3 medium onions, peeled and diced
3 medium carrots, peeled and diced
3 stalks celery, plus the inner leaves, chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
4 tablespoons bacon fat or olive oil
4 cups / 700g mixed yellow and green split peas, soaked overnight
6 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons dried rosemary
2 teaspoons dried thyme
2 large or 5 small bay leaves
freshly ground pepper
2 quarts / 2 litres chicken or vegetable broth (stock)
1 quart / 1 litre water
1 lb / 450g ham, cubed into 1/2” chunks, optional
salt and pepper, to taste

1. In a large stockpot or saucepan, saute the onions, carrots, celery and garlic in the bacon fat or olive oil over a low heat with the lid on. Cook until the onion is translucent.

2. Drain the split peas and rinse them in cold water, then throw in with the vegetables.

3. Add the Worcestershire sauce, herbs, and pepper, then stir everything with a wooden spoon.

4. Pour in the liquid, raise the heat, and bring to the boil with the lid on. Once boiling, bring down the heat to a low simmer for about half an hour.

5. Add the ham and simmer another 45 minutes.

6. Once the peas have disintegrated, salt the soup and add more pepper, to taste.

This recipe comes with a no frills guarantee… Perfect Gingerbread. Low fuss, high moisture, delicate yet rich.

2 1/2 cups / 300 grams all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 stick / 120 grams butter, softened
1/2 cup / 100 grams unrefined cane sugar
1 cup / 250 ml dark molasses
1 tablespoon honey
1 cup / 250 ml boiling water
2 teaspoons baking soda (not baking powder!)
2 eggs, lightly beaten

You will need:

A non-stick 8 inches or 20 cm square cake pan
A sieve
2 large mixing bowls
1 small mixing bowl
A wooden spoon
An electric or hand whisk

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F / 180 degrees C / Gas Mark 4. Lightly grease the cake pan with butter.

2. Sift the flour, cinnamon, ginger and cloves into a bowl.

3. Beat the butter in the other mixing bowl with the wooden spoon until it’s creamy and smooth.

4. Add the sugar, molasses and honey and continue beating with the spoon until everything has blended.

5. In the small bowl, pour the boiling water onto the baking soda, then pour the frothy liquid into the sugary butter mixture, mixing well with the wooden spoon.

6. Add the flour mixture, and whisk with the electric or hand whisk.

7. Beat in the eggs.

8. Pour the runny cake batter into the pan and bake for about 50 minutes. The cake will be ready when a toothpick can be inserted and come out clean.

9. Take the gingerbread out of the oven to cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

10. Alternatively, turn the cake out onto a cooling rack, wrap it when cool, and serve at room temperature any time within a week of baking.

Some of our most cherished childhood memories center on food preparation, and Christmas is a fantastic opportunity for getting children into the kitchen. Homemade gifts have personal appeal, and with thought children can add their own twists to traditional recipes. This mincemeat recipe contains no alcohol but you can substitute the fruit juice for something stronger - with parental permission. It is also nut free and uses vegetarian suet. Reduced fat varieties are now available.

Mincemeat is a no-cook recipe and adapts well to the classroom setting – lots of weighing, chopping and stirring. You can add peeling too, if you would prefer to peel the apples – it is not necessary.

Stirrin’ Stuff Mincemeat

Makes 6 jars ready to bake your own mince pies!

What to find:

1 lemon
1 lime
Juice of 6 oranges (400ml / 2 cups)
100g / 1/2 cup dried apricots
100g / 1/2 cup dried cherries
750g / 3 1/4 cup mixed dried fruit
100g / 1/2 cup dried cranberries
350g light Muscovado sugar / soft brown sugar
250g / 1 1/4 cup light shredded suet (packet)
225g / 1 cup tart cooking apples, washed, cored and finely chopped (e.g. 1 large Bramley apple, or two small Granny Smith apples)
2 tsps cinnamon
2 tsps nutmeg

Kitchen Stuff:

Scales
Grater
Vegetable knife
Chopping board
Measuring jug
Large mixing bowl
Juice squeezer
Wooden spoon
Dessert spoon
Rounded-ended knife
Jam jars

What to do:

1. Wash the lemon, lime and one of the oranges. Grate the rind from the citrus fruits, but be careful not to grate the pith (white) of the fruits. Put the rinds into the mixing bowl.

2. Cut all of the citrus fruits in half. Twist the halves around a citrus squeezer to get the juice out. Put the juice in a measuring jug.

3. Weigh out the apricots and cherries and younger children can use a rounded ended knife to chop them into small pieces. Put the chopped fruit into the mixing bowl.

4. Weigh out the dried fruit, cranberries, sugar and suet and add to the mixing bowl.

5. Add the chopped apple, fruit juices and spices to the mixing bowl.

6. Place a damp cloth under the mixing bowl (to stop it from moving) and gently stir the ingredients together. Little stirs, keep everything in the bowl.

7. Cover the bowl and leave the mincemeat in a cool place for 24 hours.

8. Use a dessert spoon to carefully pot the mincemeat into sterile jam jars. Cover the jars with a lid and store in a refrigerator until use.

