Sunday, October 28, 2007

It pays to pay attention...

...especially when you are boiling Christmas Puddings.

Or you might boil dry and melt the bottom of the pudding bowl to the bottom of your Circulon pan.

Pants.

(Melted plastic does scrape off when dry heat is further applied I found out, half an hour later. Lucky.)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh bother!

Despite everything, I feel sure that your cake and pudding will be gorgeously yummy.

My ex's mum was a "foody". he loved to cook, and was in her element at Christmas time. She tried different things out, travelled for miles to get the best turkey etc. one year she was most proud of the pud she'd made (using heaven knows what method). She brought it to the table where is just gave up the will to live and collapsed into a heap - most odd! We did all laugh. Funnily enough, despite everything that had gone into it, it tasted much the same as any other pud I've ever had - rather nice all the same!

This year we won't be having pud. We'll be having something else - possibly a Delia Smith sticky toffee pudding. This is largely becasue the children and Mario don't much like Christmas pudding (same story with the cake).

Christmas day here will be us lot, mum, Catherine, her partner (therefore no pork)and Daniel (therefore no alcohol). You se, I have a lot of planning to do. Can have turkey (which I don't much like), but can't have pork stuffing. (We'll probably have beef and yorkshires, that's the current thinking). Can't lace anything with brandy, port or wine or anything else for that matter...

All of this makes for a happy me as I love to plan these things.

Curently I'm on the hunt for the best, most "special" soft drinks. I love cranberry juice in all of its guises. But I want something a little "different".

Any ideas?

Ruth xxx

Louise said...

We don't drink much that's not alcoholic, (doesn't say much for us...) but I like the Bottlegreen(? I'll check that brandname) Elderflower and Lemongrass Presse and there's a ginger cordial too, which is great if you love ginger like I do. I'll have a further think.



It's really lovely to think of you there with all your family around at Christmas. Never gonna happen here, but mainly because I just don't think I could cope with the stress. (Oh, apart from the fact Richard's wife isn't fond of me.)

I love all that planning too, list heaven! Bit stuffed until Tesco.com deliver this morning, ran out of jotters at the weekend. Aaarrrgh!

xx

Anonymous said...

"We don't drink much that isn't alcoholic"

Tee hee! Us too!

Lots of love
Ruthxxxx

P.S. talking of stress, the first time I did this thing of having everyone at mine, I was so stressed that I started to drink whilst cooking the meal, resulting in me being paralytic by the time it came to messing about with the roasted parsnips, thus tossing them all over the kitchen floor, at which point I was banished from the kitchen and Mario took over!!!

Louise said...

Know what you mean, things do get messy when alcohol gets involved. Or I get involved with alcohol!

I realised things were bad the time mum came to 'help' when David was in the Gulf, about three years ago and I was sneakily drinking Vodka Ice (alcopops, for goodness sake) in the kitchen while cooking, then sharing some wine with her for dinner! That was bad. I'm not so inclined to do it sneakily anymore and no alcopops!

Anonymous said...

I love that image of you sneakily drinking in the kitchen! And then joining your mum for wine!! I don't know why, but my mum still manages to bring out the "teenager" in me. It's the little things she does and says, like "it's colder outside than in today, Ruth, so make sure you wear a coat" (that was last week she said that to me).

Louise said...

Mum is actually pretty good, I think she feels she's walking on eggshells with me and doesn't want to upset me, so I know it's me not her! But I've had to tactfully tell her not to come to stay to 'help' when David's away, because it just causes me stress. I get into a routine on my own, so whilst I hate him being away, routine gets us through it. Another body just invades my space!

Heaven help Cathy. She's coming to stay on her own for a few days the day after David goes away in March.


Cathy is actually pretty good (and Ian!) to have around, she'll help herself to tea/toast/whatever and we work well together cooking, but the day after David goes?!

I could be tense...