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Hi All

for all you cooks out there some tips I hope you may find useful for the Christmas cooking.

When I am making sausage rolls to each 500gm of sausage meat I add a medium grated cooking apple and some made up sage and onion stuffing (about 4tbsp dry mix made up) not only does this add flavour to the sausage rolls it makes the sausage meat go a bit further.

For mince pies for each jar add grated apple and the zest of a large orange you can also add some nuts of your choice and some booze this can make a jar of supermarket mince meat that little bit special. and it works out cheaper than the luxury mince meats in the shops.

Also around this time of the year if I am making pastry I make a little more than I need and freeze it so I already have the pastry made for Christmas baking to save a little time.

Enjoy
Jan

Thanks for the tips Jan.

Our mincemeat comes courtesy of my mum. She makes her own every year and has done since the year dot! It's yummy.

I'm afraid the pastry is frozen though!

Instead of a trifle for after tea, I make a chocolate truffle torte (courtesy of Delia Smith). Everyone loves it!

Errr isn't this what Sainsburys is for?!?! [:D]

Skip, you haven't tasted my truffe torte! Sainsbury's couldn't beat it!

I bet yours is lovely Jan - mine wouldn't be though! Christmas is stressful enough with our mothers coming round, without the stress of me cooking! Dave cooks dinner and I 'help'!

Last year we had an organic chicken from the local butchers as I'm not keen on turkey. Normally they are about £8-£10 so I thought that wouldn't be too bad. When I collect it on Christmas Eve I nearly died when he told me it was £21! I know turkeys are expensive, but it was only a chicken! It wasn't even that big!

We don't have Christmas pudding or Christmas cake in our house as I don't like them. We normally have chicken, followed by a sticky toffee pudding and if our mums want them we have mince pies for later. I don't like mince pies either!

We usually have a quarter of a butterfly (saddle, breast, whatever you want to call it)of turkey, with all the trimmings. We don't have Chistmas pudding either. Tea is usually just sandwiches and nibbles.

Apart from the torte, hubby does all the rest of the cooking. I'm useless!

How do you make mincemeat? I always wondered what was in it..

I love the sound of adding extras to the mincemeat DH has already made our Christmas cake - I think he's aiming for a really alcoholic one this year! LOL

Mom makes ours. I used to help as a kid, but couldn't tell you what she puts in it.

Thanks for the tips Jan, not keen on mince pies myself (usually buy a box for everyone else from Asda and cheat) but love sausage rolls and that recipe sounds yummy[:p]might just try it.

Oh Jan,
You've mentioned your Chocolate Torte again[:p] are we still all ok to form a queue round yours?[:D]

xx

No problem DM! I'll let you know when I've done one.

Truffle Torte sounds good any chance of the recipe?[:p]

I used to enjoy cooking for Christmas making cakes and puddings not only for us but for friends and family. My girls used to love stirring the Christmas pudding mixture and making a wish. Don't cook so much now as OH is diabetic and he can't eat some things only only a little I do make him a sugar free cake and pudding but they have to be made a bit last minute or frozen as they don't keep.[:(][:)]
Jan

I'll sort it out Jan and post it on here. It's not particularly cheap to make compared with other cakes, but it's well worth it!

Chocolate Truffle Torte

5 tablespoons liquid glucose
5 tablespoons rum (I sometimes use Cointreau instead)
1 lb plain dessert or luxury cooking chocolate
1 pint double cream, room temperature
5 oz Amaretti biscuits, crushed finely.

9" cake tin lined with greaseproof paper. Brush this with groundnut oil (I use marge though, and that is fine.

Sprinkle the crushed biscuits over the base of the tin. Break chocolate into sections, put into heatproof bowl with glucose and rum. Fit the bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water and leave until the chocolate has melted and become smooth. Stir, take off the heat an leave to cool for 5 minutes.

Beat the cream until slightly thickened, fold half into the chocolate mixture, then fold that into the other half of the cream. When fully blended, spoon into the tin, cover with cling film and chill overnight.

Just before serving, run a palette knife round th edge to loosen it, then turn it out. You can dust with cocoa powder if you like and serve with single cream.

It's very rich, so a little goes a long way. You can also freeze it.

I'm going to save this post in my favourites and have a go in the next couple of weeks, thanks Jan.[:p] Aren't you talented?! X