Planning for Christmas 2011 A

For many years come September I have always started the planning for the Christmas bits and bobs and last year I was late in starting the planning (more due to the lack of funds than anything else, and this year things will be tighter. I wrote the following article located here last year: http://tarragonnthyme.blogspot.com/2010/09/planning-for-christmas.html


Well  now its officially September I thought that I would do the same again.   I have started buying a couple of items a week to help take some of the strain off the old purse come Christmas.  If you are careful about date stamps this can work to your advantage as most items you will find will keep into the early months of next year so there will be plenty of time to use them up.  Even items that you think won't have a long keeping period on check them you may be very surprised. Yesterday my mum bought me some Toffee with hazlenut chocolates there are about 6 to a pack  and they really are scrummy from the £ shop together with some McVitees cheeselets and on checking the date stamp for both of them their shelf life expires next March.  So they have been popped into the box as well.  They also had Maltesers the small boxes for £1 and After Eight mints.  Round at our Co-op they were charging £1.75 for the small box of Maltesers.  OH is particularly fond of Maltesers, but I also have an idea for an ice cream with either the Aero Mint Bubble chocolates in a white Ice cream or the Maltesers.  You can of course also make muffins with these two sweeties and with Toblerone.  So yet again a few items can have a lot of uses that are both filling and good.

My local Co-op have the sweetie tins in at £11 apiece and they look like the 975g tins - will have to see what offers if any the stores have, but it seems crazy the prices they are charging and they are not as nice as they used to be, so could well end up giving this a miss altogether and make my own.

In the next few weeks I shall be trawling the £ shops looking to see what bargains they have in trying to build the Christmas goodies store in advance and then trying to keep my mitts off them before I need them.  Well I am only human.  But the other thing that grieves me is that prices tend to go up just because it is Christmas, so with a bit of careful planning and juggling now I should be able to get what I would like without paying through the nose for things.  Its also nice to have a choice of ingredients from which to cook from a Battery de Cuisine which is personal to yourself, whether this encompasses goodies from the pantry the freezer the bottle/jam store and the wine store, vegetable garden, vegetable clamp etc.

One thing I would say is that if you have an Asian shop near you pop in and see what they do.  For the past couple of years I have been getting my almonds and ground almonds from them at a lot cheaper price than the supermarkets can do them for, as well as other interesting bits and bobs i.e. almond oil and coconut oil for soapmaking, lots of different spices and herbs, rosewater relatively cheaply.  It is worth a look.

Yesterday I bought some cake decorating bits and bobs - not much but at least it is something.  Then of course there are all the things that I have made in my Pantry store to add as well so between these two stores things should build up quite well and very quickly.

At the moment I have some yogurt to use up and I thought that if I could get some more brambles I could make a few yoghurt Ice Cream cakes with blackberry sauce rippled through and then frozen in my pyrex loaf pans so that they are easily removable, can then be wrapped and I can use the pans again.  Yogurt is good for you and I thought that it would make a nice treat as we love ice cream in this house, then tarted up presentation wise with some of the frozen blackberries in the freezer and a little cream should make good eating.  I have various wines to make in the next few weeks too, with a little time some sugar and some alchemy lovely results can be achieved from next to nothing, time to take advantage of the hedgerow fruits whilst you can.  I just wish I could find some damsons and purple bullace.

I also want to make some lemon curd as you can make a very quick lemon meringue pie from a jar of this.  

My Christmas cake fruit is also going into soak in spirit tomorrow.  I am not sure whether to use whisky like my Nan used to do and she used to make a cracking Christmas cake or whether to use Brandy.  All my dried fruit is waiting to be used under the stairs, but I may well top up on a few extra bags during the coming weeks too as OH quite likes proper fruit cake.

Times are tight for everyone this year and buying a few items a week where you can (even if it means being economic elsewhere) and going without and perhaps not having all the items one usually has) means that you too can have a pleasant Christmas.  It doesn't have to be big brassy and  involve the buying and wasting of things that you just cannot possibly get round to but about being sensible and making the best of what you have available before you.  Christmas is for children but every adult will enjoy the celebration more if there are children around as they tune in to the magic and excitement of being young and  its a time for reconnecting with their inner child.

