I’m using any scraps of material that appeal to my eye and hand-sewing large squares very simply together. Patches of Ruby’s first red gingham school-dress is being added to some sixties style fabric leftover from an apron I made for her; there are scraps from an old dress of mine that had too many holes even for gardening, a stripy apron that even I had to admit was too torn for use but that I’d loved and a few baby dresses. I like mixing the prettiness of some of these fabrics with patches from old worn jeans.

They’re all sewn together in my very basic style, the idea being that I can mindlessly sew while listening to music or watching TV in the evening. My patchwork is growing very slowly (the busy work stuff again) but I’m hoping that eventually it’ll be big enough for a small throw that I can back with fleece and that Ruby can snuggle under to watch a film or read a book.

I was prompted to start my patchwork a few months ago after reading an interview with Emma Bridgewater in ‘Country Living’ magazine. I’m very partial to her hand painted mugs and jugs and was inspired to read about the quilt that she’d made for her daughter, Margaret. Made out of much-loved bits of fabric collected over the shirts from scraps of her late mother’s purple sarong to old shirts from Provence belonging to her husband, Matthew Rice, the quilt had a similar homely charm to Emma’s lovely earthenware.

But what I really loved about Emma’s quilt was the memories entwined in it. Emma said that she’d sat sewing the quilt, which is finished with the words, “Keep very cosy, darling Margaret,” while watching favourite films over the years. When she looks at it she can hear the soundtracks from those films as well as treasuring the memories of her loved ones wearing those clothes.

Hoping that one day Ruby will be kept cosy by a mixture of her first school dresses and my old aprons. Sewn together by her shoddy but enthusiastic Mum using the pin cushion made from an old yoghurt pot that Ruby made for me at Rainbows for Mother’s day.

Thanks to Chava again for pics taken when she visited (all apart from the pic of Emma Bridgewater from Country Living feature). My camera has recently completely given up. I’m hoping to buy a new one very soon – so my amateur pics will be back shortly!

I’ve been reading ‘Little House in the Big Woods’ by Laura Ingalls Wilder with Ruby, loving this simply but beautifully told tale of family life interwoven so closely with the seasons in a log house in Wisconsin. While I relish the descriptions of preserving food, collecting maple sap and dancing to celebrate sugar snow, Ruby loves the exciting stories (there are wolves and bears and huge wild cats in the Big Woods and the family travel by sleigh) that always end cosily.

Now that our own days are suddenly warm, pale yellow primroses have made a pretty appearance next to the slender pink rhubarb in the garden and the kitchen table is full of cheery blooms.

The hammock has made its first appearance this year. We may not be exactly barefoot, but abandoning thick socks and boots in favour of easily slipped on crocs and shoes and having the kitchen doors wide open for most of the weekend has given me a similar feeling of freedom. The very welcome sunshine also seems to have urged us into lots of activity. Guy has been chopping a large oak tree that was a casualty of the recent gales. Unfortunate (and we’re keen to plant more trees) but it’s adding considerably to the wood-pile and will keep us very warm next winter. The recent sun means it’s been possible to get the trailer into the water-logged field to bring the wood home ready for splitting and stacking.

A large extension to the very full wood-store is planned too. Funny how just as we’re welcoming Spring we’re thinking of future winters. The Oak tree has also supplied some splendid, rustic chairs for the tree-house, which has been the scene of much al fresco eating over the last week. It also became a washing house yesterday. Ruby turned into Dame Washalot (from Enid Blyton’s ‘Magic Faraway Tree’) once more, and enlisted the help of a friend in her tree-house laundry.

Old rags that we use for cleaning were ‘washed’ in buckets of luke-warm water. Yes, I need to gather them and stick them in the washing machine asap as they MAY not be scrupulously clean, but the girls were happy dangling them over the tree and pegging them out for ages.   Ruby was also busy making a rabbit bike-helmet out of a shell and some old ribbon - well, someone has to be safety conscious as that bunny is partial to speed.

