Baby Steps

As our imminent to move to a countryside village draws closer, I have spent the past few weeks preparing for the rural life. Louie and I have spent days driving around the local area, getting to grips with the local shops and visiting places we can spend time in the future.

This weekend however, we have concentrated on the rural tradition of preserving. I can't wait until we will have produce from our own garden to make goodies from, but as we don't have the resources this year, we have sourced ingredients from the local area. On todays menu was Damson Jam, Tomato Relish and Malted Bread, all of which were made with local ingredients. The feeling of accomplishment is overwhelming!

It is a very exciting time for us at present, with Louie starting school and us moving in to our first home. You may need to bear with us at times, but we will be back, and bigger than ever by the looks of it, with lots  and lots more treats like these!

A Hard Days Work!

This morning, we got up (a little late, oops) and Papa Bee took Louie to nursery as I braved the supermarket. We have been planning for a long time now to make a lot of our Christmas gifts for our family and friends. It has been a carefully thought out plan, which came together when nursery said that Mr Bee had to go in as we had used up all of our holiday already. So as I had the day off work, I actually had a day to get things done!

The dishwasher took forever sterilising the jars (it barely ever gets used) so whilst we were waiting, I got cracking making the truffle mixture. Silly me forgot that they need to set overnight but not to worry, I should have some time in the morning to get them done.

With the dishwasher still going, I decided to get going with the sugar cookies. They were such a hit last year with the family, that I had to make some more this Christmas.

After a quick trip out to Lakeland to get some posh little boxes to give our friends gifts in, we got started on the chutneys. 

I used the Kirstie Allsop Boxing Day Chutney recipe (found here) but with some alterations (as usual in my kitchen!) and it was a little bit trial and error but it smelt delicious and I think it is so far so good!

Then we began making the Tomato Relish, again from a recipe that I loosely based on. It turned in to a tomato and red pepper chutney that is absolutely divine, and SO easy to make.

Cooling outside

 Whilst the relish was simmering, I got on with icing my cookies. I was going to make royal icing but forgot to check our egg situation and we didn't have enough, so I mixed the icing up as thick as I could get away with and had a go. I am really not the best at icing, it just runs away! But I had a go :)

As Mr Bee and Papa Bee were playing upstairs before bed, I got all the jars labelled up, and some ribbon around the important jars! And as you can see, they must be good, as half a jar of relish is gone already! We had it with our hand made burgers (courtesy of Papa Bee) for our dinner!