I have a pile of things to make in respect of Christmas presents this year and I am lucky that I can within reason turn my hands to many things. Christmas is after all for me a time to be with family and friends - Christmas is about the family and not just about presents.  Its a time for quite celebration and of giving of yourself freely it is not about money or keeping up with the Jones'. 

My list so far of bought things and some home made things you will note that there are a lot of baking ingredients as I always do a big bake on Christmas Eve - it is one of our family customs things like mince pies, coconut cheese cakes, school boys ear holes (jam tarts) shortbread, lemon curd tarts, Christmas fruit loaf etc and this year's list so far consists of:-

1. Pot of Hundreds and Thousands (cake decorating or sprinkled on ice creams or trifles)
2. Box of Citrus Flavour Strands      (cake decorating or sprinkled on ice creams) or trifles)
3. Toffee hazlenut and chocolate toffee sweets 6 to a pack - 1 pack
4. Large pack of mini cheeselets by McVitees.
5. 2 jars lemon mousse mixture from M & S
6. 1 pack Smyrna Dried figs (for use in the alternative frozen Christmas pudding full of mixed dried fruits)
7. 1 pack Dried Physalis       ( ditto)
8. 2 jars of Silverskin Onions
9. 2 Large Tins John West Wild Red Salmon
10. 2 jars of honey
11. 2 bottles of Rosewater (for Turkish Delight)
12. Extra jar of mint jelly
13. Tin of Black Treacle for Parkin and Gingerbread
14. 2 Tins of Golden Syrup
15. 2 packets of pecans (for toasted honey and pecan sauce)
16. Large pack of Almonds (for baking and also for some toasted almond honey sauce)
17. Ground Almonds
18. 2 packs of cup cake cases one plain and other pastel colours
19. 2 boxes of Turners fruit jellies (on offer £1.10 per box at the Co-Op)
20. 1 box After Eight Mints
21. 2 Boxes Turkish Delight Chocolate Thins
22.  1 Tin of Chestnut Puree (I need two tins of this for a very delish chocolate terrine)
23. 2 Easiyo  yogurt mixes one Strawberries and Cream and Forest Fruits.
24.  1 box Cadburys chocolate milk fingers
25.  2 boxes x 12 red and green candy canes for the Christmas tree (from the £ shop)
26.  1 tube plain Pringles
27. Meringue Shells
28. Walkers Sensations Sweet Chilli Crisps - 2 bags
29. Walkers Sensations Cheese n Chutney Crisps - 1 bag
30. Cadburys Occasions chocolate biscuits
31. 1 pack of 7 bags mini cheddars
32. 2 boxes half coated in chocolate brazil nut cookies
33. 1 pack of cadburys chocolate biscuits
34. 1 bottle of Champagne
35. 2 Pots of Frozen Clementine Juice ready for Bucks Fizz on Christmas morning
36.  Popcorn kernels for making home made popcorn
37. Mincemeat (home made)
38. Christmas Cake (home made)
39. Christmas Pudding (home made)
40. Dundee Cake (home made)
41. Christmas Fruit Bread (home made)
42. Ginger Beer
43. Apple Pop
44. Lemon Cordial
45. Pickled Onions (home made)
46. Pickled Shallots (home made)
47. Pickled Eggs (home made)
48. Pickled Beetroot (home made)
49. Ice Cream Christmas Bomb (alternative to Christmas Pudding)
50. Preserved stem ginger (home made)
51. Preserved crystallised ginger (home made)
52. 1 box Terrys Twilight mint chocolates
53. 1 Box Paynes Just Brazils
54. 2 bags salted peanuts
55. 2 Bags Tyrrells Salted Cider Vinegar Crisps
56. 1 tin Roses Chocolates
57. 1 tin Quality Street
58.  
59.  
60.  
61.  
62. 
    

You have to start somewhere, even if it is only putting a couple of cans of tinned salmon up on the pantry shelf (I have a big red box that all my stuff goes into a mitts off box until Christmas)  You can make a salmon pate, mousse, fish cakes, sandwiches etc just from a tin of salmon and add some chopped gherkins to pep it up a bit makes quite interesting cooking. or some home made pickled cucumber  So everything has its place and purpose, its just knowing what to do with it that sometimes hurts the grey cells but there is always something interesting you can do.

I will update as I go along.

Pattypan


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