Meanwhile, the Spring sunshine had me enthusiastically tackling the garden, weeding and digging and planting seeds. In between making rhubarb custards to follow slow-cooked pulled pork (one of the last of the joints from our Berkshire pigs, marinated over-night in smoked paprika, garlic, beer, brown sugar) which I could forget about while I gardened. I dug parsnips from the garden to roast, picked purple sprouting and we shared it with friends, washed  down with our own cider, now really quite palatable and with a very pleasing sparkle.

Amidst all our Spring activity, I had a very indulgent start to Sunday morning. Knowing that this is the only morning of the week (now that swimming lessons mean an early start to Saturdays) that there’s any chance of a lie-in I nonetheless woke to chattering birds and a promising sun and was eager to start the day. So was Ruby. While I got tea and milk, she suggested we go outside. We headed out in our PJs through the dewy, still cool garden. I strung up the hammock and we snuggled under a blanket, gazing up at the blue sky. The wild cherry tree that the hammock hangs beneath was full of buds that I hadn’t noticed before. A visiting bee obviously had though, heading purposefully on a foraging trip. The more we looked, the more life we spotted in fact. Then we sipped our tea and milk and savoured the last chapter of ‘Little House in the Big Woods.’

“…Laura lay awake a little while, listening to Pa’s fiddle softly playing and to the lonely sound of the wind in the Big Woods. She looked at Pa sitting on the bench by the hearth, the firelight gleaming on his brown hair and beard and glistening on the honey-brown fiddle. She looked at Ma, gently rocking and knitting. She thought to herself, ‘This is now.’ ”

It seemed so apt reading this while enjoying the unexpected delight of a cuddle with my daughter and a part of the day outside that we normally miss. Even though I could spy tender little nettles destined either for a Wild Greens Pie or the compost heap, I decided that all the Spring activity and planning for future seasons could wait a little while.

Very grateful to Diana Henry by the way, for leading me to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books through her very well-chosen quotations in the wonderful Roast Figs, Sugar Snow: Food to Warm the Soul.

Just before Christmas I did have a go at making an easy semi-hard cheese that matures in weeks rather than months though. I rubbed olive oil and coarse sea salt around the little cheeses (very little actually, attempting cheese-making has made me realise quite how much milk goes into producing a tiny amount of cheese and given me even more of an appreciation for bought artisan cheese) and put them in the cold room upstairs in a sealed container with a damp cloth for humidity.  When I say ‘cold room’ don’t misguidedly think I have some room purpose made for hanging hams and letting cheese mature. It’s a very bare, un-plastered room that we’ve been meaning to turn into our bedroom ever since we moved here.

Lack of time and money have meant the bedroom has been a little delayed. As ever, I’m optimistic that this year may be the year we move out of the spare room. In the meantime the unheated bare room is proving very useful. The dark bit behind the door is rapidly becoming pickle corner.

With a house full of family over Christmas, the fridge was bulging and leftover veggies destined for bubble and squeak were sent up to the cold room. Actually we so enjoyed the Boxing Day leftovers that Guy came up with a suggestion. Next year, we cook Christmas lunch on Christmas Eve, then without eating any of it,  immediately take it up to the cold room ready for leftovers!

Obviously too many days of Bird Bingo, muddy walks across the fields and wondering whether piccalilli or Middle Eastern pickled turnips is the correct pickle for that days’ leftovers has gone to our heads. The festive period has also had a disturbing effect on my cheese. Last time I had a peep at the cheeses ripening in the cold room, I couldn’t spot any mould forming (or much of a rind either) but there was definitely something unique about them. Some artisan cheese-makers may use nettles, even ash to add a distinct look and flavour to their products. I detected something else adorning the rustic exterior of my carefully made cheeses. Something with a definite flavour of my December kitchen. Yes, glitter.

It obviously says a lot about my optimism then that one of my plans for the new year is to have a go at making mozzarella. Yes, I know I’ll end up with strings of cheese everywhere but I’d like to try it. I’m chuffed that the feta has worked out, it’s very salty but good used sparingly, crumbled into flatbreads with leftover lamb – I cooked a leg of lamb slowly over potatoes using a recipe from The Fabulous Baker Brothers book as an easy way of feeding everybody the day after Boxing Day. Will write about how I made the feta soon.

