The Genial Hearth
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Archive for Advent
December 25, 2009 at 11:06 pm · Filed under Advent, Baking, Bilby, Christmas, Craft, Cygnet, Domestic Life, Family, Food, Organisation, Puggle, Reflection, Season, Sewing, Woodwork
A couple of years ago, the Advent season was when I started blogging daily (or nearly so). I maintained it until probably May-ish last year, and then a few times a week for about another 12 months. This year? I think I managed a couple of Food Posts through Advent, and that’s about it.
Mind you, this Advent has been lacking in a lot of my usual preparations! I have Ice Cream Plum Pudding in the house, because that’s essentially what I was doing for our family Christmas dinner. I have Gingerbread Dough in the freezer, because I made a double quantity when we made gingerbread houses at Halloween. I have the makings of Fruit Mince Pies (pre-rolled pastry in the freezer and a bottle of mince). We’ve read a pile of Christmas books. We made an Advent Chain. But that’s about as far as any similarity to previous Christmasses goes.
Before I get too disappointed though, I should point out that we have made quite a few presents this year! There should (I hope!) be several individual posts, once I download photos, but Puggle and I have been woodworking, and Bilby and I have sewn. Puggle made a small wooden boat for Cygnet, and a set of stilts for Bilby (as well as a pair of stilts for his Secret Santa, and he helped to sew an apron for Cygnet’s Secret Santa). Bilby made a woodworking apron for Puggle, five balloon juggling balls and a grab bag for her Secret Santa, and some Chocolate Coated Almonds for her grandparents. Me? I have finally finished the Pink Tower and (almost! still have to put the finish on) the Brown Stair. I’ve made (with some help from Puggle) several sets of Tree Blocks for some of the smaller children of our acquaintance. I have made three Bench Hooks (two to suit western saws, and one for japanese saws). And I’ve made a wooden forest (barring the dye-ing and finishing) (like blocks, but shaped like trees, rather than trees made from tree branches). I’ve sewn bags for the tree blocks (I still have one more to go, and a similar bag for the wooden forest), and three apron/chef’s hat sets… with accompanying bag. I’ve also been painting the IKEA abacus we got for Cygnet, to match the colours of the Right Start one:-) We did also make jam as part of our Christmas preparation.
I’m still anticipating doing our usual family calendar, and I’m hoping we’ll get to the cards—but obviously that won’t be happening by Christmas time!
So, a bit of a hit and miss. I keep reminding myself though, we can’t do everything! And we have been doing a lot of French during this time:-) Reminding me of more posts I have been meaning to write!
Hope your Christmasses were all lovely, and that the rest of your Festive Season is safe and joyous!
December 22, 2008 at 11:34 am · Filed under Advent, Baking, Blogging, Domestic Life, Food, Puggle, Season
Three dozen Fruit Mince Tarts made:-)
I haven’t actually made them in years, so this is a nice change:-)
I didn’t make my own Fruit Mince this year (maybe next year, I reckon Puggle may well be able to do it himself by then), but I still had home-made Fruit Mince, thanks to Lizzy_bbb. I did fail to check I had enough Shortcrust pastry (I had already decided to just use ready-rolled sheets, to simplify matters), so we did the rest with Puff pastry… They’re not as good (they don’t look right:-( ), but they’ll taste fine:-)
No recipe this year, basically circles of shortcrust pastry, place them in a tin, add a teaspoon of fruit mince and top with a cross or some other decoration out of the leftover shortcrust. Bake for about 15-20 minutes in a moderate/hot oven.
December 18, 2008 at 8:31 pm · Filed under Advent, Blogging, Domestic Life, Food, Season
Make Shortbread.
I don’t think I’ve managed this since Puggle was born. And this year is no different. It may still occur if I fluke my way through everything else to complete, but that’s exceedingly unlikely!
I did get a decent portion of the remaining Christmas present shopping completed though, and Puggle and Bilby got to go to the beach, so not an unproductive day:-)
December 17, 2008 at 8:31 pm · Filed under Advent, Blogging, Domestic Life, Food, Season
Make Peppermint Creams.
As so often happens around this time, we didn’t get this done. There was a fair amount of present making completed though:-)
We will get to these over the weekend (I hope!), as they provide a good balance to the other baking.
December 16, 2008 at 8:27 pm · Filed under Advent, Blogging, Books, Christmas, Domestic Life, For Children, Picture Books, Season
Read Hettie’s Christmas Gift (doesn’t seem to be available through Amazon—I guess, because it’s Australian.)
We did this. This is another book to which I really enjoy returning. I love the fact that it provides a link between the northern hemisphere traditions that we read about, and our southern hemisphere reality.
December 15, 2008 at 10:08 pm · Filed under Advent, Bilby, Blogging, Books, Christmas, Family, For Children, Picture Books, Season
Read Is That You, Father Christmas?
. Bilby became very excited when she recognised the Christmas tree in the book as being like the Christmas tree in the corner of the room:-)
December 14, 2008 at 10:51 pm · Filed under Advent, Christmas, Domestic Life, Family, Season
Decorate the Christmas tree.
Have a picnic underneath.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas:-)
December 13, 2008 at 9:09 pm · Filed under Advent, Bilby, Domestic Life, Family, Food, Paddington, Puggle, Season
Bring Dada sweet rolls in bed.
