Let it snow

 I am so thankful that we have no places to go right now, and can just be home enjoying the snow and finishing off our preparations for Christmas Day.  Mostly playing out in the garden and clearing up the paths this morning and lots of baking this afternoon.  Tomorrow  will hopefully be spent getting ready for the feast - doing as much in advance as possible, so we can all relax and enjoy the meal.  This is likely to be the last one where my Mother will be home -  Alzheimer's Disease is stealing more of her away all the time, and it looks likely that a care home could be a reality during the coming year. That's in the future though - right now we are all looking forward to spending the day together and ten of us will sit down to a traditional Christmas dinner.

There may even be some of this stollen cake left to have later on.

Sending warmest wishes to you all for a wonderful happy Christmas.

Solstice images

We made sunny orange cupcakes.

We found the delicate wing from a butterfly lying on the snowy covered garden path . A poignant reminder of the summer past.

We built a SnowWoman, and how fine she looks!

Darkness falls early on the snowy field across the road

 Perfect for a candlelit evening by the fire.

Blessings to all on this Midwinter's night.

Advocaat and memories

I inherited my Grandmother's recipe books - they are falling apart as you see, but i love them and refer to them often.  There are 2 of these notebooks full of recipes written out in her neat hand, using her Parker fountain pen - credit is always given to whoever provided the recipe: - Dundee cake,  Mrs Fleming; Lantern Tray Bake, Betty Clark; Gingerbread, Mrs Fernie, Christmas Cake, Radio Times   Each page contains memories of visits to her house.  She was the most fantastic baker and the table just groaned with delights - big cakes, small cakes, fruit cakes, tray bakes,tarts, biscuits (cookies), shortbread.  She baked every week, to fill up her tins, so there was never any chance of being caught out with nothing to offer a visitor.
Anyway, browsing through a few weeks ago, I came upon this recipe for Advocate (sic).  Now as a child at New Year, I was always allowed a small glass of advocaat mixed with a lot of lemonade.  I so remember that fluffly light sweet eggy taste, so I was keen to give this a go - especially as our hens - The Pizza Girls are such prolific layers. You make it over 3 days, but then have to leave it for 3 - 4 weeks before drinking it - worth it though.

Recipe

3 whole eggs - including shells

juice of 3 large lemons.

1 lb caster sugar

large tin evaporated milk (I used 3 170g tins Tesco own brand)

1 Gill brandy ( 1/4 of a pint)

Wash eggs and break into a bowl including the eggshells

Add the lemon juice and turn every day for 3 days.

(interesting science experiment here too)

On day 4 - whisk them up ( I zuzzed mine in a blender) and strain.  Add sugar, milk and brandy.  Beat well until the sugar has dissolved.

Pour into bottles and keep for 3 - 4 weeks before using.  I made just over 1 litre using this recipe - 1 bottle to keep and 2 smaller ones to give away.  Perfect!

Time out.

Hello there! I have been sufferring from an eye infection this week, so I have not really felt like squinting at a screen.  It was my 'camera' eye too, so taking photographs was not really top of my list.  Which was a shame, actually, because my darling husband gave me a much wanted zoomier lens (55 - 200) for my camera as a birthday gift. Never mind, I am feeling much better and hopefully the weather will clear up next week, and I will amaze you all with my artful close ups.  We are heading off to a family wedding down in England later in the week, so that will give me lots of photo opportunities too.
Anyway, despite spending a lot of time with hot compresses on my eye, we managed to keep going.
Here are some of the things we got up to.

Wheel painting with trains and cars.

Watching the sparrow cafe.

Going for a very cold and dreich walk in Polkemmet Country Park.

Making coconut cupcakes for Kristine to take to work for a Children in Need fundraiser.

And a wee run to Crieff at the end of the week.  It was too rainy there to take photographs, so I snapped this one of Stirling Castle from the car on the way back.  John was driving though. 

.

James is 3!!

James was 3 years old Tuesday.  We had a really lovely day.  He loved his new red tricycle with pedals!

A whole book about trucks and cars and things that go - this is his favourite page right now.

Gran and Papa gave him this wonderful digger - definitely the present of the year.

A very happy boy on his birthday.

Big sister Kristine gave him lots of crafty things and they spent a fun afternoon painting and glueing - each other as well as the paper.  Not sure really who this present was for:)

Birthday boy - still sporting his green smiley face "tattoo" gets ready for blowing out his candles.  He's waited a whole year to do that.

A wild game of jumping on the bed with Finlay was a fine end to the day.

So much going on.

This has been such a busy week, that I have not had time to update the blog. So - here is a whistle stop tour. This week has been all about...

Kenneth packing. Heading off to University.

A last snuggle up together.

Room for independence - middle window, blind half down - the place to be. Mum left her camera in the car, so no interior shots.

Lots of plums

and more plums. Lots of jam - more jam - bottling and 2 more trees to go!

Gorgeous grandson,

Picking up Mum and Dad from Edinburgh airport after 6 weeks in Canada.

Happy Birthday Kristine - 20!!!!

Comparing sun tans - Kristine and Dad!

James makes another birthday cake.

Have we forgotten anything Mum?

Oh yes - Kenneth came home for the weekend. Fresher's week is hard work!

Hope you have had a good week.

To Jupiter and beyond.