After being inspired by the medieval bread baked at The Hearth in Lewes, would love to experiment more with bread this year too. Using interesting flour, a home-made sourdough and a long prove.

But with the glittery cheese a reminder of the results of my multi-tasking I’m trying to keep my resolutions and plans for the new year simple. While I’m still harvesting parsnips, swede, chard and beetroot from the garden, can’t help but have lots of plans for the new things I want to grow though. And the size of the ewes in the field next to us is reminding me of the delights of Spring already. Lovely to think that it’s not long after Christmas until there are new lambs in the fields and broad beans to be planted. Which makes me look forward to these sort of pleasures…..

Hope you have lots to look forward to in 2014 too. Happy New Year!

Little pots of lip balm, scented with a festive citrus essential oil and maybe including a tincture made from flowers from the garden, are surprisingly easy to make. The first time I made lip balm with Ruby I decided they were such a simple thing for her to get involved in, I must remember to revisit for Christmas gifts.

When I suggested making lip balm a week ago, my daughter was enthusiastic. Partly as she wanted to make some for herself, dismissing the herbal lip balm I keep handing to her for her chapped lips as “smelly.” She also swiftly added that they should be “glittery.” As it is Christmas and I remembered there was some edible gold glitter in the cake decorating drawer, I agreed that some of them could be glittery. Realizing that perhaps not everybody is partial to lips with sticky gold shimmer, I’ve left this out of the recipe below.

mandarin & calendula lip balm

1 teaspoon beeswax

70g cocoa butter

1 teaspoon coconut oil

5 drops calendula tincture (not essential if you don’t have any, I’ve made without this too)

12 drops mandarin essential oil

Melt the beeswax, cocoa butter and coconut oil in a bowl over a saucepan of hot water. Add the tinctures and then the essential oil. Pour into little pots before the mixture begins to harden. I used pots that I’d saved, but you can buy inexpensive lip balm pots from The Handmade Company: they also sell ingredients such as cocoa butter, dried flower petals and have some lovely home-made aprons for children.

If you don’t have the ingredients for lip balm, I can also recommend bath bombs, which I made here last Christmas as a very easy gift to make with children.

I’m a big fan of adding a homemade touch to Christmas, whether to decorations, handmade gifts or the food and drink that you offer family and friends. Besides, I’d far rather be pottering around in the warmth of the kitchen, baking spiced gingerbread and gathering greenery from the garden than getting hassled in a packed shopping centre.

 I love it that my daughter is as enthusiastic as I am about making home-made gifts. She started young, plopping bits of vegetables into my biggest saucepan for Christmas Chutney when she was a toddler. With a little input from her, I labelled them up as ‘Ruby’s Christmas Chutney’; we often bring out paint, glitter and our Christmas stamps to add Christmas sparkle to frugal luggage labels. We painted a cardboard box together and glued on letters spelling ‘Ruby’s home-made goodies’ and filled it with our preserves. Ruby delved into it on Christmas day, handing out very rustic but home-made/home-grown chutney to her Aunties, Uncles and Grandparents.

The box remains, a little battered, but still in use and Ruby is still keen to get involved in our home-made Christmas. Aged 6, she does have stronger ideas about what she would like to make, however, often featuring modelling clay, you know the stuff that dries and hardens overnight. The sort that is often found lurking under the table/behind chairs in this house. Her ideas are often a tad ambitious; last year it was, “I know, let’s make cups and saucers.”

Little jars of Dukkah, an earthy Egyptian blend of nuts and spices are another favourite home-made gift of mine and I like the way they suggest a Three Kings Eastern exoticsm meets traditional English Christmas (in my mind anyway!). Nuts and spices were rightly celebrated in Elizabethan times as treats worthy of Christmas feasting and as Dukkah stores well, it can be made ahead of the festivities, when hopefully all is still calm in the kitchen.

