Christmas, Turkey and family photographs

Christmas Agiain!It's been and gone and it's been so lovely seeing all my family, friends, animals etc! I've eaten way too much as per, but it's all been worth it :)

Here was our delicious Turkey that we had for Christmas day, it's 15lb and is was ridiculously heavy, and had an impressive coloured skin this year which always makes it

look beautiful.

My Christmas dinner :) Turkey and all the trimmings! All home made of ccourse, even the cranberry sauce ! We never make our own Chistmas pudding though, so many thats something to think about for next year.

I had a wonderful new Instax Fuji film camera which I'M IN LOVE WITH.  I already have a Polaroid and Canon camera which are my old faithfuls and I couldn't live without, but I felt it was time to get a newer Polaroid as the price of the old film is ridiculous now Polaroid have stopped making the film.
Here are a few snaps I've taken so far :)

Scott and I in hats playing card games with my family. it's a little blurred as I was just figuring out all the buttons and angles etc.

The Clough's! My mums side of the family always come over just after Christmas as it's my Grandmas Birthday shortly after. It's such a wonderful time full of card games, cheese and a heck of a lot of competitive treasure hunting...

more of my family with the fujifilm camera. I will do a blog post soon about the camera in more detail, as it's an awesome camera to have. And now fuelling my photography hobby!

Lastly my Dads side of the family who all come for bacon butties of Christmas morning :)
I hope you all had a fab Christmas and wish you all a Happy New Year !!!!

Moroccan Chicken One Pot

Officially the, or at least one of the nicest stews/evening meals I think I've ever made. I honestly can't describe how good this was, but we had it for family meal night, and the whole family were in love with it. maybe it was because it was the last family meal night before I go to uni, or maybe it was just that good, but something when on tonight and this was awesome.

I was inspired by the front cover of good Food magazine. It's a sort of Moroccan stew/one pot dish which I adapted in my own way.

I don't usually document savoury dishes as often as i do sweet on here as they are much harder to photograph, and I'm not the best photographer!! But this was so tasty I felt it had to be shared with you.

ingredient's: (my version of the good food dish)

4-6 chicken breasts

1 Tbsp olive oil

2 onions

4 tomato's

1 tin chopped tomato's

ginger for grating

3 garlic cloves or a dessert spoon of garlic puree

1 tsp turmeric

1 desert spoon of cumin,coriander 

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp chilli flakes

1 large butternut squash

1/2 bag thinly chopped cabbage (obviously you can chop your own they were just reduced in Tesco)

 1pt chicken stock

 2 tbsp vinegar (red wine or cider)

1 tablespoon honey

handful of dries cranberries.

method:

In a frying pan with the olive oil, brown both sides of the chicken breasts, and then set to one side. With the remaining oil in the same pan, add the onions and tomatoes (I blitzed mine in a food processor to form a sort of paste, but you could chop them finely if you don't have one). Add the grated ginger and the garlic. return the chicken to the dish and add the chopped tomato's and chicken stock. now add the vinegar and honey. Now add your spices (turmeric,cumin,chilli flakes,and coriander. chop the butternut squash into pieces (small-medium) and add to the dish. season and cook in the oven for about 2 hours on gas mark 3-4. 

20 mins before serving add the chopped cabbage, and when serving add the cranberries.

 I served our with pan fried mange-tout with salt and pepper, and mash potato. It was a real hit and so comforting on a cold September evening :) I also added a few leaves of mint because once again I like to add mint to EVERYTHING, and it also added a nice green colour.

 I hope you enjoy as much as we all did at home!

Winter Walking

Scotty and I took the ladies a walk in the woods in Manchester.

Not the best idea to wear Doc Martins for muddy dog walking, but they were very waterproof and only needed a little bit of a clean aftwerwards.

The air was pretty chilly, but it added this lovely crisp fresh feeling to the scenery.

This is Ella tryi ng to chase a duck.... need I say more .

And seabear slowly trotting behind, as usual.

We are trying hard to stick to the new year's resolution of walking, and as it gets warmer i'm sure we'll be doing it a lot more.

Christmas Food Planning

Yesterday I spent the afternoon looking through magazines and internet pages for the perfect festive food ideas. I came across these lovely ideas from Jamie’s Christmas.

1) Jamie Oliver's mum's retro triffle       2) Jamie's Winter chcolate bomb ( Looks amazing)

  

 Festive forks, the perfect snacks for hungry guests and family members.

 

 

Roasted Tomato and Onion Soup

Ingredients:

2kg/4½lbs large ripe plum tomatoes, halved/

2 garlic bulbs, cut in half horizontally

2 large red onions, peeled, quartered

few sprigs fresh thyme

1  1/2 tbsp Honey

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

250ml/9fl oz vegetable stock (optional)

100ml/3½fl oz single cream (optional)

few drops Worcestershire sauce (optional)

          Method:

1.      Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 8.

2.      Place the tomatoes, garlic, onions and thyme into a large roasting tin and season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Drizzle with the oil, and roast in the oven for 40-50 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool slightly.

3.      I said use two bulbs of garlic, with the first, pull the bulbs from their skin and mash in with the soup. The other is purely to enjoy as a sweet little treat for all you garlic fans out there, though if you everyone is a fan in the house, you could always add it to the soup as well.

4.      Tip the roasted tomatoes and onions into a food processor along with the mashed garlic, and pulse until smooth.

5.      If the soup is too thick, pour into a large saucepan and loosen the mixture with either vegetable stock, or single cream. Add a little Worcestershire sauce to season, if you like.

This is a recipe I have addapted from Sophie Dahl's Recipe Book, which is really worth buying if you can.