Catching up with makey things

Soundtrack: the whistling of the kettle for the next cup of coffee

The last couple of weeks have featured a lot of makeying, so here's some selected highlights...

To start with, I made the Christmas cake, following the recipe from the lovely Ruth Clemens of Great British Bake Off (such a long time till the next series!)

It just came out of the box for another little feeding (it's going to be more drinkable than edible by Christmas, with a bit of luck) and it smelled amazing!  Thanks, Ruth, it was just the recipe I was looking for!

I've also got my damson gin to the point where it's almost ready for bottling, but not quite yet.


I've made a start on a craft for 10:10, which will look a bit like this:

As you can see, I've got an app for my phone which makes the pictures look kind of old and funky.  The final things will also have paper poinsettias and a nice big bow.  They look great!  And they'll take the kids at least 3 weeks to make.  Hopefully they'll be proud of what they make.



Then there's this top:

It was a rather work-a-day Dotty P's jersey top, but now I've attacked it with an old curtain, some buttons and some embroidery silk and it's on it's way to being kinda funky!  Still some work to do on it, but it's looking good. Another project I undertook recently was a button necklace, but I forgot to photograph that.  You're probably quite grateful.

Then yesterday: make loads of edibles day!

For last year's ladies' Christmas event* I made a gingerbread Christmas tree:

(A bit out of focus, I know.)

Well last night was this year's ladies' Christmas event*.  I'd been asked to make another one, but the problem is that the biggest biscuits are the size of your face.  I say "problem"... to me, that's not any problem at all, but the ladies seem to be all shy about looking piggy in front of one another, so instead I made a little tree to go on each table.  I didn't ice them this year because I do find large quantities of green icing a bit alarming.  I also made them with winter spices rather than ginger, which went down very well in certain (ginger-hating) quarters.  I still put the little "baubles" on it.  They looked great.  No photos to be had though!

They were just done when Mum arrived for an afternoon of baking and an evening of crafting.

We made Delia's quick flaky pastry and Delia's Jon Tovey's Rough Puff Pastry (both from the Complete Cookery Course).  I was so grateful to have someone who knew what they were doing directing operations!

The quick flaky became the lid for a pie I'd seen made by Holly Bell on Great British Bake Off (that again!).  It was big on flavour and quite a frugal meal.  Hubby had the rest for brunch before his shift of death.  The Rough Puff remains in the fridge, having a little rest after the trials of being brought into this world.

The remaining quick flaky went the usual way:

Eccles cakes!


Well, after munching the pie and some of the Eccles cakes, it was time to head over to church (armed with a lot of trays of biscuits for the christmas trees) for the ladies' evening.

The lovely Heather of the Patchwork Heart (and lovely local lass) was in charge, helping us make our way to... a patchwork heart!

Mum went for a mix of Christmassy and not:

She sews so fast and so neatly.  I need to practice more.

Jo Mote spoke to us about The Best Present of All, and, after taking some of it home (slowest seamstress in the world!), my patchwork heart was done and my crafty day was finally done.

(Doesn't it look great on my lounge floor?)

Next plan: gingerbread house!


* Apostrophe heaven!

Catching Up with D:Team

Soundtrack to the afternoon: Kermode and Mayo's Film Review (podcast it now and thank me later)

Phee-yew!

As I mentioned in the honey biscuits post, it's been a busy couple of weeks here at Chateau Noonan; nothing particularly dramatic, just a few extra meetings and a holiday club reunion (which was great fun), and all of a sudden I'd been working for about a fortnight straight - whoops!

Hubby is out at work on a dreaded 12-8 shift, so he had lunch at about 11am and might have tea at some point tonight, so it's time to sit down on my day off and process a few things.  I'm armed with a fresh coffee and some winter-spiced biscuits (dunking required - they're pretty crunchy!) and I'm enjoying looking looking back over Ephesians.

I think the last thing I posted about D:Team Ephesians was the blessings of chapter 1 part 1.

***

Chapter 1 part 2 takes us through the who, what, where, why and when of Paul's prayer for the Ephesian Christians.

***

Chapter 2 part 1 is one of my absolute favourites (I know I shouldn't, but there you go...).  It's amazing to first of all be shocked by the depth of the problem that sin is, then that wonderful "But God" of verse 4 as we find out that God works a miracle in people like me, which is exciting and humbling all in one go.

***

Which brings us to Ephesians 2.11-22, which was also the week I unveiled the new D:Team bibles, which have very pretty covers and are made from paper which is thick enough that you're not forced to try and read three pages simultaneously.  Hurrah.