The pestle and mortar pounding is good fun but straightforward for little helpers and it’s worth saving a jar for yourself to eat with Christmas leftovers; added to olive oil and dried mint if you have it, Dukkah makes a great dip. I also have membrillo centred plans for the last few Quince, still scenting the room with their wonderful aroma. 

Much as the pairing of sweetly fragrant quince jelly and salty Spanish cheese feels like a contemporary food fashion, I think it fits well with a traditional Christmas. After all, quinces, along with fruits, nuts and spices would’ve featured in an Elizabethan Christmas feast. Edible decorations and greenery brought in as garlands would’ve been a key part too of course and, inspired by Anne of Life in Mud Spattered Boots’ lovely rustic wreaths I have weekend plans for transforming hedgerow bounty.

Before I get carried away though, I must remember that I still have work deadlines to meet, a very scruffy house to get ready for family visitors and we’re nearly into the last lovely but very busy week of carols, school nativity and parties. As usual no doubt lots of my plans will be abandoned as I try to enjoy it all rather than race around getting frazzled. But trying a few new home-made things each year along with making the old favourites such as spiced biscuits for the tree, and involving Ruby as much as possible, does feel to me like it’s properly Christmas. Even if we do end up with a very messy, sticky, glittery house along the way! 

Thanks to award-winning chef Indunil Sanchi and self-styled Urban Rajah, Ivor Peters, there was still excellent local lamb, but this time it was marinated in 24 spices and slow -cooked to produce a wonderfully tender, tongue-tingling dish. And the sweet treat involved an entertaining pancake master-class with honey coconut, sticky toffee ice-cream and caramel sauce.

At the Indian Food Feast we were greeted with an Amuse Bouche of tasty little steamed lentil cakes before sitting down to a fabulous array of curries, pakoras and patties that ranged from Punjab street food to fabulous dishes fit for a Maharani. In between eating, we were taken on a foodie adventure around the Indian Sub Continent by Ivor Peters.

Imaginative chef, author of Curry Memoirs and pop-up restaurateur, Ivor is also a self-confessed dandy and a great entertainer.  Splendid in orange velvet jacket and with his signature perfectly groomed moustache, Ivor treated us to tales that leapt from Indian sieges to the chapatti shuffle in his grandparent’s kitchen. He described childhood feasts of vividly spiced food, with big family groups sitting picnic style on luridly coloured sheets (this was the 1970s) and niftily skipped back to Victorian banquets. Encouraging us to chat about spices and get our own “curry clinic” going while we feasted on Spiced Red Lentil & Chicken Patties from Andra Pradesh and Masala Crusted Whitebait from the Malabar Coast.

Listening and eating, it felt like a celebration of all the imaginatively spiced  regional dishes that are so far removed from the dumbed down versions so many of us have experienced from takeaways or in jars.

I wrote a few months ago about Indunil’s wonderful Black Lamb Curry that he cooks regularly at the Noel Arms. Now I’m hankering after his Cashew Nut and Green Pea curry, a dish that Indy ate as a child in Sri Lanka. Ivor told us that Indy soaks the cashew nuts before cooking to recreate the creamy texture of fresh cashews that he remembers from childhood.

My other favourite dish from the evening was Lucknowi Siege Lamb, so I was very excited when Ivor and Indunil were happy to share the recipe. They use mutton, which I’d like to try, but in the meantime I’ve been using lamb shanks in curries, cooking them on a really low heat for hours so that the lamb falls off the bone resulting in tasty, tender lamb. Also remembering Alex from Dale Cottage diaries reminder of the nutrition value of cooking meat on the bone slowly in dishes. The list of ingredients may seem a little scary but the curry powder and garam masala can obviously be made in decent quantities and stored in jars for future curries.

