Chickens

After months of debating it, we've decided we're going to keep chickens and my chicken house/coop has arrived!!!  Hubby built it up for me (thanks!) so it's all ready to go.... now I just need to collect the girls :0)

All being well we'll be bringing them home in just over a week - I can't wait!

It's a Wrap!

All my foodie makes are now finished, wrapped, and labeled - phew!!!  I hope my family enjoys eating and drinking their gifts as much as I enjoyed making them :0)

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Cranberry Bites

The last of the foodie gifts to make was Cranberry Bites, which are really yummy and so simple to make:

1/2 cup of dried cranberries
1 cup rice crispies
1 cup rolled oats
1/1 cup yogurt drops
1/2 white chocolate

Melt the white chocolate and yogurt drops over a pan of hot water, add the dry ingredients and mix together! Put drops of the mixture onto a baking tray, pop into the fridge and chill for 25 minutes.

Snowy Stars

Another of today's gift makes were the sparkly snowy star biscuits that I baked and decorated with my little girl.  We used a basic gingerbread receipe, baked for 10 minutes and then, once cooled, dipped them in white chocolate before sprinkling on white edible 'snow' glitter.  So pretty!!!!

Rumtopf :0)

After 2 months of 'stewing' I decided today to add a touch more sugar to the Rumptopf. While I was in the kitchen I thought I'd fill 3 jars up for Christmas gifts.

They'll need to be left another month before it's really sweet enough to eat, longer if you like it really sweet (!) so I'll pop some instructions on to the jars too when I get a few spare minutes. Once it's ready it's delicious over vanilla ice-cream, spooned onto waffles, or just eaten on it's own!

Recipe for Rumtopf:

1lb fruit (strawberries, cherries, nectarines, grapes, pears)

1/2 sugar

Dark rum (!)

Cut and peel fruit where appropriate, place in the croc pot (or large pan) and sprinkle with sugar. Leave for 10 minutes and pour over enough rum to cover the fruit. Place the lid on and store in a cool dark place for a minimum of 2 months.

Add more fruit as it comes into season, adding a little sugar and more rum each time.  The longer it's left, the softer the fruit will become - it tastes great spooned over ice-cream, over waffles, or just eaten on it's own!

An Army of Snowmen

This evening my children and I spent time making Christmas cards for our family.  My son is really creative when it comes to art & crafts so we created these gorgeous snowmen cards using a template I cut for him, a splodge of white paint and a pack of coloured pens. My little girl gave it a good go too - I think they look just perfect!!!

Let Them Eat Cake!

This weeks 'big make' was my newphews 3rd birthday cake.  Ok, so I didn't do it all myself - my sister baked a deee-licious sponge ready for me to ice and decorate. It took around 4 hours to complete due to all the fiddly bits (!) but it was worth it to see the look on my nephews face :0)  He is a BIG fan of Lightening McQueen!!!

It's a little chilli!

I really need to pay more attention to the instructions when reading a recipie - the hint of chilli vodka I have been making for Christmas has actually turned out to be a real winter warmer shot after leaving the chillis in for 5 days rather than hours!!!

Mr C has tasted the vodka a assures me that it 'tastes lovely...... as long as you sip it VERY slowly'!!!  Still, it'll come in handy for warming us up now that cold weather and snow has arrived ;0)

Catch-up!

Okay, it's been far longe than I said it would be, but until now it's seemed like I've not been able to catch-up with everything!!!

Having been ill for the last 5 days I've had some time to trawl through some old pics (what was I thinking the black hair?!) and found some images of a couple of my creations, some better than others, so thought I'd post them on here.  The Princess castle was for my daughters 1st birthday, and the Mario Kart - which took me 6 hours over 2 days! - was for my sons 8th birthday :0)

Anti Climax!

I was hoping to write a great first post on my new blog (farewell to the old one!!!) but I'm at home with two poorly children, so for now I'll just say 'Hi' to you all and I'll be back again soon :0)