Festive food & Baking

What are you guys doing for Christmas? We're going to some friends of mine in Stafford, which means we don't actually have to do much, we've made some Christmas puddings, well, Pete has made some - using the ever reliable Good Housekeeping and the slow cooker to great effect, and bar picking up a bottle of wine or two then we don't need to think about everything else for the main event. Well, Pete has to make his favourite veggie substitute - a cheese and lentil loaf - but that's it.

I've planned Christmas morning, panettone and fizz for a change. We'll have to remember not to recreate the year we spent on our own and consumed so much alcohol we fell asleep of the sofa by 8pm. Although that was fun...

So, for a festival the has so much to do with food we're at a little bit of a loss as to what to plan and eat. We're good for veg, since our Christmas delivery arrived yesterday, and we'll be skipping around pubs tonight, so no chance to recreate last years epic raclette, but then maybe that would work well for boxing day now Pete's not in work.

Any other ideas for exciting things to cook and bake over the festive period...

I've already made Mince Pies & a Cake. I might make biscuits today - Jess is coming around later for coffee and presents swapping....

I've gone back to 'Domestic Goddess' for both the spiced sponge cake and the mince pie pastry recipe - so I can blame Nigella and my slightly rubbish oven if they don't work....

GBBO 2012 - Links, Twitter & Blogs

Right a round up of twitter accounts and other people's blog posts about this years Great British Bake Off -Feel free to add things I've missed in the comments BBC website Official site - http://www.thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/ The Guardian Great British Bake Off: which bakers are rising to the top? - 7/09/12 Great British Bake Off: what do you make of the finalists? - 10/10/13 Twitter British Bake Off ‏ @BritishBakeOff Paul Hollywood ‏ @Hollywoodbaker James Morton ‏ @bakingjames John Whaite ‏ @flour_and_eggs Ryan Chong @RyanChongUk Cathryn Dresser @cat_dresser Sarah-Jane Willis @sj_willis Manisha Parmar @2000manisha Daniele Bryden @DannytheBaker Stuart Marston-Smith @StuMarstonSmith Brendan Lynch @brendanbakes Bake Off Owl ‏ @gbbo_owl # GBBO

Tofu Recipe Round Up

More for my own benefit then anything else I'm going to round up my favourite go-to weeknight tofu recipes. This is different from my pinterest board which is full of things I haven't necessarily tried yet but look yummy. Vegan Tofu Taco Crumbles Vietnamese Fried Tofu w/ Tomato Sauce – Dau Sot Ca Chua (I airfry the tofu for this one) I also like to slather it in BBQ sauce and bake it for about 40 mins with peppers and onions before adding it to wraps with some salad. I've also found it's a great substitute for paneer in things - it's not quite there but it's close oh, and if I do need to press it, and I haven't got time (which is almost always) I used the microwave method from this chirpy little video

The Fish Graveyard

I suppose I should update you on the fish - we've currently got 3 Isambard*, Nietzsche , Vince - they seem fine. The extreme cold did a few in and they probably need some proper TLC. Anyway - Pete and I were trying to recall other fish we'd had over the years so I started scanning the blog for fish related posts and I came across the fish graveyard from an old bit of my website that still floating around the tubes of the internet... So here it is - in memory of of the valiant pets of old. And for the ones that don't have little grave markers (or dates) Darnell Bertrand Pushkin Heisenburg I should possibly make a marker for the tomb of the unknown goldfish because I'm sure we've forgotten one... .. time for some more fish? Any ideas for names?? *We were slightly uncertain for a while if it was Heisenburg or Isambard that had survived

Worm's World

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