Lucknowi Siege Lamb

Serves 4–6

• 2 onions, sliced
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1kg boneless mutton, diced
• 6 green cardamom pods
• 2 tsp fennel seeds, pounded into powder
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tbsp ground coriander
• ½ tsp chilli powder
• 2 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 8 cloves
• 8 peppercorns
• 1½ tsp salt
• 2 tsp ginger and garlic paste
• 400g natural yoghurt
• 5 green chillies
• 250g tinned chopped tomatoes
• 500ml water
• 12 curry leaves
• 12 saffron strands
• 1 tsp kewra (aka screwpine water) or rosewater
• Coriander leaves, chopped

Fry up the onions in the oil until crispy and golden, then set them aside on kitchen towel to dry out. Keep the oil. In the same pan, using the onion oil, brown off the mutton, adding the cardamom, fennel, coriander, paprika and chilli powder. When the mutton is browned, drop in the cloves, peppercorns and salt and cook over a low heat for around 30 minutes, until the meat has started to cook in its own juices and the mix is looking darker. Blend the yoghurt, chillies, reserved fried onions, curry powder and tomatoes, turning it into a paste. Add the paste into the pan and swish the ingredients around until everything is coated. Turn up the heat to medium, tip in the garam masala, curry leaves and cook for a further 1½ hours, making sure you stir frequently. To stop the ingredients drying out and sticking to the bottom of the pan, add the water at intervals. The curry shouldn’t be too runny. Just before serving, add a teaspoon of kewra or rosewater.

Serve with rotis or rice and garnish with chopped coriander. Recipe from Ivor Peters.

The night after our feast, thanks to the Bite Food Festival, there were reindeers, carols, a Christmas market and street food in Campden. Ivor was cooking tandoori chicken, lamb kebabs and masala paneer on an open grill to eat in wraps and we obviously couldn’t resist a double-bill of spice.

Very exciting that there’ll be Indian Food Feasting in Chipping Campden in February too as part of the week long Bite Food Festival. The Festival will run from Saturday 1st Feb to Sunday 9th Feb 2014 and will include all sorts of breakfasts, brunches, lunches teas and dinners, pop-up restaurants, master-classes, talks by celebrity chefs and food writers and artisan food markets.

I’m particularly excited by the idea of more Indian Street Food, a Peruvian pop-up restaurant,  of Elisabeth Luard visiting Campden (I’m a big fan of her books that celebrate wonderful rustic European cooking) and the fact that the festival includes lots for children. There’s a Chipping Campden school cooking competition for 11-18 year olds and a Mad Hatters Tea Party run by the very stylish Burford Garden Company.

I love the fact that at the Mad Hatters Tea Party, which will be an edible rabbit-hole of wizardry, dancing, riddles and fancy dress, audience participation is optional but hats are essential. A full programme of events is here.

With thanks to Indunil and Ivor for spicing up the Cotswolds and for the great recipe  and to Bite for inviting me to the wonderful Indian Food Feast.

……. I’m loving Ruby’s excitement as she jumps out of bed every morning and comes downstairs to look in a pocket of her advent calendar. In the pockets are a mixture of little gifts and notes. On weekend mornings there may be an “Ask Mummy to make Christmas biscuits note” or “Make decorations with lots of glitter.” Maybe a tiny tube of red icing for decorating; on others there’s a little chocolate or a glitzy festive hair-slide. Pegged to the pocket for Christmas Eve is the reindeer food Ruby made. This morning it was a big treat from Daddy that went down particularly well: a note directing her to a gaudy set of lights for the den she’s made with a shelf and a blanket.

What’s really lovely this year is that Ruby decided it wasn’t fair having just one thing in each pocket, so she’s crammed in some gifts (mainly items found around the house or chocolate bars saved from party bags – my daughter’s a hoarder!) for Mummy and Daddy too.

The advent calendar is also reminding me of the mix of  home-made/natural and the outright gaudy that my kitchen inevitably ends up with at this time of year. I make Christmas granola and cranberry breakfast cookies, gather holly and have ideas of home-made gifts and decorations while admiring the simplicity of Scandinavian Christmas style.

My daughter, meanwhile, is craving tinsel and foil-wrapped novelty chocolates and of course would prefer this:

Obviously we end up with a chaotic mixture of the lot.

in my kitchen…..

