Tag: Christmas
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Healthy Banana Oat Pancakes with Pink Peppercorn Plums
Banana oat pancakes were my fanfare for 2023. I lined up all the ingredients on my parents’ glittery red countertop (it’s not the only part of the new house that will be evicted but it will potentially be the most satisfying) and methodically measured everything into a jug then whizzed it all into a gloopy…
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Gingerbread marshmallows
I appear to have travelled through time. I blinked and somehow it’s advent. Time travel is clearly the only logical answer – although the time machine would have to be invisible and must be parked in one of the few unused parking spaces outside. And all users would have had their memories magically wiped. But,…
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How to Build a French Charcuterie Board
It was during my first visit to see Gaylord in France that I realised how seriously the French take charcuterie. While it took me another year to eat snails, then a whole year after that I finally encountered frogs legs, charcuterie has been a weekly snack since my plane touched down in 2020. As you…
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French cooking: Tartiflette
I’ve eaten an eye-watering amount of processed meat recently. They say a diet of processed meat is bad for you, but when push comes to shove, I bet whoever ‘they’ are would submit to that meat coma with the rest of us. I emerged from this pork-induced fog after eating four-days’ worth of rillettes, saucisson,…
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Winter spice marinated goat’s cheese
Much like this year in general, this Christmas has been an excuse for my family to bake. My dad provided the Christmas pud in all its nutty, fruity glory, warm from his slow cooker. My sister made the post-Christmas trifle with layers of homemade sherry-soaked sponge, fruit, cream and chocolate shards, and my mum spontaneously…
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Bacon and marmalade sandwich
Christmas Eve is the sparkly magical wait before the big event. And it’s the perfect excuse for a bacon and marmalade sandwich. Mince pies are being defrosted and dredged in snowy icing sugar, we bundle up in coats and gloves and hats and march around the local countryside for a walk, and the radio serenades…
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Christmas baking: mincemeat and apple jalousie
And so, it’s the countdown to a Covid Christmas! Does that sound cynical? Nowadays, Christmas requires returning home two weeks early for the obligatory quarantine. Never mind that France and the UK were both in respective lockdowns. Yes, I’m cynical and so what?! Upon touching down in London, it was like Christmas exploded. Christmas appears…
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Nectarine and Blackberry Croissant Cake
If a positive start to the year is an increase in productivity then mine is going badly. So far I have eaten three chocolate chip cookies straight off the baking tray and dozed in my bed, bundled under the covers like a hibernating bear, even though the sky is a perfect shade of periwinkle blue.…
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Panettone with Christmas cake ice cream
Oh the weather outside is frightfulBut the fire is so delightfulAnd since we’ve no place to goLet it snow, let it snow, let it snow Said no one in Wellington ever. This is what I’m having to put up with. For a summery, sunny city, however, there are surprising number of wintery scenes. Christmas cards…
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Mince pies
And with that, it’s Christmas Eve! I don’t know about you but boy, that came around quickly. I had to double check the date the other day – it was the 21st and, terrifyingly, I wasn’t feeling festive. Sure, Christmas shopping had been accomplished but since when has that been a jolly experience? A crowded…