Winter wonderland

There's no running away from the fact that Christmas is just around the corner. We went to one of our local garden centres yesterday and I was amazed to discover that they transformed almost the entire space into this magical wonderland of Christmas decorations. It was beautiful! No tackiness there; everything was really tasteful and gorgeous. I just had to take some pictures. I ended up tot buying anything (it was all quite pricey!), but I certainly got inspired!

Christmas presents and cooking with Outlander

Santa was very good to me this Christmas, I got a tonne of books! As a fan of the Outlander TV series,  I was very pleased to discover the entire collection of the books it's based on, as well as a beautiful cook book featuring many of the dishes mentioned throughout the story. It's full of photos, excerpts from Outlander and recipes that I know I am definitely going to try. I have already made two things from the book: oat & honey bread (and rolls) and bridies.

The bread recipe yielded 6 rolls and 1 small loaf of bread. They came out really nice, soft, slightly sweet and full of oaty goodness. Great with cheese and pickle! I will definitely be making them again soon!

The bridies (filled pastries) were surprisingly simple to make. This recipe is supposed to make 8 six-inch bridies: 4 vegetarian and 4 filled with beef. I managed to get 12 and was still left with a huge amount of the veggie filling (enough for at least another 4!) but ran out of pastry. I think I will make them again as they were utterly delicious, hot or cold, but I will adjust the quantities of ingredients.

Christmas preparations: decking the halls!

Our home is now pretty much decorated for Christmas. I like keeping things simple so there isn't too much of it, but that's how I prefer it. We got the tree last week and I have spent a few evenings making decorations - most things you can see here are home made. The wreath on our front door is made out of twigs I brought from the forest, pine cones and ivy from the garden. Most ornaments on the tree are hand made as well; this year I produced a number of clay decorations in all sorts of shapes and colours. I also have a lovely collection of ribbon and sequin baubles made by my Granny as well as crocheted snowflakes made by my friend's mum. Some of those snowflakes are also adorning our dining room windows :-) 

Snowflakes on the window. The cats love taking them down!

Table decoration

Dining table

Table decoration

Simple decoration made out of baker's twine and rubber Santa's boots

Leftover twigs and baubles in a jug, accompanied by a bowl of scented pine cones

A very simple decoration - pine cones and ribbon

And some of my Christmas tree ornaments:

Edinburgh Christmas

Last Sunday we went to Edinburgh to join my colleagues at a Christmas event at one of the local hotels. It was good fun and amazing food, and afterwards we went to see this year's Edinburgh Christmas Market. It seems to get bigger every year - I remember when it was just a handful of stalls a decade ago, but now it takes up almost all of Princes Gardens. And it seems to start a bit earlier every year, too!

It was huge, colourful and mobbed. I love Christmas markets; despite the crowds and everything being ridiculously overpriced I can't help but feel the magic :-) We didn't buy anything except a portion of churros, but we had a really good time and admired a lot of the items on sale, rides for kids and deliciously smelling foods. It was good! 

Edinburgh looks amazing this time of year, all decked out for Christmas. I normally only commute there for work, so it was really nice to actually have time to walk around rather than rush to the train station. While on one hand I'm against the commercialisation of Christmas, on the other hand I really can't help but get excited about it several weeks ahead. The excitement builds up and then culminates on Christmas Eve - it brightens up the cold, dark winter months in a way nothing else does and I just love it.

Christmas preparations: Making mushroom-filled uszka for the freezer

Uszka, small dumplings filled with wild mushrooms, are a must on my Christmas Eve table. A very traditional dish, they are served with clear beetroot soup as the first course. They freeze beautifully, so I tend to make them in advance an keep in the freezer. I made a batch last weekend and finally got to use some of those wild mushrooms I picked over the autumn months. They are really simple to make and require just a handful of ingredients, but they are quite time consuming. But it's all worth the effort!

Ingredients:
(makes around 50 uszka, depending on how big or small you make them)

For the filling:

- 300 g frozen wild mushrooms (or 30g dried ones, rehydrated in warm water for a few hours, or use the equivalent amount of regular mushrooms if wild are not available)
- 1 large onion
- salt & pepper
- a little oil for frying

For the pastry:

- 2 cups plain flower
- 0.5 cup very warm water
- 2 tbsp oil


Start with the filling.
Roughly chop the onion and place in a large frying pan along with the oil, and fry on low heat until translucent. Add the mushrooms and keep frying until they are fully defrosted, and all the liquid has evaporated. Add salt and pepper. Place the contents of the pan in a food processor and pulse a few times until everything is chopped very small, but before it turns into a completely smooth paste.

