Friday 30th November 2007
You thought I was lost. No such luck. But writing and Xmas hamper cooking do not go well together. I have cooked more in the last week than I have done in the last month. But I have to show, pickled onions, 20 jars, chutney, 15 jars, xmas puddings 4 of, xmas cakes three tiny and three large of. I have marzipaned the cakes and iced one for the xmas fayre at the chapel on Wednesday night. The others will be iced tomorrow. The puddings are all wrapped up in muslin and labelled and the decorations for the cakes have been purchased. How did I manage without plastic, brilliantly. The market, Holland & Barrett and Wilkinson have provided me with everything I needed. I got greaseproof paper – 10 metres for 69 pence from Wilkinsons. I also got china pudding bowls from Wilkinsons for the xmas puds. No wrappings either. The xmas cake decorations came from the paper stall in the market as did my marzipan. The butter and eggs all came from the market. The flour came from my local shopkeeper who also, by the way, tells me he has one of the very short supplies of gravy browning in the County. Family Fayre in Cilfrew has gravy browning. From the material stall in the market came the fine muslin cloth I wrapped the xmas puddings in. They look wonderful and I am putting on a picture for you to see what is possible when only shopping in the market. All the fruit and veg for the chutney plus the vinegar came from the market also. Brown sugar was a problem outside the supermarkets but my local shop again came to my rescue. Local shopkeepers are brilliant. I could not walk into a supermarket and ask them to get something for me, this is what I really call supply and demand, my local shop. I have also made four huge loaves of stolen, a german type heavily fruited bread with a thin marzipan layer running through it and coated with melted butter and icing sugar. I had to freeze it as it tastes so heavenly I would have eaten the lot. Again I did not need to go outside my usual suppliers to make this heavenly xmas treat. Now icing the remaining cakes and making the brandy snaps. Tomorrow I will start again. Then all I have left is toffee, chocolates and boxes to put them in. I cannot wait for xmas, I will be too exhausted to eat I know but it will be a plastic free one.
