The twelve days of Christmas cooking tips - Blog, Facebook & Twitter event: send yours in now!

Christmas. You’ve been round to all of your friends drinks parties, you’ve held yours, and then the family descend on you for the big day itself. Turn the heating up to nursing home level (it gets cold in the UK), move the entire contents of the supermarket shelves into your pantry, let the spirits flow like water, and snooze in front of the TV. But we love it.

Most of us enjoy a cooking good Christmas – but there’s lots of things that can make it easier. After over 3 years of food blogging I thought it would be a good time for a blog event:

SHARE YOUR CHRISTMAS COOKING TIPS

Yes - share your Christmas cooking tips so everyone else can save time on their Christmas cooking too, and have a stress free Christmas lunch!

What do I do if I want to join in?

Post a blog post with your Christmas cooking tip, or re-post an old one from your archive and include a link to this post by Sunday 13 December - this gives you twelve days (just). We will post all tips received on Monday 14 December and link to your blog, facebook or twitter page so everyone has 10 days to read it before they start on their Christmas meal preparations.

You don’t even have to keep a food blog to enter you can:

1 – Tweet your tip to @Cotswoldfood (yes you can get it into 140 characters)

2 – Leave us a comment on our Face book page here.

3 – Email you entry to: Foodtips@bensonofbroadway.co.uk with:

Your name

A link to your post

Blog Name

Name and URL of Your Christmas cooking tip post

Location: Optional

Photo: If you have a photo to accompany your cooking tip attach that to your email in Jpeg format, 100 KB or less please.

I am based in Tewkesbury on the edge of the Cotswolds – so it would be great to see as many local Christmas cooking tips as possible – if you’re in Gloucestershire or Worcestershire let me know on your entry! I will collect all the names of the entries with a GL or WR postcode and draw 3 at random on the 14th December to win a box of our frangipane and almond mince pies delivered to their door.

This is my entry on The Cotswold Food Year – a tip from my archives, but as it is one of the Christmas cooking tips that could save a life this Christmas I thought it good to pass on! What's your tip?

Ever brought too many clementines at Christmas time? Those two for one offers are so tempting aren't they? @CulinaryTravels suggests making clementine cordial. Can also be made with oranges or satsumas. There's a great recipe here on her blog Culinary travels of a kitchen goddess. I'll definitely be trying this one - your own cordial being much fresher is always a different world than one you can purchase. She suggests mixing the orange cordial with sparkling water or lemonade for a soda style drink or to use it as a mixer for alcoholic drinks such as vodka or whiskey or even to add the cordial to hot water for a winter warmer. Now I wonder which one I'll be trying?

@LynnCherylEde prominent local twitterer and fellow Tewkesbury resident gives us not one but two tips via the delights of twitter.
Firstly - "Um coals to Newcastle springs to mind but yes.Spread mincemeat on large short pastry square, roll up, slice, tray & bake. :) arty pies". That's a great tip for quick & easy homemade mince pies! Would also make a good alternative to Christmas pudding served with brandy sauce or anglaise/ custard.
Secondly - why not exchange the traditional turkey for roast pork. "Take cured pork, score top, slop gorgeous honey on top, pour Guinness over & around & roast. Mmmm" Mmmm indeed. Never thought of the Guinness before - what a combination. And who can resist the crackling? And that's how you get cooking tips into 140 characters.

@HubUK whose website is a hub for recipes, food, cookery, cooking holidays and more gives us a great tip "Get someone else to do it?" Now that explains why I am so busy over Christmas and New Year. But then he continued "I do my roast potatoes in chip pan because of lack of oven space." Good tip there! Planning your oven space before the day makes everything run smoothly, and it just shows you there's always more that one way of cooking something!

DK from the food blog Chef in You gives us the best snickerdoodle cookie recipe ever! The tips are given not only during the step by step instructions but are also at the end of the post (now that's helpful!)- see their post here. I love the idea of ground cardomon in there. They would make great presents, or maybe you could hang them on the Christmas tree too.

@Chefrenee gives us some Fresh Ideas... again via twitter: "What works 4 me is make ahead & freeze what can. Also,prep any spice or dry ingredient & bag 'um w/printed recipe attached.& Keep it simple!" Couldn't agree more! Make it, freeze it and it's ready to go on the day. Just make sure you defrost everything accordingly and it is re-heated to the correct temperature. There's excellent advice on freezing and defrosting food here.