Yesterday when Puggle was making his own freshly squeezed orange juice, he was talking about making juice for Dada for breakfast. Last night I set out everything needed for breakfast.
This morning, Paddington was woken with freshly squeezed orange juice and fruit toast. Puggle carried it all in, but Bilby helped clear it away (she’s pretty good at carrying laden plates, but not completely reliable yet:-) )
December 12, 2008 at 10:22 pm · Filed under Advent, Blogging, Domestic Life, Organisation, Puggle, Season
Make Blueberry and Cardomom Bread.
When doing the shopping, I wasn’t able to find dried blueberries (I think I usually find them at Woolies… I was at IGA). Instead I got dried cherries—what the recipe actually called for!
Sadly though, I napped with the children (three nights of Bilby waking in the middle of the night… teeth??), so I failed to put the wheat on to soak in time. None of this bread today:-( (We will make it though, possibly Monday… I’d like to see what it’s like with the cherries:-) ) I’ve cooked some fruit loaf instead, and Puggle was telling me today how he is going to squeeze orange juice for Dada in the morning:-) (I don’t think Paddington reads here every day, so it should be safe to say that:-) )
December 11, 2008 at 11:26 am · Filed under Advent, Bilby, Blogging, Christmas, Craft, Domestic Life, Family, Puggle, Season
Make presents.
The day ended up being far busier than I had anticipated, so although the activity was ready to begin, Puggle and Bilby only really started on it today. Puggle is being highly industrious and productive though:-) He seems really quite excited by them (can’t give you too much detail though, I’m pretty sure some of the recipients are reading:-) )
December 9, 2008 at 8:06 pm · Filed under Advent, Bilby, Books, Christmas, Family, For Children, Picture Books, Puggle, Season
Read Is It Christmas?
.
This is a book we got from the library last year, and it was so sweet that it was a family Christmas present on Christmas Day:-)
This year Puggle is still enjoying it, and Bilby is starting to point out features of it… she’s especially keen on the baby bear hanging from the Christmas tree:-)
December 8, 2008 at 11:00 pm · Filed under Advent, Blogging, Domestic Life, Food, Freezer, Season
Help make the Ice-Cream Plum Pudding.
Well, we eventually got the fruit on to soak:-) Haven’t finished the rest (so no photos:-) )… but we’ll get to it:-)
December 7, 2008 at 9:30 pm · Filed under Advent, Baking, Bilby, Books, Domestic Life, Family, Food, For Children, Picture Books, Puggle, Season
Today we read Room for a Little One
. We enjoyed it last year, and we’re enjoying it again this year… it’s so peaceful:-)
Puggle and Bilby also made the rest of the gingerbread up… I’ve really enjoyed Bilby requesting that we ‘woll, woll!’
December 6, 2008 at 10:30 pm · Filed under Advent, Domestic Life, Food, Recipes, Season, Wine
My understanding of Bisschopswijn is that basically it’s mulled wine—just the Dutch name (clove studded oranges were pretty common in most recipes that were specifically Bisschopswijn). Obviously, it’s not really the weather for traditional mulled wine, so I went looking for some different chilled versions (we’ve previously done a Riesling which was okay… but not fantastic). I came across the following, which looked great (Sparkling Shiraz!) but sadly uses orange juice (our hostess is allergic:-( ) I eventually decided to try it, with some modifications.
Chilled Mulled Wine from Australian Good Taste, December 2005
125 milliliters orange juice, fresh (1/2 cup) (I used the juice of two lemons, because ours are not very juicy… with water to make up half a cup)
27 grams caster sugar, (1/8 cup) (I used 30 grams—mostly to make it easier to measure, but I did think it might help balance the lemons)
7 centimetre cinnamon stick
4 whole cloves
(I also added a shake of nutmeg and a shake of allspice)
(I decided to add a couple of tablespoons worth of cointreau/grand marnier as was suggested in one of the other recipes I came across.)
750 milliliters chilled sparkling shiraz, (1 bottle)
Stir orange juice (lemon juice and water), sugar, and spices in a saucepan over medium heat for 2 minutes or until sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes or until syrup thickens. Set aside for 5 minutes to cool.
Transfer to a bowl (add the cointreau/grand marnier) and cover with plastic wrap. Place in the fridge for 3 hours to infuse.
Remove and discard the cinnamon sticks and cloves. Pour syrup among serving glasses. Top with sparkling wine and serve immediately.
Notes:
You can prepare the syrup up to 2 days ahead.
This was pretty good. I definitely preferred it to the Riesling we did. I will try it with the orange juice another time (probably this summer), and I might crush some mace to add. If I’m going to put ground spicese in, it would be worth putting them in a bag of some description. It wouldn’t stop all the sediment, but it might reduce it a bit.
December 6, 2008 at 10:00 pm · Filed under Advent, Baking, Bilby, Blogging, Books, Cygnet, Domestic Life, Family, Food, For Children, Paddington, Picture Books, Puggle, Season
Today the task was to read The Secret of Saint Nicholas
. This was one of the books we had from the library last year, and Puggle recognised it when we got it out again:-)
This gave us a chance to catch up on our cooking:-) So while I put Bilby down for her nap, the boys baked:-)
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