Prettying the Presents

A few years ago, I ran an internet mail order business selling outdoor clothing.  I used to sell walking shoes amongst other things, which necessitating having a supply of brown paper, being the only thing copious enough to wrap them in.

I STILL have a fairly substantial roll of brown paper left, so rather than going out to buy bright new paper have used it for wrapping Christmas presents.  Not very festive, you might think! 

I had to find a way of brigthening them up, so ventured out into the rainy garden with a pair of scissors.  Here's what I snipped, although anything reasonably robust would do:-

Conifer leaves
Ivy leaves
Ivy berries
Rosemary sprigs
Sisyrinchium leaves

I had top pop them on a cloth on top of the radiator to dry them out a bit before I started.  I trimmed the ivy berries because the heads are round and I wanted them to sit flat in my bundles.

I then arranged all the elements loosely and simply wrapped the ends round and round in green cotton, then tied them in little decorative bunches.  I used nothing more glamorous than sellotape to stick them onto the parcels (using the cotton directly under the tape to get a bit of stick).  I'm sure they would have looked even more artistic with a bit of ribbon or, better still, some good old-fashioned hairy string!

Brandy Butter

This is somewhat last minute, but if you've only ever had custard with your Christmas pudding before, I need to put you right!

Brandy butter is delicious and melts all over your steaming Christmas pudding in the most irresistible way. I would NEVER, NEVER have custard on my pudding if brandy butter were available. It just doesn't seem to ever be on offer at restaurants alongside their standard festive fayre. Don't be lured to rum butter as an alternative either - brandy is by far the best.

RECIPE
3 oz butter (85 g) (leave it out of the fridge beforehand so it's nice and soft)
6 oz icing sugar (170g)
2 tablespoons brandy

Thoroughly mix the soft butter with the icing sugar, then whip in the brandy. If it curdles slightly (which it might well), you can add a little flour.

Pop it into the freezer for a couple of hours to get it nice and firm, then keep it covered in the fridge until immediately before serving. Wonderful!

Homemade Handcream

I've been fascinated by the idea of making homemade cream since a friend of mine told me she'd been on a course about it somewhere in rural North Dorset. This friend is a therapist (reiki, hot stone massage, etc.) who believes in using organic products in her treatments but has trouble sourcing those that she likes.

I did some internet research and came across a variety of recipes, then set about finding where I could buy the necessary ingredients online. I bought beeswax (in blocks) from Paynes Southdown Bee Farms and everything else I needed from The Soap Kitchen. I was quite excited after I'd made the orders, but had to wait two weeks before my Soap Kitchen order arrived (it seems they experience high sales volumes in the lead up to Christmas so I imagine there must be people out there who make handmade creams and cosmetics as presents).

My partner has really dry skin on her hands so I particularly wanted to make something suitable for her, and I didn't want it to smell too flowery. I therefore carefully researched my choices of essential oils and adapted one of the recipes I found to suit.

INGREDIENTS
10g beeswax (I had to grate the blocks)
16g cocoa butter
60ml / 4 tablespoons almond oil
90ml / 6 tablespoons water
20g emulsifying wax
10 drops fennel oil
10 drops rosemary oil

METHOD
You need to use a heatproof bowl which will sit over a saucepan of simmering water (the bowl should sit in the hot water). In that bowl, melt the cocoa butter, beeswax and almond oil.

Measuring out the above ingredients was quite tricky using my digital scales, which didn't cope well with such small quantities. In the end I managed it by taking the weight of what I wanted AWAY from what was on the scales in a heavy bowl, which worked perfectly.

At the same time, warm the 90ml (I used filtered) water with the emulsifying wax in a small microwaveable container. This took somewhere between 30-60 seconds ... and it re-solidifies quite fast as it cools!

Use an electric whisk to mix the melted emulsifying wax mixture into the melted oils mixture until it cools. It's similar to whisking cream in that it thickens (and whitens) as you continue to whisk.

When it's cool, then whisk in the essential oils. My oils were in little bottles with dropper tops, but I discovered they're quite difficult to control so you need to pour them into the mixture slowly and carefully if you're to stand a chance of counting the drops!

You can then put the mixture into jars. The amount above made about 125 ml volume of handcream.

RESULTS
It smells gorgeous and is a good thick consistency. Once decanted into pots, I rushed to find some humans to test it on ... my partner loves it! It definitely seems to be a superior product to any of the handcreams we've bought before, and believe me, my partner's hands are so dry that we've been prepared to spend some serious money on handcreams!

Mushroom Forays

When I was a student, I started getting interested in mushroom hunting. I don't believe this was purely for economy's sake, although it seemed to go hand in hand with my home brewing period!

I haven't been out on a fungus foray for some time, but the unusually mild weather we're having has caused a glut of mushrooms this extended autumn, and I've seen so many over the last few weeks that I was planning to go out this weekend. However, I was foiled by a combination of unremitting rain and my partner having a chest infection.

