'supporting each other through really tough times'

fuddle

silvasava wrote: »

Fuddleis this any good to you?

1 1/2 lb cooking apples
2lb mixed fruit
8oz shreded suet
10oz soft brown sugar (could use molasses sugar)
1/2 level tsp mixed spice
1 Lemon

Peel & core apples, chop & cook without water to a pulp. Remove from heat & cool
Mix fruit with suet & sugar, add grated rind of lemon & juice with spice.
Stir in pulped apple & put into containers & freeze

This is a very old recipe I've had years - use it to use up apple gluts. Its very good & tastes great. If you want to you can add brandy (a miniature??)

Oh wow Thank you! I'll look for a miniture brandy too.

Pooky

I'm not really a cake person at all......I'm a savoury girl....a sausage roll, a bacon and cheese pasty, a cheese straw or 8.....and cheese.....and crisps........hmmmm.

As for the flooding, my heart goes out to these people. To lose everything in such a way must be soul destroying.

When we looked to buy this house we had seen three suitable properties for our needs. One was far to close to a river for my liking and the other had mature trees to close to the house. No matter how good the interior, the external factors played a huge part in the choice we made.

DH is having a really bad day and finally gave in and went to bed at 7.30. He had a hospital appointment yesterday that dragged on and with spending all day in hospital on Friday with DD2 its tipped him over. He did get his MRI appointment through though....23rd December.....a Sunday!?! I was quite shocked.

The kittens are chasing a hazelnut around the room.......it's a great improvment on the great tits head they were playing football with earlier (just after I'd washed the kitchen floor too).

GreyQueen

Pooky wrote: »

.

The kittens are chasing a hazelnut around the room.......it's a great improvment on the great tits head they were playing football with earlier (just after I'd washed the kitchen floor too).

Awww, our family cats have always loved batting a hazelnut around on the lino. They go mad for it and they're years old.

Cheap entertainment. The two of them were playing with the hazelnut as if it was a hockey puck and suddenly a large spider scuttled by.

The dumb fluffy one was scared and ran away from it and the siamese-y clever one was avid and chased it under the (closed) door into the other room and went bezerk trying to swat it underneath the door.

I may have imagined it but I'm sure that blinking tarantula was sniggering at the cat's futile efforts.

Allrighty, going offline to rest my eyes before bedtime. See you sometime tomorrow and hoping that everyone stays dry and well. GQ xx

Softstuff

kidcat wrote: »

I usually make upwards of 200 mince pies, although last year managed almost none, being so ill close to Christmas meant my plans were vastly reduced. Will be rooting out softstuff mince meat recipe soon though and get started freezing some.

That recipe is on my home page still. To give you some idea of my Christmas prep this year, I have bought 6 mince pies and am feeding a shop bought cake. Oh the shame . When I went to the dentist last week he asked if I'd made my usual mincemeat, cakes and puddings...

I'll be back to myself no doubt next year.

I'm feeling fine, but tired still.

Kittie, it's funny you mention floaters. Today hubby has his second visit to an eye specialist for floaters and flashes. He's only 29, and when you're that young it's a sign of early degeneration. Turns out he does have patches of scarring so they're keeping an eye on it.

Love to all, we're off there now.
xx

katieowl_2

I've never met a Christmas flavoured thing I didn't like

I have a hair style... Made up when the hairdresser said she thought I was same age as her, as I 'lost' eight years in the process and that was before she'd finished! She had to go for a warm brown, but I have gold/blonde highlights, I'm amazed she managed to get it so light in colour. She did cut quite a bit off, as the stripping the colour thing with the ' head and shoulders' was fairly hard on the poor old ends. She says my best bet for bright colours (the pinks and stuff) would be to have a few extensions put in, she said it would be cheaper and lower maintenance, so I might look into that. I can always have them taken out again, if I need to look like a grown up!

OH's comment....*squinty eyes* "Oh it's sort of brown..." good job I wasn't expecting anything more affirming hey?

I'm supposed to go and buy something called Moroccan Oil (which I fear is going to be expensive) and she told me it had argan oil in so I was able to enlighten yet another person :rotfl:

Kate

kidcat

Thank you softstuff - I have actually got it printed from last year, along with mince meat drops I think they were

katie - well done with the hair, I dye my own but would really like to lightening, OH has always been adamant that I cannot go lighter though so I think it would cause ructions

fuddle

I'm supposed to go and buy something called Moroccan Oil (which I fear is going to be expensive) and she told me it had argan oil in so I was able to enlighten yet another person

Avon do a cheaper version. It's alright actually. Just a leave in conditioning serum. http://avonshop.co.uk/shop/product.asp?pf_id=37781&from=search&find_spec=morrocan%20argan%20oil&pagenum=1 £5.50 on this version but I got it last brochure for £3.50

SDG31000

Add me to the mince pie dislikers...which is ironic as I end up making what seems like my own body weight in them every year. Anyone that knows me would tell you that is a heck of a lot of mince pies
I don't like Christmas cake either, but love Nigella's Non Cake Makers Christmas Cake. It's made using a jar of mincemeat and comes out all sticky and yummy and gorgeous. Mmmmmmm

I didn't give in to the takeaway temptation, but thank you so much for the permission SavingQueen I got off my bottom and made pizza. I got the monsters to sort their own toppings out so I didn't cough all over them. Mine is in the oven with lots of dried chilli flakes on it to combat the mucus invasion. I hope it works otherwise I'm going to have to give in and get some cough medicine tomorrow

Time for dinner and Heston and lots of sweets on channel 4 xxx

ginnyknit

I have been craving mince pies all afternoon - Ok who started it? so I will counter your mince pies and raise you orange chocolate biscotti ...ha got you there ...actually I was looking for the recipe so I can make my brothers present.I made him biscotti last year and told him it was low fat as his wife is a moaning ratbag who quotes the calorific content of EVERYTHING, especially in a restaurant. I bet she even knows how many calories there are in cat food :eek: So he happily tucked into his treat. This year I wanted a cheaper version as nuts and stuff are very expensive so found a choccie one and will add the same little low fat label to them :rotfl: FYI she is a yoyo dieter who never keeps her weight off for more than 2 months yet goes on and on about dieting all the time - thus I avoid her company at all costs.

monnagran

It's strange how many people dislike dried fruity stuff. I wonder if it's because there is so much sweet stuff around these days that people just don't get the taste or texture of it. We, who were brought up during and after the war, (here we go again - it's one of her war stories!) were so deprived of anything sweet or pleasurable that we ate ANYTHING that tasted sweet and thought it was wonderful. None of my children eat mince pies, Christmas pudding or Christmas cake which is a great shame because I love making all those things. Mince pies I still make by the hundred for after carol services, coffee mornings and church 'do's. And I make a delicious and very expensive mincemeat but give a lot of it away. Not sure that I will be doing that much longer with the demise of Julian Graves.

Re: the meerkat. The following year found the meerkat sporting a Santa hat and red and white scarf on Christmas day. Last year they had to be content with a rude poem about the ivy that had grown up all over the poor thing. This year I've found a card of the Three Wise Men arriving at the stable and saying, "We bring you gifts of Gold, Frankincense and some Myrrhkats," and there are three little meerkats at the end of the procession.

I know. Little minds!

x