Long weekend

*BTW the hard drive on Jerry's laptop went kaput last week, but has been replaced since. I've still not got around to reuploading my iTunes and all that other boring techy stuff

I was off on Friday, and Pepe got taken to the vets to have her stitches taken out! Done and done!

My sis also arrived for the weekend- it is her birthday tomorrow - (9th March.)

On Saturday our parent's came over and we went to GBK- Gourmet Burger Kitchen. I had the Blue cheese burger, which was okay but the blue cheese dressing wasn't strong enough for my liking!

Today I made Kate the birthday cake of her choice, which was Nigella Lawson's Chocolate pistachio cake. It was pretty easy to make, although I made a couple of mistakes along the way... but it turned out fine and tastes good :) She will have to take some home with her for her housemates as I really don't want to think about the number of calories there would be in the whole cake !

Christmas pugging- recipe

Here is my recipe for Christmas Pudding, 2008 style. It is a loose adaptation of Nigella Lawson's in "How to be a domestic Goddess":

• 100g currants
• 100g fresh cranberrries
  
• 50g each raisins & sultanas
• 50g glace cherries, chopped
• 50g prunes, chopped
• 50g flaked almonds
  I wanted whole almonds which I'd have then chopped into slivers, but flaked was the closest they had in the supermarket
  
• 150ml rum/ Cointreau mix - I ran out of rum so maybe 100ml rum topped up with 50ml Cointreau- I thought an orangey flavour would be nice :)
• 1 Euro coin/s, cleaned
  
• 90g self-raising flour
• 125g white breadcrumbs
• 150g suet
• 1medium cooking apple
• 150g dark brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp mixed spice
• pinch of salt
• *** 3 large eggs. I have made my pudding vegan (so suitable for Jerry) so I have replaced the eggs with 3tbsp soy flour mixed with 3tbsp water, mixed to a paste. I have not tried to vegan-ise the recipe in this way before, so fingers crossed !
• zest of 1 orange
• 1.5 litre pudding basin

Nigella's recipe also includes dried blueberries, marron glace pieces and candied peel, but I don't like or just didn't get these from the supermarket. One of the great things about the recipe is that you can adjust it to your own tastes and what's available.

1. Soak the fruit in the rum overnight
   ***I didn't do this - I put the alcohol with the raisins, currants and sultanas in a pan and gently warmed so the fruit absorbed the alcohol
2. Soak the 1 Euro coin overnight in Coca Cola- to clean it ! Please feel free to use whatever coin you like- maybe bigger ones are better as they are easier to spot - less of a potential choking hazard :) I like using a Euro in the pudding as it's a gift of Good Luck for the coming year, rather than money which can be spent...
3. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl and then add the soaked fruit. Add the cleaned coin/s. I also wrapped mine in a piece of greaseproof paper.
   
4. Grease the pudding basin and put the mixture in.
   Now I'm not sure in previous years if I have halved the above quantities, because this year I seem to have enough for 2x 30 oz basins- I guess the in-laws will be getting one!
   
5. Cover with a piece of greaseproof paper in which you have folded a pleat, then boil or steam for 3 and 1/2 hours.
   I think mine got done for closer to 2 hrs as we were going to bed.
6. Rewrap the pudding and store somewhere cool until Christmas, then reheat in the same way- boil/ steam for another 3 and 1/2 hrs.