We've just had the best day at a place called Jupiter Artland - amazingly only 12 miles away from our very house! It is set in the 80 acre grounds of Bonningtoun House and is a private collection of outdoor artworks, commissioned by the owners, who very generously allow the public pre-booked access. Around every corner there were the most incredible sculptures, earthworks and structures by some big names - Andy Goldsworthy, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Charles Jencks to name only a few. I took 402 pictures, but don't click away, I am only going to show a few highlights here. If you are in Central Scotland in the next couple of weeks, I would seriously urge you to visit this wonderful space. It is only open from Thursday - Sunday until the 31st August, then it closes until next May. The cake from the cool Airstream cafe is worth the trip alone!

One of my favourite parts was the Life Mounds by Charles Jencks. An incredibly sexy installation comprising various terraced earthworks, paths and water which are based round the theme of the cell.



I love Andy Goldsworthy's work and this one, Stone House was just... just... well, it rendered me speechless. From the outside it looks like a little stone built hut in the middle of a nice soft green woodland. But open that nice sturdy door and - wow! He has excavated all the earth away to reveal the natural bedrock - it is really quite a shock to be confronted with the naked planet.





This was a little limestone bridge, called Only Connect, by Ian Hamilton Finlay. On either side of the bridge are two milestones, inscribed with the words Only Connect - the final words from the novel Howard's End. This was James's favourite exhibit, and we played here for ages.



The knitters amongst us were very interested in Shane Waltener's Over Here. Knitted on circular needles using different types of fishing line, this was a fabulous site to behold, like a gigantic spider's web spun between two trees, and making us see the landscape in different ways.

Finally, for this post anyway, The Love Bomb, by Marc Quinn. An enormously colourful 12 metre high orchid - beautiful and yet terrible. Mind you, James thought it was Santa Claus - hmm - yes I suppose that could fit in the the sculptor's idea.

I so loved this place and we will definitely be back several times next year. I will be posting more photographs from Jupiter over the next few weeks.

Banoffe Cupcake Recipe

Thanks to those who asked for this recipe. It came from Annie Bell's Gorgeous Cakes - and the title is so true. Just really a basic sponge with some banana and cinnamon chucked in, but extremely delicious. Here we go:

Cakes (24)
125g unsalted butter
125 g golden caster sugar
3 eggs
3 tablespoons milk
250g Self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 heaped teaspoon cinnamon
pinch salt
3 mashed bananas

Topping
Jar of dulce de leche
optional chocolate curls or hearts

Oven 190 C, fan oven 170 c, gas mark 5

Cream butter and sugar
add eggs one at a time then milk. (It will probably curdle but it is ok)
Sift and add dry ingredients
Stir in bananas

Fill paper cases about two thirds full
Bake for about 25 mins until risen and golden and leave to cool

Smooth a tsp of dulce de leche over the top then decorate with chocolate curls or hearts is required.
I just used a veg peeler on a couple of squares of plain chocolate.

Eat at least 2 - maybe 3 right away, before your teenage son, his friend and your husband notice them.

Happy Birthday

My elder son was 18 on Wednesday. It hardly seems possible that so many years have passed so quickly. His was the easiest and quickest of all my births - and he certainly has been the most laid back of all my children. It was also his lovely girlfriend's 18th on Saturday, so an action packed week of celebrations has ensued. Sadly, I didn't get any usable shots of Friday's party (aarghh!) so here are some others taken during the week.

Wednesday night was a big night out in Livingston with friends, but he made time to blow out the 18 candles on his raspberry victoria sponge cake, with us before he left. Little brother James helped, of course.

Opening his present from big sister Karen.
(Ignore the temporary barricades in the background. These were meant to keep the hens in their own yard - they obviously worked well as you can see!)

Out for a lunch in a posh local restaurant today with Gran and Papa, Karen and husband, Daniel, grandson Finlay, John and James. Other daughter, Kristine, is away at T in the Park, and K's girlfriend had to work.

Anyway - Happy Birthday K . He is off to university soon to study Chemistry (with a year in Australia). Then he will save the world by inventing a sustainable and totally renewable, non polluting fuel. wonder what he'll do in the afternoon?

Undeniably delicious, but...

The month of June is full of various local festivals - every Saturday, one or two Sundays and other odd days through the week, depending on the particular village or town. Today was our village procession and fete - a small affair compared to the one pictured on a previous post. Nevertheless, we do like to support local community events, so off we went - despite the drizzling rain. No photos of the parade as it was so wet and cold, but later we all repaired back to our house for a buffet lunch. I made this fabulous orange and raspberry cheesecake for desert - definitely worth a photo, even if I almost forgot and had to rescue this slice before it met it's fate.


Less tasty, however, is the amount of plastic packaging I used in the making of this culinary masterpiece. None of this is recyclable in our area. I am quite ashamed of this, and so I should be. I am going to try harder to source non plastic, and it can be done, with a bit more effort. It did make me think about the tons and tons of plastic waste going to landfill. What's the use of buying organic raspberries, strawberries and cream if they are wrapped up in non reusable plastic cartons? How many households in West Lothian are piling up plastic waste in their dustbins for their Galaday lunches and barbecues during the month of June? How many articulated lorries are spewing out exhaust fumes carrying their cargoes of plastic food storage boxes up and down Britain's motorways? My head is about to explode just thinking about the ramifications of my cheesecake. I think I'd better go and lick the plate.