Xmas Nibbles!

There have been a number of things that I normally make at xmas that I have not done or plan to do this year, but that hole left has made me want to make things that I have not made recently, to try them out again as an entertaining treat. 

With this in mind, I thought I would try out some edible "straws". I made chocolate straws and pesto straws for a "cousins and cocktails" night a number of years ago and the sweet and savoury treats were a hit. So I thought it was time I tackled the more well known "cheese straws" (of which the chocolate straws and pesto straws are simply a variation). They are easy to make with simple ingredients: cheese (I use a mix of mature cheddar & parmesan), Jus-Roll puff pastry, and a beaten egg for finishing. 

The puff pastry brand I use (Jus-Roll) contains two rolls of ready made pastry (if you make your own from scratch, good on ye, but I am going for party convenience!), which is ideal for making both a sweet and a savoury snack. Roll out according to packet instructions, on a lightly floured surface; here I also include a sprinkling of parmesan to become embedded in the pastry while rolling. Put handfuls of cheese on half the rolled pastry, then fold, roll out again and add another layer of cheese.

With a sharp knife cut the rolled pastry into strips.

Carefully take one strip at a time and twist before placing on a baking sheet, which is already prepared with a surface of parchment or wax paper. The straws always want to move around and untwist on the sheet. Be patient with them; try twisting tighter than you want them to be and you may end up with the twist you want. Actually, it doesn't really matter -- they taste great and each one looks individual when baked. Divide the beaten egg into two dishes so that you can have one specifically for the savoury and the other sweet. To finish the straws, loosely brush on some beaten egg. Sprinkle some more parmesan over the straws before putting in the oven.

Bake in the centre of the oven about 10 minutes at around 180C.  Cool before removing from tray; they can be eaten warm or cold. They also freeze well, though make sure they are in a sturdy container as they are delicate pastry. The yield is pretty good: two and a half dozen at least from the single pastry roll. Tip: only bake one tray at a time for even cooking; prepare the other trays when the first is in the oven -- it is still pretty quick.

The same process is done for making the chocolate straws. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface, spread chocolate on one half of the pastry, fold, repeat, cut into strips, twist. Note: since this is a sweet snack, sprinkle sugar on the surface with the flour so that it gets embedded into the pastry dough while rolling!

Again, brush the straws loosely with beaten egg.

For the finishing touch, sprinkle the straws with more sugar before putting into the oven.

I prefer the savoury straws myself, but anyone who likes sweets will love these!

More Christmas Cooking - Gingerbread Cookies!

Back in 1999 I returned to Canada for the last xmas and new year's of the 20th century, spending two weeks with my sister-in-law's family in snowy Prince George, BC. Arriving a few days before xmas, my husband and I had the opportunity to help out with the decoration of the gingerbread cookies. We thought the cookies were so delicious and the family evening so much fun that we decided that gingerbread cookies would from then on be part of our annual tradition too. Though we no longer try to decorate the cookies individually (for instance, transforming the gingerbread ladies into a recognisably Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield) we still enjoy the tradition and take pride in our creations! This recipe has been tried annually and remains true.

6 cups self-raising flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp baking powder

4 tsp ground ginger, 4 tsp cinnamon, 1 1/2 tsp ground clove, 1 tsp salt

1 cup butter (NB for some reason the past 2 years we have added an extra 2 oz butter as the mix seemed dryer than usual); 1 cup dark brown sugar (packed)

2 large eggs, 1 cup molasses (or treacle) 

First mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.

In a separate large bowl mix butter and brown sugar.

 

Creaming until fluffy...

Add eggs and molasses

Gradually add dry ingredients to wet mix, 

stirring after each dry addition.

Divide mixture and form into several balls.

Wrap in cling film (Saran Wrap) and refrigerate for an hour.

Preheat oven to 350 F/180 C. Roll out dough on floured surface and cut into shapes.

We use dinosaur cutters as well as Winnie-the-Pooh and traditional xmas cutters. Make the most of the rolled dough! Bake 8-10 mins.

Cool cookies -

- before decorating! The icing I use for decorating is a simple glace - icing sugar mixed with a bit of boiled water and various food colourings. I use sandwich bags with a tiny corner cut as decorating bags (discard when finished). This recipe makes well over 100 cookies (I think I counted 180 this year) depending on the sizes of your cutters. Store in a cookie tin or freeze some for later. They are great holiday treats but we also include them with our xmas gifts.

Christmas Cooking - Cranberry Clementine Conserve with Brazil Nuts

I have been very busy with college work, so am behind in my annual Christmas cooking. But finally, last weekend I got started when I saw that cranberries were available in the grocery. At this point I no longer follow the original recipe, but do everything by eye. However, if you have never made this before, follow the recipe and then make your own adjustments for flavour, sweetness, yield, etc. So here is the recipe:

3 clementines, 1 lemon

1.75 -2 cups water

6 cups cranberries (2 standard packages)

3 3/4 cups sugar

1 cup chopped Brazil nuts

I used 3 x 250 g pkgs this year. It helps to spread the berries on a cookie sheet and pick through them, discarding badly blemished and/or mushy berries. My rule of food: if it doesn't look like you'd be happy to pop it into your mouth, you don't want it in your cooking.

It's easy to just pop berries that you're happy with into a bowl of water to give them a little wash.

This year I used between 100-125 g of Brazil nuts, and just gave them a quick whizz in the food processor to chop them finely. Put in a bowl and set aside.

 It's easiest to peel the lemon and clementines before juicing. Cut the zest finely in slivers. Juice the citrus fruit and set aside.

The citrus zest slivers are added to the water in a heavy bottom cooking pot. Cover pot and cook over low heat for about an hour. Check on pot during this time as the water should not be boiling madly, but simmering and you don't want the water to boil away.

Add the cranberries and cook gently. Berries will start "popping" after about 20 minutes; stir regularly and you can help them get jammy by squishing them with a wooden spoon.

Stir in the nuts.

Add juice and sugar and bring to a rolling boil, stirring constantly until conserve thickens. A tip I got somewhere years ago is to warm the sugar before adding to jams. I do this by putting into a bowl and sitting it in the top part of the oven (in Ireland the grill part, not turned on, but getting the heat from the main oven which is sterilising the jars).

There are different ways of sterilising jars. After washing and rinsing, I bake my jars for at least 20 mins at 200 C. Primarily I am using standard jam and mason jars that I brought with me from Canada, so the lids are being sterilised by boiling for at least 5 mins while I am doing everything else. Another tip: only add a small bit of hot conserve to hot jars at first to ensure that the glass doesn't crack. When it is apparent the glass is not going to break, fill jar leaving some headspace and seal using matching lid. If using recycled jars and paraffin, let the conserve cool a bit before pouring in wax; twirl jar a bit so that wax crawls up the sides of the opening, creating a full seal.

The yield for the recipe above is about 6 fancy jam jars. The one with the tin foil, is actually a larger jar, so I would have had 6+ jars. As a matter of fact, I used more berries than the recipe called for and I could have added more water than I did, which would have increased my yield. I have found that I can add more water and the conserve sets pretty well, though the colour can lose some of its intensity. This batch that I made last weekend is quite thick, but still spreadable. It is quite tasty and tart -- a fantastic accompaniment to turkey and turkey leftovers in sambos (mmm, toasties!) but I have also given this conserve as gifts to vegetarians, it is wonderful on toast too, just used as a jam.