I really like the idea of prepping all the dry ingredients for recipes in advance too - that would make it so easy on the day you make your chosen recipe - a ready mix that you've made yourself!

@simbaeats who has just started an interesting looking blog with a simple mission - let everyone know how great African food can be. I think that will be a very good project. He says via twitter "xmas tip - ditch the turkey - so much more exciting meats!" You're so right. What are you cooking at Christmas?

@FoodieatFifteen (now 75) [check out dinner party photos here btw] says in the comments below: "last year I made alton brown's ham. The only work is just crusting the ham and putting it in the oven. Allows time to be spent with the fam." You mean this one? Crushed ginger cookies on it - I can see why you like it! Cutting down on cooking time on Christmas Day is always a good idea.

And Aidan Brooks - read his comment below - I knew someone would say that!

Thanks everyone and enjoy your Christmas cooking!

Edit

Make your Christmas cooking easy by blanching your vegetables - see kitchen tip #55 here.

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Mussells, fennel & chorizo in an apple and fennel bread bowl

I was so hungry I even ate the bowl! Who can resist a blog event? When I saw Zen Chef's fennel/ pastrami gratin entry for Beet 'n Squash You (the monthly food- fight wherein the stupendous virtues of vegetables are extolled) , it immediately tickled the taste buds, and got me into thinking what could I do?

I'd been looking at mussells and chorizo in cider a couple of nights before, and thought it would go well with fennel seed bread...... which reminded me of Jules' bread bowls. I like combining recipes. You always need bread to go with mussells - so there seemed no better excuse to make a bread bowl.

As we live next to cider country (Herefordshire) I like using cider with mussells, although we also have some very good vinyards nearby too - you could use either white wine or cider.

Stage 1 - Fennel & fennel seed bread backets

I only need a few baskets (this made 5 ramekin size) so used:

250g bread flour
130ml cider & apple juice combined (was going to use all cider but ran out)
20ml olive oil
1/2 tsp of instant action yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar (though with the cider didn't really need this)
1/2 bulb fennel diced small and roasted in olive oil till soft & cooled.
Fennel seeds

For method see here. When it had proved I knocked it back and mixed in the roasted dice fennel and a few fennel seeds. Then rolled them out to fit over the ramekins.

Stage 2 - Look at those mussells!

At the end of the Cotswold Way 3 1/2 years ago we ended up in Bath.... and it's Loch Fyne restaurant. If you happen to be nearby their rope grown mussells are really the best. Of course there are lots of other Loch Fyne restaurants too. At that time they also had a fish counter you could buy from - the same way other restaurants have delis attached. Not sure if they still do, but you can also shop online - so that's good to know. Rope grown means you don't have the grit you can find in dredged mussells - that's always good.
I always plunge them into cold water. The ones which float and any that don't close when you tap them (dead) are to be avoided. Then it's just a matter of cleaning and de-bearding them. There's a few more tips here.

Stage 3 -

I sweated the shredded fennel, onions, choizo & garlic in a little olive oil. Then added cider and allowed the onions & fennel to soften (don't really like crunchy onions & fennel with mussells) before adding the mussells. Put a lid on to let it steam and the mussells are cooked in 2 - 3 minutes.

I then removed the mussells and thickened the sauce a little with cornflour so it would sit in the bread bowl without making running through the bread basket. Oh and a few chives at the last minute.

Once the mussells had cooled a little I took most of them out of the shell and then dropped them back in the sauce before spooning it in the baskets.

If you're not a meat fan you could go with smoked paprika instead of the chorizo.

It was definitely an interesting way of serving them!


Oh and there's 9 days left to enter my blog/ twitter/ facebook event by the way!

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Beef olive with pearl barley risotto and grilled vegetables

"I'd like the beef olive.... without the olives please"

Ever been in a bistro and heard this? It's the idea of a stuffed olive that lends the dish it's name though, rather than the dish actually containing olives.

I've been looking at the WTSIM food blogging event for a couple of years, yet never got round to entering anything. Almost got there last month - retro dishes - but then got so many last minute parties to cook for that it went right down the list of priorities.

This month the task was to blog about a bistro dish - which I do here quite often, since my bistro menu has become more and more popular in the last year.