… it’s starting to smell like Christmas. The quince-meat oatie slices include a mix of booze-soaked dried fruit that can’t help but remind you of the spicy fug of festive baking, whether they’re cooking or being eaten.

There have been quinces simmering slowly for Jelly, the Christmas Cake cooking at a low heat for several hours and the Christmas pudding steaming slowly on top of the wood-burning oven.  As there are storms outside, it all feels very comforting. As I write, a gale is whipping leaves up into a frenzied dance outside the kitchen window and I can see our cat trying to chase them. Not sure who’s more entertained, Mog or me.

But back to the Quince-meat Oatie slices. I used the home-made mince-meat including my quinces here, but you can obviously use any preferred mince-meat, bought or home-made. I was going to use Quince-meat in the Oatie slices I made here with greengage but as my vegan friend Chava was visiting (she took the lovely pics in this post and has a lovely piece here on advents for grown-ups I thought I’d experiment with a Little Leon bar recipe which doesn’t have fat. I substituted the dried fruit and nuts in the original Leon recipe for Quince-meat and it was so quick and easy to make. Even easier than my fruity Oatie slices, these are perfect to rustle up if you’re in the midst of a busy mix of work, Nativity plays, Christmas shopping and school runs.

Quince-Meat Oatie Slices

Ingredients

450g quince-meat or mince-meat

honey

60g wholemeal flour

120g rolled oats

Preheat oven to 190C. Mix mince-meat with oats and flour and a drizzle of honey depending on how sweet your taste/mince-meat is. Smooth the mixture into a 25 X 30cm baking tray lined with baking parchment. Drizzle with a little extra honey. Bake for 20-25 minutes until nicely golden. Allow to cool before cutting into bars/slices.

They will keep for a week in an airtight container. A parcel of these Quince-meat slices could make a simple festive gift, so would love to include them in the Teatime Treats challenge, hosted by Kate of What Kate Baked and Karen of Lavender and Lovage.

These are lovely warm as a pudding too with a little cream or thick Greek yoghurt.  We ate some with the wonderful cream I brought back from Woefuldane Dairy and the combination of boozy, nutty, fruit and rich cream reminded us of Christmas pudding with brandy cream.

in my kitchen….

……my Christmas cake and Christmas pudding are based on traditional recipes but with a twist.  Not always intentional. My Christmas pudding does have dried fruit soaked in alcohol but, inspired by Sarah of the Garden Deli, I substituted some of the bought dried fruit for the boozy sloes from my sloe gin. While the Christmas pudding had a generous drizzle of my home-made Quince Ratafia from Diana Henry’s Salt, Sugar, Smoke while it was still warm from the oven. And I have to admit that it’s also heart-shaped. This wasn’t planned, more a result of my shoddiness.

Basically, I’d soaked the fruit in alcohol, taken the butter from the fridge and knew that I had a full school day working at the kitchen table; it was a perfect day to have the cake baking for several hours while I worked. Obviously I’d already mixed the cake before I attempted to line the cake tin and realised I didn’t have greaseproof paper. In a rash mood I decided to use my Ikea heart-shaped silicone mould. Very luckily it didn’t burn. Not sure how I’m going to ice it though!

in my kitchen…..

……some of the home-made booze is ready and offering double treats. As I said, the sloe gin has contributed to the Christmas cake, I’d also like to try the boozy sloes in a cake with almonds and orange. The blackberries from the blackberry whisky are also great with vanilla ice-cream for an extremely easy pud – drizzle over a little of the blackberry whisky too and it’s delicious. I’m still looking for inspiration for the sweetened and brandy soaked quinces from the Quince Ratafia. Any ideas very welcome.

I’m enjoying preparing a little of the food for Christmas feasting ahead – the red cabbage to go with the turkey is in the freezer, Scandinavian pickled beetroot to go with gravlax is in jars and labneh is preserved in oil to do with leftover meat and flatbreads. When it all starts to get busier and I’m more frazzled later in the month, a tipple of my home-made booze may be just the job though!

Would love to join in once again with Celia of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial’s fab In My Kitchen, enjoying a nosy peep at kitchens around the world.