Now, before we get on with the drama, we need to establish that the world can be split into four groups.  To work out where you fall, simply ask yourself two questions:

1. Am I, by genetic and racial heritage, Jewish? (If no, you're a gentile)

2. Am I, today, trusting in Jesus for salvation from my sins? (If yes, you're a Christian)

OK, now find yourself on this graph (oh yes, there's a graph.  I do this for fun, you know):

As you can see, we're really only going to deal with the bottom line: people who, regardless of their racial heritage, are loving and trusting Jesus.

In order to explain some concepts that would be pretty new to most, if not all, of the group, I raided my box of little plastic people.  I have been known to spend so long trying to decide who to have for each person, I've taken to a policy of grabbing the first ones that come to hand and then casting them according to whim.  So now, please welcome to the stage:

Noah, Florence and Doris.

Noah was a shoe-in for the part of God.  Look at that beard!

Florence became the representative of all gentile Christians because most of D:Team are blonde gentiles.

Which left Nurse Doris to represent all Jewish Christians.

Thank you for participating, your cheque is in the post.


OK.  We're getting somewhere now.

Florence and Doris have a problem:

There is a dividing wall separating them.  We didn't go into much detail about this on the night, but suffice it to say that it's more serious than the coaster implies in the picture.

But wait, it gets worse:

Not only is there a dividing wall between Florence and Doris (Jew and Gentile), but all people are separated from God, and that separation is much more serious, hence it is represented here by a much thicker boundary.

But hurrah and huzzah!

Thanks to Jesus' death on the cross, not only is the coaster smashed and removed, but the big old book of regulations and laws has been dealt with too! (Can you tell we've been doing Colossians on a Sunday night?)

So not only have all people who love and trust Jesus (regardless of their racial, religious or ethnic heritage) become one big family together, the family they are in God's and they're not separated from him any more!

Wowee!

Thanks, Noah, Florence and Doris, that was great!

***

If that wasn't enough, we made a start this week on Chapter 3.  We made it as far as verse 6, and it was great.

Paul is writing from prison, and we had a think about what effect that might have had on the Christians in Ephesus, and we found time to have a chat about what life is like for some Christians.  In fact, on Sunday morning, the grown ups will be doing a lot more about it, including watching this video from Barnabus Fund.

We had a look at how Paul's life was turned around when he met Jesus, and how we have ended up with the Bible we have.  It was great.  And so was the mac and cheese.

Honey Biscuits, or manna in the desert

Soundtrack to the evening: History of the Brain podcast.

The lack of recent posts has been due not to a lack of material, but to a lack of time to get any of it down on paper (as it were).

Tomorrow is Holiday Club Reunion, and we'll be looking at God's grace in looking after his people in the desert with the provision of quail and manna.  According to Exodus 16, manna tasted a little like wafers made with honey.  Well!  That's a challenge not to be resisted, so some honey biscuits were definitely the order of the day (as well as quail made of funky foam, but more of those another time, perhaps).  This recipe is adapted from one given to me by my lovely friend Kathryn.

Cream together 75g butter (I try and remember to take it out of the fridge at least an hour before trying to cook with it) and 3 tablespoons of honey.  I used set honey because, to be honest, it was on the reduced counter in the co-op.

Add 1 cup of sugar, I used light brown muscovado, and cream again.

Chuck in 1 1/2 cups plain flour and beat in.

You could take the whole lot out and knead it a little, but I just kneaded each little bit in turn.  About 1 rounded tsp of mixture to a cookie.  I made two batches and they both came out at exactly 20 biscuits, which annoys me because I like multiples of 6 when I'm cooking.

Knead the dough briefly until it stops crumbling, then shape into a flattened round.  Put onto a baking sheet lined with greaseproof.  Put them further apart than shown here or they'll run together.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.  Mine took up two baking sheets per batch, so I did 8 minutes, swapped them around and gave them a further 3 1/2 minutes.

Allow to cool before attempting to remove them from the greaseproof.  They will come out of the oven quite poofey, then settle down into a golden, chewy mass.  Mmm, mmm, mmm!

All I need now is a nice roast quail...

Getting Crafty: Advent 1

Soundtrack to the early evening: more Radio 4.  Of course.

I'm sorting out our Sunday School Advent sessions, starting with the craft.  I enjoy doing craft, but I struggle to think of what to do.  I thought Advent Sunday itself would be a good day to make an advent calendar of some description, but all my ideas were too complex to pull off in the limited time offered by the session.  In the end I adapted this from an idea on a beautiful homemade gifts blog.  I apologise that the end product is not the thing of beauty that the original is.