I was still wondering what to do as I drove up to Home Farm where I was beckoned inside the butchery by Micky, the farmer/ butcher. He had a skirt laid out on the bench - "What do you think?" he asked "beautiful" I said. And it was. An amazing piece of beef skirt.

But I didn't have anything I could do with it - I like to sell things before I buy the ingredients rather than the other way round - but as I reversed out of the yard I stopped, then went back in and picked up the skirt. It was just too good to miss.

I once made a steak baguette for the executive and sous chef at Claridges when I was a more junior larder chef, using what we had in our mise en place - the grilled sirloin steak, tomatoes, rocket, parmesan and shallot mayo. They liked the combination. They liked it a lot. And it became steak parmesan (without the baguette), a classic on the foyer menu - with bearnaise rather than the mayo. So I was thinking of something similar to go inside this piece of beef to make a beef olive. This time I had some blacksticks blue cheese, watercress, sun dried tomato and wild mushrooms which I mixed with some of the home farm sausagemeat. This was rolled inside:
and tied (though you could use cocktail sticks instead)

Then sealed to get a good colour on it and braised for 3 hours in red wine, onions, carrots and beef stock:

You could also use beer instead of wine. Once cooked, I removed the beef olive, onions etc. and re-boiled the sauce to thicken it a little, and added a dash of balsamic, then cut the beef olive into 4 and served it as above with some watercress.

For pearl barley risotto click here
For grilled veg click here

My bistro menu reviewed by a fellow local food blogger: What I Ate Today. They seemed to have left the salad and lemon oil for the starter in their fridge though.

Some other bistro dishes:

Starter

Parma ham salad
Tart of red onion and St. Agnes cheese
Smoked salmon blinis

Main course

Shoulder of lamb with tabbouleh
Smoked salmon, leek and tarragon lasagne
Hake with tomato baked beans or beer baked beans
Irish stew with dumplings
Beef and Cotswold Way ale pie
Slow cooked belly pork with creamy lentils
Lamb and apricot casserole
Salmon provencal with red pepper coulis
Involtini of veal

Dessert

Glazed lemon tart
Sticky toffee pudding
New York vanilla cheesecake
Canary pudding
Hazelnut shortbread recipe for crème brûlée


Frozen bistro meals

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Brandy snaps

Made the weekend before last between 2 and 3am on Saturday morning. Somehow I fitted in 13 parties in 5 days - lucky there are 25 hours in a chef's day.

These accompanied passionfuit panna cotta and the caramelised oranges, requested by the contact who had passed on my details for what turned out to be my first ever dinner party booking, almost 3 years ago. The two events I cooked for that week were following his father's passing, so he was choosing things that might appeal to his slightly older guests - a couple of days before I had done the smoked trout trio, with coq au vin, then crème caramel and a large pear and almond tart. The two desserts (above) on this day accompanied the grilled asparagus and rack of lamb dish made with saddle of lamb rather that racks.

I was going to pipe one of the left over brandy snaps with cream and accompany it with berries and coulis a bit like this, a real retro classic, but the left over ones mysteriously dissappeared......

Very easy to make in fact - like biscuits. You can make the dough and roll it into balls and bake them. As they bake they spread out flat, then you just leave them to cool for a couple of minutes before rolling them on a wooden spoon as shown here, or making baskets the same way as I make the tuile or filo baskets - ideal for ice cream or fresh summer berries spread over an overturned ramekin. If you keep the flat you could also make this simple dessert.

The recipe I used here came from Merilees Parker - but without the lime juice and zest. Jan may not have approved of her venison sauce recipe when she met her, but this worked for me - the BBC test everything of course before they publish it.

It has been bookmarked for anyone else who wants to try it on the virtual recipe drawer that is Bookmarked Recipes - where anyone from anywhere can blog about a recipe they had bookmarked from a cook book, food magazine, food blog, food website, from TV etc, make it and submit it to a weekly roundup. this week hosted by Divya at Dil Se….

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Food blogging event

I would have mentioned this earlier, but 18 - 24 hour days get in the way.....

I'm hosting this week's Bookmarked Recipes, the food blogging event created by Ruth of Ruth's Kitchen Experiments where anyone from anywhere can blog about a recipe they had bookmarked from a cook book, food magazine, food blog, food website, from TV etc, make it and submit it to a weekly roundup.

