Proper Welsh Rarebit

At this time of year sometimes you want a meal that isn't Christmas leftovers and doesn't involve a lot of cooking, and cheese on toast hits just the spot. Proper Welsh rarebit has a bit more to it than just melting some cheddar on toast, and my fiancé really enjoyed it when I made it for lunch recently so I thought I would share the recipe here.

To serve two, you need:
225g grated cheese
1 tbsp. butter
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp English mustard powder
2 tsp plain flour
4 tbsp. milk

bread - either sliced bread toasted on one side, or some crusty bread rolls or a baguette split in half.

Melt the butter in a small pan, add the flour and mix to make a roux. Add the cheese, Worcestershire sauce and mustard powder and stir until the cheese has melted.

Stir in the milk and you should have something resembling a thick paste.

Preheat the grill. Place the bread under the grill so the bottom starts to toast.

Remove from the grill and spread the cheese mixture on the other side.

Return to the grill and heat until the cheese is bubbling.

It's a good idea to place a baking tray lined with foil under the bread as I found mine got quite messy from melted cheese!

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Slow Cooker Ham in Cherry Coke

I've made a ham in Coca-Cola in the slow cooker before and thought it would be a good dinner in the week before Christmas - quite festive and also easy as you just put it in the slow cooker and forget about it.

 

I only had Coca-Cola though but I figured that would work - but this time rather than adding cloves, onion, carrots and bay leaves to the cola 'stock' I decided to just do it straight, in nothing but the cola, but then make a glaze from brown sugar and honey at the end.

So essentially that's all I did - I used two small gammon joints as I wanted this to do a second meal as well - I made ham soup the following day which was really good (recipe to follow!) and covered them in Cherry Coke. I put the slow cooker on high for 3-4 hours and when the joints were cooked, I removed them from the stock and put them in a roasting pan.

I mixed brown sugar with honey which I spread over the ham and then baked it in a hot oven for 20 minutes. I served it with a mixture of mashed and boiled potatoes and vegetables - the ham was very good and had a slightly sweet flavour from the stock and the glaze, and fell apart at the touch of a fork, in texture a lot like pulled pork.

I know for a lot of families it's traditional to have a ham at Christmas either alongside the turkey or to serve cold on Boxing Day so I highly recommend this recipe!

I'm sending this to the Slow Cooker Challenge, hosted by Lucy aka Baking Queen 74, as the theme is Christmas.

 

 

I'm also sending this to Cook Once Eat Twice, hosted by Corina at Searching for Spice, as I made soup from this the following day.



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Edible Christmas Tree Decorations

I had some gingerbread mix left over when I made this gingerbread house so I decided to cut out a few extra Christmas trees and snowmen. I had the idea of hanging them on the Christmas tree with ribbon and I think they look really cute!

You could make any sugar cookie recipe but these gingerbread ones did taste really good; here's the recipe I made for the gingerbread house so it would make you quite a lot of cookies:

 

180g butter
125g brown sugar
300g golden syrup
500g plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda


Melt the butter in a pan and add the sugar and syrup. Remove from the heat, add the dry ingredients and mix to a thick dough. Roll out on a floured surface and cut out the shapes on top of pieces of baking paper.
Make a small hole with the tip of a dinner knife or the end of a teaspoon handle to thread the ribbon through. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes depending on size.

Allow to cool and push a skewer through the holes to open them out again if necessary if they have closed up a bit.
















Decorate however you like, with icing and dragees or sprinkles. Leave to dry then thread some ribbon through and hang on the tree!

I'm sending these to Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat the Baking Explorer.

 

I'm also sending this to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Jane at the Hedgecombers, as their theme is sugar and spice.

 

 

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Meal Planning Monday Week 52

I can’t believe it’s Christmas already! We are away for quite a lot of this week running around seeing different family members which will be pretty tiring but it is important to us both to see as many people as possible, and luckily our families don't live too far apart. It does mean that my meal plan this week is not much of a plan!
 

 

Monday: chicken lattice pie and chips

 

Tuesday: Sausage ragu with butternut squash ‘spaghetti’ for me from Inspiralized, sausage and mash for him

 

Wednesday:

Working from home in the morning so lunch at home with my fiancé - leftover soup

Dinner: at my parents

 

Thursday: Christmas Eve: at my parents’

 

Friday: Christmas Day: with my fiancés family

 

Saturday: Boxing Day: with my fiance’s family

 

Sunday lunch: Boxing day leftovers

Dinner: more Boxing day leftovers? Actually one of my favourite meals!