Tips:

Use equal quantities of dried fruits e.g. sultanas, currants and raisins.

Always cover wounds before cooking; this is especially important when juicing lemons because the juice can sting.

Adventurous Cooks:

Use a whole nutmeg to grate your own nutmeg powder. Find out what mace is.
Try changing the dried fruit – use chopped tropical dried fruits or dried blueberries instead.
Make ‘designer covers’ for the pots of mincemeat and give them away as Christmas presents.

©Stirrinstuff.

Isn’t this a beauty? Like Cinderella’s carriage, this dusty dusky pumpkin is full of magical promise. I think I’m going to make a pot au crème with it for Thanksgiving…

I’ll peel and cube it, then steam it until it’s very very soft. Then I’ll squash it through a sieve to make a very smooth pureè, and combine a cup of this mixture with 3 cups of heavy cream. I’ll throw the mixture into a pan with a vanilla bean that’s been split, a pinch of nutmeg and a tad of cinnamon, and simmer everything gently for 20 minutes.

Next, I’ll whisk 8 egg yolks with 1/3 cup granulated sugar in a metal bowl that’s sitting over a pan of boiling water for about 7 minutes, whisking and whisking to keep everything fluid.

Then I’ll mix the pumpkin stuff with the egg stuff, mixing it all in the metal bowl still suspended over the steam. I’ll leave it to cook for about 45 minutes, whisking everything every ten minutes and making sure everything is cooking as gently as possible.

Once it’s done, I’ll divide it equally between ten little old-fashioned tea cups, then chill them overnight in the fridge before sprinkling them with a little grated milk chocolate.

1) Get ahead: make brandy butter, mince pies, stuffing and cranberry sauce a week or two before Christmas: freeze them and thaw overnight on Christmas Eve. You can also cook mince pies from frozen if guests drop by
unexpectedly.

2) Cut turkey time: cook your stuffing in a baking tray to save time as an un-stuffed turkey cooks more quickly than one with stuffing in its cavity.

3) Juggle roast potatoes: pre-roast your potatoes for 40 minutes before the turkey goes in the oven. The turkey will need 20 minutes’ standing time tightly wrapped in foil to allow the juices to go back into
the flesh having risen to the surface during cooking. So during this time, turn up the oven to hot and pop your potatoes back in to finish roasting and crisp up.

4) One dish wonder: two weeks before Christmas make up and freeze two large lasagnes – one meat and one vegetarian. They will make a wonderfully warming supper and can be whipped out of the freezer and baked from frozen. Perfect if you suddenly need to rustle up supper –or for the day when you feel too tired to start from scratch. Simply serve with big bowls of mixed leaf salad lightly tossed in olive oil and sea salt.

Beat 2 eggs and 2 splashes of milk and pinch of salt.
Add 2 drops of vanila essence. (A-ha! That’s the secret!)
Dip the bread in and let it soak up the mixture on both sides.
Grate a nutmeg and a sprinkle on.
Heat sunflower oil in a pan and fry on a high heat.
(N.B. 2nd slice is always the best - Ive no idea why)

Once golden brown put on kitchen towel to remove excess oil and if you are feeling really naughty, sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar and/or cinnamon.

Now autumn is here, let’s enjoy some delicious baked apples! There are so many different types of apples. Some apples common to your area are rarely found in other places. Every temperate country seems seems to have a local cooking apple, whether it’s Bramley apples in England or Granny Smiths in California. Wherever you are located, reaching for organic apples means enjoying more flavor, more vitamins, more minerals, more enzymes and way less chemical waxes, chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides in every bite. Enjoy your Apple Volcanes!

Recipe by Fiona Bird

Makes 4 Apple Volcanoes

What To Find:

4 medium cooking apples
3 fresh apricots
1/4 cup (40g) seedless raisins
2 tablespoons toasted rolled oats
1 tablespoon runny honey
4 teaspoons butter
some extra runny honey

Kitchen Stuff:

Chopping board
Round ended knife
Fork
Mixing bowl
Wooden spoon
Apple corer
Ovenproof dish

What To Do:

Set your oven to 375°F (190°C /Fan 170°C /Gas Mark 5)

1. Cut a thin slice off the base of each of your apples so they sit flat.
2. Use an apple corer to remove the core. Take a fork and make four pricks around each of the apple sides. Put the prepared apples on an oven proof dish, e.g. a Pyrex dish.
3. Cut the apricots into small pieces and put them into a bowl. Put a damp cloth under the bowl to stop the bowl moving as you mix.
4. Add the raisins, toasted rolled oats and honey to the apricots and mix with a wooden spoon. Use your fingers to stuff the sticky mixture down the hole in each of the apples, working from the top. There is a maths lesson here… divide the mixture equally between the four apples. Push the mixture right down - you will be surprised how much you can push into each apple.
5. Put a knob of butter and a little extra honey on top of each apple.
6. Place the plate of apples in the preheated oven and bake for 30-40 minutes, depending on the size of your apples.

ALWAYS HAVE A GROWN-UP IN THE KITCHEN WITH YOU WHEN YOU COOK.

©Stirrinstuff