In order to make it simple enough to do in one session with the children, I've gone all liturgical and gone for a design which only features Sundays.

Start with a square of paper around 15cm square:

Fold it in half:

Fold the front top peak down to the bottom fold (instructions like that is why I use pictures):

Unfold that last one to leave a crease.
Fold the bottom corner in so that the side lines up with the crease:

Repeat with the other side and stick both corners down.  I used sticky fixers which made it nicely 3D.
The top fold can be up or locked back down:

Repeat with 3 other squares.
Stick labels onto the pockets and mount them onto card.
Tuck a card with the day's message, along with a chocolate coin, into each pocket.  The cards remind the kids about what they're looking at in Sunday School that day.
As each one is opened and read, the top flap is folded down to show it's been and gone.

The final thing will be done in more Christmassy colours.

Great stuff!

Mrs Banks' Treacle Toffee

Soundtrack: Radio 4.  What else?

I was moodling about on the internet the other day and came across a mention of treacle toffee.  I had one of those moments so beloved of food writers: a childhood flashback.  In my case, to sitting around the kitchen table wrapping pieces of treacle toffee in squares of greaseproof paper and popping them in a paper bag while simultaneously trying to snaffle as many pieces as possible without Mum noticing.  I suspect I was more successful in the snaffling than the sneaking.  It's the ultimate autumn activity for me, and the best thing to have for bonfire night.

Any who, after a quick phone call to Mum this morning for some expert tips and to get her recipe, I made a start.  The recipe came originally from Mrs Banks, a lady who went to our church when I was a child and Mum reckons it's the best, and she should know, being an expert in things like how to boil sugar properly.

Start by buttering the life out of a tin about 10 x 7".

I used my silicone one.  The mixture is going to get to around 150C.  My silicone tin can take 250C so was fine.

Melt the main body of your butter (or hard marg, but not the spreading stuff!) over a low heat.

Add the rest of your ingredients (I gave myself 10/10 for oiling my spoon before putting it in the treacle) and heat them really gently until there are no sugar crystals left.  This took at least half an hour, so do be patient!  I also changed implement for a silicone spatula which scraped the sides better.  I remembered to clean the wooden spoon straight away with hot water, so well done me again.  I used some of the time to empty the dishwasher and let the cat in and out, remembering to stir the mix regularly.

Only once there's no gritty sugar left can you raise the temperature and boil it rapidly for 5 minutes.
Test what stage it's got to using some cold water.  I had been a bit of a scaredy cat over the boiling, so I gave it a minute or two longer.

Pour it into the waiting tin.  You might want to put the tin onto the draining board because the metal will dissipate the heat better than the worktop will (another top Mum hint there).
As it cools, mark it out into squares.

Once it's cooled, break it up.  I started trying to cut it and then tried hitting it with the heel of my knife which worked well.  I like my toffee at the stage where it's quite hard and then goes chewy and sticks your teeth together.  If you do it less hard, you might find it easier to chop up.  Keep the pieces fairly separate.

Put something good on the radio, like the episode of In Our Time about the moon (if the link has expired, try the In Our Time Archive.  Many happy hours await you) and wrap each piece up in a piece of greaseproof paper.

For proper authenticity, put them into a paper bag.  As you can see, this will take a while.  Try not to eat all the toffee.
If any bits are really small, put a few together into one little packet, they'll fuse together in no time.

Take to your bonfire party and enjoy!

If you'd like a copy of the ingredients, leave me a comment including how to get in touch.

Now, back to Melvin Bragg, then on to write LARS advent sessions.  Hurrah for autumn!

Questions, Questions

Soundtrack to the morning: silence.  My brain is too distracted to cope with music as well as thoughts.

We'll be thinking in D:Team this afternoon about Ephesians 1.15-23, considering the who, what, where, why and when of prayer, looking at how Paul does it and considering whether our world view is big enough, especially when it comes to how we pray.

I'll tell you what, mine isn't.

I suspect it's not just me who regularly finds that their perception of what church is, who God is, what salvation means and a thousand other things has contracted into something small and piteous.  Thinking through things for this afternoon is going to challenge me in ways I might not be comfortable with, but yey for that!  I've spent most of the morning faffing over how my hair looks, so it's undoubtedly time to expand the old horizons again.

So let's be amazed and excited once again about our amazing saviour, and stop the faffing with the hair long enough to see him for more like what he really is.

And now, a random picture to keep you happy, entitled, Reclaiming pebbles for Jesus #3: