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Eating, cooking and everything in between

Brussel Sprout, Sweet Potato and Smoky Bacon Hash

I don’t know about you but I love a good sprout, and this is obviously the best time of year to get your fill of them. This is a nice recipe if you’re looking for something a little different for breakfast or lunch, not going to lie it is pretty light so add a slice of toast or two  if you’re fully starving.

 

Also please accept my apologies for my poached egg. I cannot for the life of me get the white to wrap around. I’ve tried: straining off the excess white, swirling the water, not swirling the water, vinegar, shallow pans, deep pans, you name it. NONE of these things work for me. I have my eye on some of those pan poacher thingies (like these) maybe Santa will come through. If you’ve used them, let me know if they’re good!

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Christmas Foodie Traditions

For my family of foodies, many of our Christmas traditions revolve around food. In fact, nearly all of them revolve around food! Now we’re counting down to the big day, here’s a sneak peek at what happens in our household.

Christmas Eve prep
Christmas Eve is all about everyone mucking in and doing a big family food prep session for the big day. We’ll chop carrots, parsnips, leeks, peel sprouts, roll pigs in blankets and make the stuffing. There’ll be some celeriac remoulade on the go, and usually we’ll make some mince pies and ice the cake too. It’s a busy, bustling morning and any guests are expected to help out too.

Christmas Eve dinner and ‘the cheese’
Every year without fail we eat a kedgeree for Christmas Eve dinner cooked by my dad. It’s one of my family’s favourite dishes, brimming with hard boiled eggs, smoked fish, pancetta and comforting and creamy rice. After this we’ll have a cheeseboard (yes I know it’s weird after fish) where, since my discovery of it three years ago, we start to eat the Vacherin Mont D’or.

Nibbles
My mum loves baking and makes a mean loaf. She’ll prepare a couple of baguettes in advance and freeze so we can defrost on Christmas morning for our nibbles. Classically, we’ll have mussels on toast (rounds cut from these baguettes) and smoked salmon and scrambled egg oatcakes with champagne before the big meal.

Christmas dinner
Nobody in my family really likes turkey so we tend to cook a Capon instead (google it if you’re not sure) with all the trimmings, followed by Christmas pudding, mince pies, and trifle. Yes, three puddings.

Christmas tea
My favourite meal of the year is Christmas tea. We’ll have smoked salmon, cream cheese, crisps, celeriac and salad. I love this meal because everyone is usually too full to eat it but once you’re half way in it’s the best thing ever!!!

Boxing Day bolognese
Traditionally Boxing Day is a lazy day centring around a huge bowl of home made pasta and my dads spaghetti bolognese (recipe here!) followed by a big cheese fest.

And there we have it! Now it’s December I’m feeling super festive! What are some of your Christmas food traditions?

A Cup of Christmas with The Kettle Shed

TEA! Who doesn’t love tea? I usually drink several cups of English breakfast during the day, green tea after lunch and camomile or a fruit tea before bed. So when I was asked to review some new teas I jumped at the chance!

The Kettle Shed are an independent tea start up based in London. Their slogan is they ‘give a cup’, every time their tea is sold they donate tea to homeless shelters all over the country. Not only do I love a good play on words but this charitable aspect of the brand is really appealing. 

Anyway, onto the tea! 


I was sent two teas to try from their Christmas range – eggnog and gingerbread. The teabags are little silky ones that are fully biodegradable, but really let you see the different ingredients in the bags. 

First up to try was Eggnog! Eggnog tea? At first I wasn’t so sure, but here it is, all brewed up:

Surpringly it was quite a dark tea, I’m not sure what I’d expected, maybe something yellow! It was actually really nice, a lot nicer than I thought it would be. It really did taste like eggnog, with a delicious almost caramel flavour and strong taste of cinnamon and Christmas spicing. It was definitely a different sort of tea, but I could really imagine myself drinking this curled up by the fire with a mince pie. 

Next up was the Gingerbread tea. Now I’m a really big fan of lemon and ginger tea so I was really excited to try this one. It came in adorable packaging – like a little shed! 



This was also quite a dark brew, with a pleasant gingery taste. The vanilla really brings it into gingerbread territory rather than just a ginger tea. It really tastes very festive and would be great with a big slice of Christmas cake. 

I really enjoyed trying these teas, if you’re into tea I would definitely recommend checking out The Kettle Shed. 

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