Let's make Christmas

I have two simultaneous reactions when I hear the word Christmas.  The first reaction is sheer excitement and joy.  I just LOVE Christmas.  Open fires, holly, mince pies, sherry, Christmas dinner, carols and laughter.. lots of laughter.

My second reaction is a sober moment when I think of the cost and that creepy feeling that comes over me when I realise how much money I’ve spent.  What really gets to me is that much of what I buy is so unnecessary.  So many of the gifts I buy are discarded two days later as the children seem to have had their thrill of opening the presents and I am left feeling that the commercialisation of Christmas has stolen the joy that gift giving it is meant to bring.

Then I have such trouble choosing gifts for some of my family too.. I mean who actually needs anything? My dad for instance has more scarves, hats, gloves, books and toiletries that you can imagine and my sister said just the other day said enough is enough and that her house is totally cluttered with gifts she just doesn’t need. That said ..  I still love giving.

So this year I am taking a stand.  Yes I know that it’s October .. but that is entirely my point .. this year I am going to plan it and make Christmas.   I know it will save a fortune and so I am going to make the best food gifts imaginable and wrap them beautifully.  I’ve several classic recipes in my book Prepped and I’ve bought a copy of Dan Lepard’s Short and Sweet which has got a whole chapter on making sweets in it it's fabulous and I can’t think of anything better than a homemade gift.

So my first gift that I am making is Sloe Gin. I’ve been out and about picking sloes each time I walk the dog.  I have a secret ingredient in my recipe.  It's very subtle and you only need the tinniest amount of star anise to lift warm undertones into your liquor.  

Ingredients 

450g Sloes

350g Caster sugar

750ml Gin

Method
Prick your Sloes with needle. If the first frost hasn’t hit then freeze your sloes, even an hour helps as it breaks down the fruit slightly to get a fuller flavour.

Fill a bottle with the sloes, add the sugar and the gin and pop the lid on.  Shake gently to mix up the sugar and gin.  Keep turning the bottle each week until the sugar is dissolved. It can take up to 3 weeks.  Your gin will be ready to decant about a week before Christmas.

I’ve read in a recent article that cheap gin is fine to use.  I couldn’t disagree more. If you want a floral fragrant and complex flavour then use a good quality gin.  For the few pound extra I think it gives a far superior taste, so I’ve chosen a gin made quite locally to me from Waitrose called Greenalls Bloom London Dry Gin. It's created from juniper, chamomile, pomelo and honeysuckle and I feel using this particular gin adds notes of orange and honey behind the robust sloe for a far superior finish.

So there’s’ my first gift sorted .. I think that says so much about the say that you feel about someone and so I am inviting you to take part in Let’s Make Christmas 2011.

There is a prize for the best post.. a - a new K- mixer from Kenwood .. please see details here!

If you’d like to participate .. 

1) Use the Let’s make Christmas logo in your blog post and link back to this page.

2) Please make a comment in the box below to tell me that you are taking part. 

3) Tweet this page with the #LetsMakeChristmas

4) Remember to email me your blog post to Recipes@VanessaKimbell.com

I’ll do a round up of everyone’s post on the 15th November .. which hopefully will give us all a truly fabulous collection of inspiring idea’s to make Christmas in plenty of time. .. but do keep sending your recipes in  .. I will keep on adding them !