Fire-tongs-punch

Saint Nicholas' Day has become part of the Herring-Child festive season. This runs from December to January, and encompasses as many traditions from random countries as we find entertaining/tasty/alcoholic enough.

It starts in earnest on the 6th December, when we deliberately try and burn the house down in the name of good clean fun.

Feuerzangenbowle is a traditional German drink whereby a zuckerhut (compressed sugar cone) is doused in rum, set on fire, and the caramelised sugar and excess rum drips into a bowl of delicious mulled wine. The magic combination of tasty, tasty alcohol and approved pyromania is intoxicating.

We were introduced to the concept a few years ago and have attempted it with varying levels of success ever since; the chief issue with us being the lack of zuckerhut. Previously we attempted to fashion our own by packing moist sugar into a cone of baking parchment. I suspect had we packed harder, and left to dry for more than a few days, it may have been more successful, but I am impatient when it comes to rum-soaked goodness.

Cue 2012, when I finally caved and bought myself a proper kit from the German Deli in London website. I also loaded up on the zuckerhut from the same place.

It was magnificent.

A word of warning though: when adding additional rum you are likely to lose and eyebrow or two. Also, over excitement can also lead to singed carpets.

 Frustration as I clearly didn't add enough rum and it fizzles out in disappointment.

A much more pleasing sight.

_____________________________

Feuerzangenbowle Recipe
_____________________________

3 bottles of cheap red plonk
3 oranges
2 lemons
4 cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
(optional, 2 cardamom pods, bruised)
1-2 zuckerhut
1 bottle of strong dark rum (we used Woods Old Navy Rum as it was 50%)

Gently warm the wine on the hob with the juice of two of the oranges and one lemon. Slice the remaining fruit and add to the hob along with the spices. Warm slowly for at least half an hour, not allowing it to boil, then transfer to the heatproof punchbowl. Lay the zuckerhut on the tongs (or other heatproof ledge-type implement) over the bowl and douse in rum. 

Turn the lights off, and set on fire. 

Use a metal ladle to top up the rum to prevent the flames going out, taking care not to singe yourself, your friends, or your house. Drink, rinse and repeat with another cone and finish up the bottle.

Boring safety advice: DO NOT POUR STRAIGHT FROM THE BOTTLE, or you will end up with a Molotov Cocktail, which is far less tasty.

Homemade all-purpose Mexican seasoning

I spent a while last year experimenting with chili, and finally came up with a mix that seemed to work as a general multipurpose Mexican seasoning. I add it to chilis, tacos, hot bean dip. etc, etc, etc. I doubt it's particularly authentic, but it does the trick.
__________________________

All-purpose Mexican Seasoning
__________________________

8 tbsp chili powder
4 tbsp cumin
2 tbsp salt (or to taste)
2 tbsp black pepper
4 tsp dark brown sugar (I used molasses sugar, but demerara is also good)
4 tsp cocoa
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp onion powder (I couldn't find this so bought freeze dried onion pieces from a Chinese supermarket and crushed them)
2 tsp oregano
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp smoked paprika (change ratio of smoked to normal paprika to your desired smokiness level)
1 tsp cinnamon

Pinterest Success #1: Rosemary Parmesan Crackers & Texas Trash Dip

In common with many others, I spend more time pinning things to Pinterest and less time actually making things, but I finally tried out some new recipes. Some worked, some didn't. These are the ones that worked.

First up are the Rosemary Parmesan Crackers (see here for the recipe). These were tasty indeed, and I will definitely make these again (though in greater numbers). For once, something I made actually resembled the picture on the website.

(LEFT: picture from Alexandra's Kitchen blog, RIGHT: fuzzy photo demonstrating my efforts minus the garnish)

Secondly was the Texas Trash dip. It's basically all refried beans and large amounts of cheese - what could go wrong? No pictures of my efforts this time, but I'm highly endorsing this and will do this again.

(Picture & recipe from Life as a Lofthouse blog)

The only changes I made were to halve the amounts, replace the sour cream with creme fraiche, replace Monterey Jack with Edam, and the taco seasoning with a tbsp of my homemade chili mix.

 
I am making a general pre-new year resolution to actually DO rather than PIN. Or, at least, get the ratios of doing to pinning to a more appropriate level.

5:2 Update #1

Ok, six weeks in - four if you don't count my fieldwork mid-way through. I've carried on eating as normal (except for the fast days), I've been to a wedding and seriously over-indulged, and yet I've still lost 9 lbs. This makes me sound as if I have an unhealthy diet - I don't. I eat plenty of veg and am generally sensible, but just have the occasional binge.

I am very happy about this, as you can imagine. My modest goal was to lose a stone, and I'm only 5 lbs away from that in a very short time.