It's OK - you've got all weekend to do it!

Remember if you want to take part here's all you have to do....

1. Pick a recipe from a book/magazine/blog/website/tv show and make it. (Note you can only submit 1 recipe per week)

2. Blog about it- include where you got the recipe in your blog post (including a link to their website if possible)- include a link to this post or this blog in your blog post- include the logo (see above) for Bookmarked Recipes in your blog post- include a photo of your recreation on your blog post

3. Email bookmarkedrecipes[AT]gmail[DOT]com with the following information:- Your name- The name of your blog- The URL of your blog- The permalink for your entry- A photo of your entry- A note of where you got your recipe from

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Bookmarked Recipes 39

Here’s this week's round up of Bookmarked Recipes and this week we have some more great recipes from some more great bloggers. This week’s round up is being hosted by James at The Cotswold Food Year


First up is Gloria of Cook Book Cuisine who has shared one of her best dinners: Sautéed chicken and baby bella mushrooms served over garlic spinach. Originally from the I'm Running To Eat blog who in turn got it from Dinners From A Year And Beyond. She guarantees you'll like it too - let her know how it turns out.
Christine from Kit's Chow has made these delicious sweet and sour shallots with raisins, fennel seeds & chilli from the Tesco foodie magazine. This recipe was found whilst searching for recipes with fennel seeds, after inspriation from Ivy's choice of spices for think spice. Ideal for roasts or cold meats, or a traditional ploughman's.


Two's company, but three's even better when it comes to mac n' cheese for Chris at Mele Cotte who gives us her three cheese bake with three different cheeses. What better thing to do on a cold and rainy day than leaf through the Southern Living magazine where this version of the all time favourite came from. Chris is hosting Bookmarked Recipes next week - details of how to submit your recipes can be seen below.


Next up is the first of two chicken recipes. This one from Jin Hooi Morris at Smell And Taste Are My Memory is for sesame chicken, which was the first thing to cook after a week of having to stay out of the kitchen due to extreme hot weather down under (this, posted on the day the UK ground to a halt in the snow!). From an original post from Kitchen Snippets, this dish is easy to put together, and certain to please.


Our other chicken recipe comes from Arika at My Yummy life who has made Asian glazed chicken wings. These wings of fire, originally from Foodie With Family blog, made the ideal superbowl snack. Bet they would be good on the BBQ in the summer too.


After two chicken recipes it must be time for something sweet, how about muffins?

Holler from Tinned Tomatoes has been making magic muffins - buttermilk, beetroot and apple muffins to be precise. Originally from The Great Big Veg Challenge blog it seems like a great new way to use beetroot, when you're not adding them to chocolate cakes of course. Thanks too for bringing the veg challenge blog to our attention - there's so much good stuff to try there!


Happy Cook at My Kitchen Tresures gives us our other muffin recipe. List your top three muffin flavours, and then put them all into one muffin, and you have Mocha, walnut choco chip muffins. If you're not craving them by the time you've read 'Moacha' and 'walnut' you're not human. Happy cook baked these after seeing the recipe on Passionate For Baking, and her daughter's friend can't wait to be invited round the next time they are cooked - what better praise can there be?


Finally, my own contribution this week is a recipe for hazelnut shortbread. My grandmother's friend had a secret ingredient, which I think makes the best shortbread, and, although we lost her original in a couple of moves, I found this one in my old college text book - Practical Cookery by Ceserani, Kinton & Foskett, now bookmarked for next time. Showed here with coffee crème brûlée.


Thanks everyone for your submissions!!! It's always exciting to see what people have been making and recreating as well as meeting some new bloggers. Next week’s round up will be hosted by Chris from Mele Cotte - the little blog that feeds a huge appetite for cooking......

That's it for this week. Remember if you want to take part here's all you have to do....

1. Pick a recipe from a book/magazine/blog/website/tv show and make it. (Note you can only submit 1 recipe per week)
2. Blog about it - include where you got the recipe in your blog post (including a link to their website if possible) - include a link to this post or this blog in your blog post - include the logo (see above) for Bookmarked Recipes in your blog post - include a photo of your recreation on your blog post
3. Email bookmarkedrecipes[AT]gmail[DOT]com with the following information: - Your name - The name of your blog - The URL of your blog - The permalink for your entry - A photo of your entry - A note of where you got your recipe from

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