy-pancy bit)

Season with pepper to taste. Scatter coriander or basil leaves over the curry and serve accompanied by Thair fragrant rice, and yoghurt if you like.