Catching up and getting sorted for Christmas

 Making Banana Bread

Sorry about the lack of posts last week. The week started with both Treestump and I suffering from a stomach bug so cooking as very low down my agenda. However we are recovered and apart from the normal lucking colds of this time of this time if year and the red cheeks which mean Treestump is probably brewing his second set of molars we are fine.

I made five of these in total.

I have finally used the last few bananas from my bargin a few weeks ago, well technically the last hand full were just a bit too squashy and have gone in the compost but it really was just a few last ones all the others got eaten. While they looked rather brown and spotty when we got them they turned out to be very nice and many were eaten just as is or as smoothies and fritters. I also made several batches of banana bread some of which is in the freezer, three batches of chutney and some banana curd which I've never had before and is very nice, though too sweet for me to eat with a spoon unlike Noodles who was happy to do just that!

I also failed to report back on the suet pudding. I did make a steak and onion one and it was really good. The pastry is fairly easy to work with partly as a slightly rough look is part of the appeal and so a few bits filled in by squishing offcuts into the gaps are fine.

The filled pudding before the top pastry was put on.

I used a very traditional recipe from back in Mrs Beeton's day so the ingredient list for the filling was pretty basic but I thought that was fine and the meat was good quality. Really just meat, onion, a bit of water and a bit of seasoning. Then it was steamed for about an hour and a half and came out looking like this.

The plated dish is pretty basic and not going to win any beauty awards but it is very tasty and just right for cold weather, thought I realy should have done a green veg as well !

Anyway on to this coming week.

Of course the week finishes with Christmas Day on Friday and we will be having a Christmas meal with my brother, his family, my mum and stepdad. Un-usually this year I am not doing the main cooking, my brother has offered to do that so I'm supplying vegs, stuffing and christmas pudding.

Working up to that the menu will be roughly as follows.

Monday - Fish pie with greens

Tuesday - Pho

Wednesday - Probably running round like a mad thing by this point so something very simple like "tomato and eggs"

Thursday - Salmon in some manner and Fruit Brulee for pud ( fruit covered in whipped cream with a caramel pored over which goes hard as it hits the cold cream... fantastic and a bit of a Christmas tradition on and off)

Friday - breakfast  - we normally have smoked salmon and scrambled egg but I'm tempted to do gingerbread waffles instead having found a recipe that looks adaptable on Martha Stewart's site.

Saturday - Another get together with Tom's family - we are supplying a pudding. Currently planning either summer pudding as I have a good variety of berries frozen from the summer or gingerbread cheesecake also from Martha Stewart's site.

Sunday -  A quiet day probably just eating any leftovers and the various cheeses and pates we always stock up on this time of year. Possibly a fresh made veg soup and scones.

Baking and batch cooking -
Still have some bits to make for presents as we do hampers for some people.
Plus biscuits and bread for us.