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Christmas Chocolate Gingerbread House

My fiancé bought me a gingerbread house kit a couple of months ago as he knew I wanted to make a gingerbread house at Christmas, so giving me the set as a Christmas gift was too late. I used it to make a haunted Halloween gingerbread house but of course was going to make a Christmas one as well, and here it is!

I used the recipe on the back of the box again to make the gingerbread:
180g butter
125g brown sugar
300g golden syrup
500g plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

Melt the butter in a pan and add the sugar and syrup. Remove from the heat, add the dry ingredients and mix to a thick dough. Roll out on a floured surface and cut out the shapes on top of pieces of baking paper.

I found it impossible to lift the shapes without distorting them after they had been rolled and cut out which is why I did it directly on to the baking paper.

Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes and leave to cool - I had to do this in several batches.

I ran out of golden syrup though and had to use Tate & Lyle's chocolate syrup to make up the quantity, which worked fine and it gave the gingerbread a slightly chocolately flavour which was ideal because I was planning to decorate it with quite a lot of chocolate!

I covered a cake board in white fondant and stuck the walls of the house together while the fondant was still soft, which helped anchor the walls. I stuck each piece together with royal icing (icing sugar mixed with egg white) and for some reason it was easier than last time to keep it stuck together; it didn't take long until the house was dry.

I spread more of the icing on the walls and the roof to fix on the decorations, and put Cadbury's chocolate fingers on the side walls to give a log cabin effect. The thatched roof effect comes from using Nestle's Matchmakers.

I wanted to keep the rest of the decorations fairly plain for a rustic log cabin effect so just made a door for the front from some more chocolate fingers.

I also baked a gingerbread snowman and Christmas tree; I decorated the snowman with some of the white royal icing and used a cocktail stick dipped in gel food colouring to draw on the nose and scarf. I then tinted the rest of the royal icing green and decorated the Christmas tree, and stood them both up in front of the house.

I'm sending this to the Food Year Linkup, hosted by Charlotte's Lively Kitchen, as Christmas is the perfect time of year for a gingerbread house!

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Winter Slow Cooker Balsamic Beef

I bought some reduced-price stewing steak in the supermarket and thought it would work well in the slow cooker. I was going to chop the beef into cubes but it looked like a good quality piece of meat (or two pieces in fact) that I didn't think I needed to. I had been looking at a Slimming World recipe for beef in red onion gravy but as my other half doesn't like red onions I decided to change it and ended up pretty much making up my own recipe!

 

 

Slow Cooker Balsamic Beef - an original recipe by Caroline Makes

 

 

Serves 2

1 large shallot, sliced into two or three

400-500g braising steak

1 beef stock cube made up to 3/4 pint with hot water

1/4 tsp garlic puree or 1 garlic clove, crushed

1 tbsp tomato puree

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

 

Mix the stock, garlic, tomato puree and vinegar and pour into your slow cooker. Place the onion pieces in the bottom and place the meat on top. Add more water if necessary so the beef is just covered.

 

 

 

 

Place the lid on your slow cooker and cook on high for about 2 hours or medium for 4 hours (mine has an auto setting that cooks on medium for 4 hours then keeps warm until I get home from work which is very handy).

 

 

Serve with veg and boiled or mashed potatoes.

 

 

 

This is a great second day dish as well if you cook enough for two but there is only one person eating it, as there was in my case.

 

For that reason I'm sending this to Cook Once Eat Twice hosted by Corinna at Searching for Spice.

 

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Red and Gold Anniversary Card

Does everyone send anniversary cards to their parents? In some ways it seems a bit weird, like “congratulations on getting married so you could have me!” – but since my sister and I were children we have always given my parents cards, and presents on the milestone anniversaries like their 25^th – they are on their 38^th now I think!

 

I made this card for my parents anniversary this year. I didn’t really have a design in mind but had a piece of red polka dot paper which I liked, so I used that to cover a card, and added a red heart from a huge pack of foam hearts I bought from Hema last year.

 

I had also bought a set of card toppers from Ebay with various sentiments so put one of these at the top of the page, and a gold outline sticker saying ‘happy anniversary’. Finally I added some gold hearts along the bottom. The problem with the outline stickers is I only use one a year – but from 2017 I will have my own wedding anniversary and can make a card for my husband!

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