Festive Treats For All!
Ooo-err! (Hello in West Country) from the land of
Devonshire!
I am pleased to say that the time of year has finally
arrived for me and the siblings to migrate south for Christmas. I would like to
say that I migrate like a majestic European swallow but others would probably
say it’s more like a sluggish fairy penguin whereby my sister wakes me up at
half four in the morning, drags me to the car and ferries my slothy face five
hours away to deepest realms of the countryside. Despite a trip that I’m sure
is comparable in length to the distance between the shire and Mordor, I’m
honestly just happy to have finally escaped the devil’s hell hole (often
referred to as work) and am looking forward to spending the next week celebrating
Christmas with my favourite F’s:
·
Family
·
Food
It’s quite nice at my parent’s house surrounded by fields, cows, country air and more cows, constantly being wrapped up in blankets and lying by the log burner like a fluffy slug; and although this does sound like something out of The Holiday, I can assure you life is still with its minor challenges. For example, communicating with anyone from the area is proving tricky.
Ok… it just isn’t happening.
An example of how such an interaction may take place is as
follows:
Local Devonshire man – “Eeer bay, where be it too den?”
(Translation: Hello young man, where are you off to?)
Me - *Blinks multiple times whilst looking incredibly
nervous, kind of like I’m about to receive a prostate exam from Edward Scissorhands*
After a few moments of awkward silence I’d probably just say
something polite like ‘good morning to you too’, flash an over-enthusiastic
grin with way too many teeth on display and power-walk in the opposite
direction. Hooray for running away from life obstacles!
So aside from failing at basic life skills, here are a few
of the other things that the family and I have gotten up to over these last few
days:
Playing drunken cards against humanities. The
addition of alcohol always makes this game much better in my opinion as people
really unleash the dark side. Let’s just say that suggestions such as the
latest fad diet being slapping biscuits out of orphan’s mouths and Father
Christmas now giving bad children mouth herpes were just the tip of the
iceberg.
Attempting (and failing miserably) to make
homemade tagliatelle with mum’s pasta maker. To summarise, we didn’t
end up with long, luscious, al dente noodles, instead we ended up with… Have
you seen the film Alien? You know the face huggers? Yeah, let’s just leave it
at that.
Giving my brother his final birthday present of
a cookie (dough) monster cheesecake.
Concocted using my cookie dough recipe as a
base and a creamy topping of low-fat cream cheese, Greek yoghurt, truvia, vanilla
extract, desiccated coconut and chocolate chips, this was definitely one of my
more ambitious creations. Although, the texture had gone a bit stodgy due to
having to freeze the cheesecake for transport purposes and then thaw it, the
end result still tasted decent. It was actually a bit like some sort of
cheesecake topped porridge, which of course is always ok in my book. More
importantly it made the brother smile and he really liked the gesture, which is
all that mattered to me.
Decorating mum’s gingerbread men. This year we
decided to make miniature versions of the family members and so took up the
challenge of using icing in a number of creative ways. Unfortunately none of us were
any good at art in school and as a result we had a near disaster when the
gingerbread Grandad’s tie ended up looking more like a penis the length of his
torso.
Luckily we managed to sort it out this is what we ended up with...
 |
| Ooooh me god! So lifelike. |
Anyway, Before this post goes on for too long, I want to say a quick Merry Christmas for tomorrow and I hope that wherever you are, whatever your situation, you have the best day possible! Thank you so much for taking the time to read this blog, I know it’s not the most riveting thing in the world and sometimes I do drone on a bit like a retired geography teacher but it really makes my day even seeing that one person has viewed a post. It fuels why I write and helps me feel a little more connected to a world outside of my everyday life; in a sense it helps me escape. So, yeah, thanks again and cheers to you this Christmas. Below are a few recipes that I have been gifting to people (and myself) over the last week. Both the frozen peppermint bark and the chocolate truffles are lightened up treats that are still extremely indulgent for this time of year so share these with those you love and spread a bit more joy in the world… or eat them yourself. What? You deserve the joy as well J.
Much Love,
Alex
Frozen Yoghurt Peppermint Bark
Ingredients:
1 cup Greek yoghurt
¼-1/3 cup sweetener of choice, I used
truvia and other white sweeteners such as xylitol or monk fruit will work well
here. Maple syrup, honey and agave nectar will blend into the yoghurt better
but it will also alter the colour slightly.
1/8 tsp peppermint extract – start with a
few drops and go by taste preference.
Toppings of choice: I kept it festive with
some redcurrants, pistachios and a dusting of desiccated coconut. It was only
after I had made the bark that I realised it could have been 10 times better
had I chucked over some mini dark chocolate chunks. Poor life choices.
Instructions:
Combine the
yoghurt, sweetener and peppermint extract together and give a good stir. Go on;
stir like you mean it! Stir in the name of Frosty!!!
Spread out over
a baking tray lined with baking paper and try to get it around1/4 inch thick.
Top with
whatever toppings you like and leave in the freezer.
Spend the next
4-5 hours filling your time with something fun such as: watching Home alone, cracking out any board game
with which you can incorporate drinking alcohol with or getting Nan on the Wii.
Every Nan needs to be let loose on the Wii, honestly it’s hilarious.
Return to the
freezer, grab the frozen bark, smash it with a hammer and consume/share if
desired.
Store this bark
in the freezer to ensure it doesn’t melt and it will last for at least a month
but going by the fact that mine only lasted three days before it was entirely
devoured, I wouldn’t hold out much hope.
Chocolate truffles
Makes 30-50
truffles depending on how big you want them
(You could even
just make one really big truffle if you wanted, I wouldn’t judge)
Ingredients:
1 ¼ cup soaked and
drained dates (either soaked in cold water overnight or hot water for an hour)
2/3 cup almonds
¼-1/3 cup
cocoa/cacao powder (depends on how rich you want them)
½ cup oats
¼ cup almond
milk
Optional –
additional sweetener to taste
Optional – flavours/toppings
that tickle your fancy such as vanilla extract, orange extract, peppermint
extract, desiccated coconut, chopped hazelnuts, cocoa powder and powdered
peanut butter - the possibilities are endless!
Instructions:
Pulse the
almonds and oats in the blender until they form a rough flour-like substance.
Add in the
cocoa, the drained dates and the almond milk before blending to get a sticky
mess.
Have a taste and
add some additional sweetener if desired. Also at this point feel free to add
in any flavours you might like – After a bit of research I found that orange
extract got the most popular reception; figures,
who doesn’t like Terry’s chocolate orange? Satan doesn’t, that is all.
Blend again if
deciding to add additional flavours before removing ½-1 tsp measures of the
mixture and placing them on a baking tray lined with grease proof paper.
Pop the tray
into the fridge for an hour for the mixture to harden a little – I like to separate
out the truffles before this so I can just roll them into balls immediately
hence the above step, however you can of course just stick the whole ball of
truffle mix into the fridge and separate out after.
After the mixture
has become more pliable to work with, roll the truffles into balls and then
roll in any additional coatings that you like.
These little beauties
will keep for a week in the fridge and a month in the freezer, so I recommend making
lots. LOTS.
Gift to your
favourite people and try not to eat half a batch to yourself during the
process, although if you did (I did) you can always make more J.
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