I met a friend for lunch on Friday when we happened to touch on the topic of wild food, and he mentioned he had about four types of mushrooms growing in his garden and he was interested in which ones might be edible, but terrified to nibble them lest he and his family died a horrible death.

It's true that there are some mushrooms that look innocent enough, but cause a hideously painful death by destroying your organs from the inside. You may remember hearing occasional tragic tales of whole families who have been wiped out after ingesting mistakenly identified mushrooms. With names like 'Death Cap' and 'Destroying Angel' you need to be very wary!

My advice to my friend was to start off by buying a photographic identification book. Little pocket size books with illustrations are all very well and easy to take out into the woods and fields, but just not up to scratch for identification purposes in my opinion. My own mushroom hunting bible is by Roger Phillips. Roger now has a free to access website as well (although you can't seem to search using common names) - this gives lots of photographs to use as checks. When I first got interested in wild mushrooms, I too was very worried about eating the wrong thing, so I went to a lot of trouble to be fully versed in the identification of the poisonous varieties. I also followed the golden rule - IF YOU AREN'T ABSOLUTELY SURE OF IDENTIFICATION, DON'T EAT IT!

There are so many types of mushroom and toadstool out there and whilst a few are poisonous, many more are inedible, which I have always assumed means they have a horrid texture or unpleasant taste. Then there are the really delicious ones which would be a real shame to leave to rot. I saw some 'Shaggy Ink Caps' (a.k.a. Lawyer's Wigs) growing at the base of a pine tree earlier in the week - I went back to pick them today but they were gone. I have heard that the recession has spawned a surge of interest in wild food and this is threatening various species. Just as likely would be that someone superstitious or with vandal tendencies has kicked them over. I see this all the time when I'm out in the woods. Why would someone want to destroy something so miniaturely majestic and fascinating? Perhaps because they make the woods really seem like a fairy realm where humans are just passing daytime visitors?

The one thing that has become my mushroom holy grail, which I haven't found since I was a child walking along the fields by the Dorset Jurassic Coast, is the 'Giant Puffball'. They need to be white, firm and fresh, but I understand they're totally delicious. If I ever find a specimen, I'll be slicing it, dipping it in beaten egg then breadcrumbs, then frying it for my supper. It's a shame I was unaware of their delights when I was a child - whenever we found them, we just used them as footballs! There are some small puffballs which are poisonous, and some inedible, but there's an undeniable size difference making identification more definitive!

Those red ones with white spots on the cap - they're called 'Fly Agaric'. They're poisonous, although I understand that some crazy people risk ingesting a tiny portion of the cap in order to experience hallucinogenic effects. NO CHANCE you'll catch me trying that, and I strongly recommend you keep away from them too. They're very easy to identify and relatively common - your definitive 'toadstool' really. It gets its name from the fact that allegedly, if you crush the cap in milk it kills flies.

It's a great hobby, and allows for an interesting C.V. entry (I used to rouse interest by adding that I was an 'amateur mycologist'!). You can impress people with your knowledge when you're out and about. Once you've got your mushroom eyes in, you'll be amazed how much fungus there is sprouting out all over the place.

Strawberry Vodka

I've been making sloe gin every year for as long as I can remember - my Mum used to take us to pick sloes when we were children, so it's a family habit. Last week, we went to dinner with some friends who gave us a taste of their blackberry vodka. It was totally delicious and I'd made a mental note to make some next year.

Whilst doing the weekly shop this weekend, the supermarket had fresh strawberries reduced, as they were on their sell by date. This always gives me a dilemma if the reduced fruit or veg is out of season. Should I refuse to buy to discourage the supermarket from helping me rack up my food miles, or should I buy so they don't get thrown away? This particular 400g punnet was from Egypt. The memory of the blackberry vodka made me want to save them from the freegans so into the trolley they went.

I bought the cheapest 70cl bottle of vodka they had, and some fairtrade golden granulated sugar. At home, I followed the same method as sloe gin, but cutting the strawberries up into eighths rather than pricking each one with a darning needle(or was it a bodkin?!) (that was the family tradition for sloes - the needle gauge was very specific!). I filled a bottle up to halfway with the chopped strawberries, then poured in the sugar and shook it around a bit until the sugar reached about the same level of the strawberries. I then topped up with vodka, added half a vanilla pod (on a whim that strawberry and vanilla vodka sounded like a good combination), shook everything up by gently tipping the bottle up and down, then popped it into the bottom drawer to mature for several months.

To make two bottles, you will need:-

A 70cl and a 35cl bottle of cheap vodka

250g sugar

400g fresh ripe strawberries

1 vanilla pod, cut in half crossways

Give it a gentle shake every week or so. I'm expecting to have to strain it after it's matured, probably through a tea strainer will do, although if you want to get rid of any hint of rusticity, you'll want to strain it through something finer like muslin cloth. I'll keep you posted about how it turns out ...