Next, make the pastry.
Place all the pastry ingredients in a bowl, mix and knead until smooth and elastic (or use a stand mixer).
Roll it out on a flowered surface quite thinly - about 2mm. Cut into even squares - the smaller the better - 3cm is probably about right. You can also cut out small circles using a cookie cutter or a glass - the final look will be only slightly different.

Start forming your uszka.
Place a teaspoon of the filling in the middle of each square, then fold it in half diagonally, to form a triangular parcel. Seal the sides by pinching them together.
Next, take the two ends on the longest side of your triangle, and join them together, pinching the pastry. All done.

You can now cook them straight away, or freeze them.

To cook, bring a large pan of salted water to a boil and gently drop the uszka in the water. When they come up to the surface, they're ready - you can fish them out. If cooking from frozen, give them an extra minute in the boiling water.

Serve in soup, or on their own with a little bit of melted butter and sour cream.

Christmas preparations: planning my Christmas Eve menu

Our area got its first snow fall of the season the other day. I couldn't help but think about Christmas... Every year in early November I like to sit down with my cook books and plan my Christmas Eve menu.  And with all the snow outside my window, it felt like the perfect moment to do just that.

I feel like I have the best of both worlds: where I come from, it is Christmas Eve that's celebrated with an elaborate meal. Where I live, it's Christmas Day - and I get to experience both. We usually host the Christmas Eve supper in our house, and then enjoy Christmas Day lunch at my partner's Mum's with my Scottish family.

The traditional Polish Christmas Eve supper, Wigilia, consists of 12 dishes. Each family has their own favorites, there are many options and variations to choose from, however all dishes are either fully vegetarian or fish based. The most traditional things you are almost guaranteed to find on the table are: beetroot soup, herring, carp fish (not in my house though as I'm not a fan!), a dish with cabbage and/or sauerkraut, a dish with wild mushrooms and a dish (most likely a dessert) with poppy seeds (though we won't be having it this year; trying something new instead!). 

Over the years, I have come up with my own list of staples that I cannot do without; some are the dishes I remember from my family home; others I have added out of my own initiative or adapted to suit our tastes. Every year I like to add one or two new things, and if they work, they get to stay for good, or come back every other year. 

So I got out my most trusted cook books and started planning. I have a wonderful book that was given to me several years ago - Swedish Christmas Cooking by Leif Mannerström. While in Sweden they traditionally include a lot of meaty dishes in their menu, the book has a multitude of fish recipes, most importantly salmon and herring, which I love. 

These books, a small chunk of my cook book collection, come out every year to help me with my menu planning.

After nearly 3 hours of planning, I came up with the following menu. It has a number of very traditional dishes in it, but also features a salmon dish which I have only been making for 4 or 5 years, as well as a couple of completely new things.

ROUND I

1. Barszcz

clear beetroot soup

2. Uszka

mini dumplings with wild mushroom filling

ROUND II

3. Grilled salmon fillet

served with fried apples and roast potatoes

ROUND III

4. Gubbröra

Swedish herring salad

5. Gypsy herring 

traditional herring salad with tomato sauce, pickled mushrooms, peppers and gherkins

6. Krokiety

croquettes filled with sauerkraut, wild mushrooms and onion

7. Potato salad

with hard-boiled eggs, peas and carrots

8. Beans with kale

butter beans baked with kale and spices

9. Fried cabbage

with wild mushrooms, cranberries and spices

ROUND IV

10. Yule log

11. Creamy baked cheesecake

12. Coconut macaroons

drizzled with milk chocolate

It is a lot of dishes and it's all made from scratch - but I will be able to make a couple of things in advance and freeze them. The rest will be made the day before or on the day. It's a lot of work but it's also great fun and probably the thing I love the most about Christmas. It always brings back my childhood memories... In my family home, my Dad would make majority of the savory dishes, while my Mum and I made all the desserts and the remaining savory ones. I remember all the peeling, chopping and stirring, for hours and hours, as it wasn't just 12 dishes, but in huge amounts, too. 

My Scottish family (my partner's siblings, parents and grandparents) have always been very gracious about my tradition, and my S has fully embraced it. It's not the first time that I feel blessed to be able to combine my own tradition with his, and experience and celebrate both. 

The salmon recipe in my Swedish Christmas Cooking book.

A number of traditional recipes in my Polish cook book.

***

The first snow fall this season!