Eat, Fast, and Live Longer?

I'll admit, I've tried Weightwatchers.
I'll admit, I lost about a stone on it.

However, I've come to the conclusion that I am not the sort of person that can do diets: I love bread, pasta, cheese, curries, and pretty much ALL THE FOODS far too much. I fell off the wagon spectacularly and put on way more than I'd lost.

The problem with loving food too much is that, despite having a fairly active job (at least some of the year), the pounds creep on like you would not believe, especially once over the age of 30. Cue a conversation in my office about a month ago, whereby a colleague told me all about the BBC Horizon programme - Eat, Fast and Live Longer (I had to make sure I got the comma in the right place. If eating fast was a prerequisite, then I'd live to 100).


So it goes like this: eat what you like five days a week, but on two non-consecutive days you can only eat 500 calories (or 600 for men). It sounded tough, but the alleged health benefits seemed a bonus to me: weight loss was only one, there was also reduction in cholesterol, lowering risk of diabetes and heart disease, and retarding the development of cancer cells. If even the NHS had it on their website then it couldn't be that bad, in my mind.

I've been doing it for around a month now and I'm the lightest I've been in a long time. I've lost a fair few pounds and am feeling rather good about it all. I even had two weeks off in the middle to go to fieldwork and just picked up where I left off on my return. I've been out for massive curries, I've not given up anything I love. The "hungry days" are actually not so bad. I've found that fizzy water is a great filler and you can eat quite a lot on 500 calories if you choose your veg wisely.

The anal retentive in me has been keeping track of progress in Excel and, as of yesterday, starting tracking body fat and H2O as well. I have a set of scales that measures these - I realise it's not massively accurate, but I'm still interested in seeing what it says.

So, here's my progress. I'll be updating as the weeks go on. The grey bars indicate my hungry days, and the blue my weight (note the gap in the middle when I was away). So far I've noticed that I - unsurprisingly - always drop the day after a hungry day, but then go up again afterwards. However, that rise is rarely as high as my previous weight, so overall the trend shows a gradual drop. It seems sustainable so far, but we'll see!

(Not So) Recent Projects: Hats

Can it really be that the last project update I did was October 2009? I admit, I'm a lazy knitter/crocheter, but it seems that I'm an even lazier blogger. Mind you, the world* is not missing much!

(* my one follower - hello mum!)

~


So, prepare for a visual feast of knitwear. Or not. Your call.

First off... hats.




















Not the greatest picture of a Selbu Modern, but an ace hat nonetheless. My first real attempt at stranded colourwork. Looks better in the flesh, honest!

This Everglade I made for my mum, and am kind of wishing I'd kept it. I don't normally do patterns twice but I might consider it for this one.

Note: the blocking pins and the dinner plate are not a feature.

This one was not for me - even my minute head isn't small enough to fit in that one. It's an adaptation of the Snowflake Hat and the chart I made is on the project page at Ravelry.

This is Capucine. And I wore the hell out of it during the snow last year. I know I look like a five year old in it, but I have little shame.

Another hat for mother. This was highly experimental, no pattern involved, and probably ended up being far too hot to wear. I imagine it's now languishing in the bottom of one of her cupboards.

This was my favourite hat ever. Fitted perfectly, great for fieldwork, etc, etc, etc. It's a pattern called Sixty Cables.

I'm finding this all a bit too emotional though, as it was eaten by a mouse a couple of months back. It still hurts to talk about it.

The mouse is dead now. Revenge was mine.

I'm not so keen on this Beanie Brim Cap. No fault of the design: its probably because I ran out of yarn and the brim's a wee bit too small. Also I was probably a bit bitter at the time.

It's a cat, on a hat. It wasn't for me.

I don't have an updated picture of this sadly, but we abused the poor cat into giving him a body somehow, *and* a bendy tail. In fact, this is definitely the maddest hat I've ever made.

I realise it's too hot in Georgia to wear it, but SEND ME A PICTURE, LESLIE!

INSULATE!

Yes, those are Daleks, and no, as established above, I don't have any shame.


~

Next up... random accessories.

A visitor at New York Terrace

We are temporarily looking after a friend's Korean fire-bellied toad for a couple of weeks. He's very cute, but clearly a bit mental. His name is Midnight, but we prefer to call him Froglet or Jimmy (Jimmy-fire-belly, of course).

 

 

As far as I can tell, for food he opts for simply trying to kiss crickets to death, which seems fairly ineffective. Clearly attempting escape, he has also recently taken to trapping himself in the clingfilm at the top of the tank.

 

 

I'm becoming a little concerned that his odd shenanigans will mean he won't survive until his owner returns from the US. Fingers crossed...