Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey is over on BBC and my Sunday nights just aren't the same! I'm slowly working through the contents of my DVR as the TV has really gone downhill lately. But, through my designs, Downton Abbey continues.  Maggie Smith as Violet is just fantastic - sarcastic, snobbish, crusty but surprisingly good hearted underneath that crusty exterior. The clothes in the series are really lovely and evoke the period really well.

Feather trimed hats were high fashion then and taking that inspiration, I have created a beret with a pheasant feather trim. Upper class ladies trimmed their millinery with feathers from their own estates and while my estate in Limerick does not support it's own game, I have tried to echo this tradition in my own designs

Another tradition was to embellish with jewels. Following the tradition of Queen Mary to adorn every possible surface of one's self with jewels, fashionable Edwardians extended this display to their millinery. The hats below nod to this tradition...

This hat is embellished with a 1950's ice blue and silver diamante brooch which can be removed to use on your coat, scarf, pin to your hair....
All of these are available on my Etsy account

A 2 hour Downton Abbey Christmas special will be shown on Christmas Day at 9pm! Can't wait!

Christmas puddings

I hope you all have made your Christmas puddings at this stage! The last Sunday in November is the traditional time to make your puddings. It was known as 'Stirabout Sunday' in times gone by as traditionally, every member of the family was supposed to stir the pudding before it was steamed to ensure good luck for the coming year. I have used the same pudding recipe for the past few years and it has never failed me. It's by Darina Allen, an amazing Irish cook. Her book 'A Simply Delicious Christmas' is available on Amazon and is well worth buying if you are into Christmas cookery.

My own slight modification to the recipe is that I steep the fruit for 2 days in a combination of whiskey (Jameson usually as I find scotch has too strong a flavour), Hennessy brandy and a slug of red wine to make up 70ml before I make the puddings. All the wrinkly dried fruit soaks up the alcohol and becomes fat,juicy and shiny nuggets of flavour in the pudding! Also, you can use Atora suet but I ask my butcher every year to keep suet for me and he does. If you use real suet, remember that any vegetarians will not be able to eat this!

Traditional Christmas Pudding – Recipe

Ingredients

Makes 2 x 1.8 litre (3 pint) or 3 x 1.2 litre (2 pint) puddings; The large size will serve 10–12 people, the medium 6–8
•350g (12oz) raisins
•350g (12oz) sultanas
•350g (12oz) currants
•350g (12oz) brown sugar
•350g (12oz) white breadcrumbs
•350g (12oz) suet, finely chopped
•110g (4oz) candied peel (preferably homemade)
•2 Bramley’s Seedling or Grenadier cooking apples, peeled and diced or grated
•finely grated zest of 1 lemon
•3 cloves, pounded
•pinch of salt
•6 organic eggs
•70ml (21⁄2fl oz) Irish whiskey/Hennesy cognac/dash of red wine
•110g (4oz) skinned almonds, chopped
•whiskey or brandy, for flaming

Method
1.Choose a large bowl. Mix all the ingredients together very thoroughly and leave overnight; don’t forget, everyone in the family must stir and make a wish! The following day, stir again for good measure.
2.Fill into pudding bowls, allowing about 4cm (11⁄2in) space at the top of the bowl; cover with a double sheet of pleated greaseproof paper, tie it tightly under the rim with cotton twine and make a handle for ease of lifting.
3.Steam the puddings in a covered saucepan of boiling water for 6 hours. The water should come halfway up the side of the bowl: check every hour or so and top up with boiling water. After 6 hours, remove the puddings. Allow to become cold and cover with fresh greaseproof paper. Store in a cool dry place until required.
4.On the day you wish to serve the plum pudding, steam for a further 2 hours. Turn the pudding onto a very hot serving plate, pour over some whiskey or brandy and ignite. Serve immediately on very hot plates with brandy butter.

If you don't want to make a big pudding, you can make mini puddings in small pudding bowls. I have also made puddings and Christmas cakes in muffin tins and they have turned out really well. They will keep for ages in an airtight tin and will freeze very well.

Red Cabbage!

So as I talked about yesterday, in order to keep busy, I'm making red cabbage today. This recipe is an old one form a book called 'Complete Traditional Recipe Book' by Sarah Edington. Ever wanted to make an Elizabethan Salad of herbs and flowers? How about Saloman Grundy? This is the book for you! Anyway the red cabbage recipe here is the best I've ever made. It keeps for a couple of days and freezes really really well. It's a lovely winter side dish and I am addicted to it. So, while my fascinators are not keeping my hands busy, a big batch of red cabbage for the freezer will!

Braised Red Cabbage
900pr red cabbage
1 sliced medium onion
50gr butter
1 crisp eating apple
1 large cooking apple
150ml red wine (leftovers from Saturday night in my case!) or stock
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon wine vinegar
6 whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 tablespoon soft brown sugar
few grinds of freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon mied spice (optional  - I added this to the original recipe as I love mixed spice)

Serves about 6

Method:
Remove outer leaves of cabbage and white pith from leaves. Shred finely and rinse under water.
Soften the onion over medium heat in large heavy pan with butter (don't let onion go brown).
Peel core and slice the apples and add to onion with all ingredients apart from cabbage and sugar.
After about 2 minutes, add cabbage and stir to combine.
Cover pan, reduce heat and cook slowly for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
When cabbage has a little bite left in it, stir in sugar and a knob of butter (optional).

As I said, this will freeze and reheat really well. Very handy to have it done ahead of Christmas Day!

Winter hats

Now that the winter has well and truly arrived in Ireland anyway, thoughts turn to cozy hats and winter wollies! I recently opened an Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/SarahMaiDesigns and thought that my days would be spent in Victorian industrial servitude, bent over a work station, ruining my eyesight coping with all my orders. My Phillip Treacy dreams are ebbing away I can tell you! There is so much out there, so many talented people beavering away on their own projects and producing really excellent crafts and designs that mine are getting a bit lost. So, I decided to start this blog. It won't just be about my designs, but about cookery, art, things to do, whats going on....I suppose a lifestyle blog is how you could categorize it. Random witterings of a slightly deranged Irish woman is another description...
So today it's just a general introduction to blogging for me and the best cookery book wrapping idea ever! Tomorrow I will be posting the BEST braised red cabbage recipe that can be frozen and reheats perfectly - something great to get in the freezer and out of the way for Christmas. This blog will be initially a countdown to Christmas, posting wrapping ideas, recipes and general Christmassy things in the run up to the 25th December. After that, only time will tell.

Today I saw this wrapping idea on http://pinterest.com/pin/147352219027657522/

I think it's fantastic - wrapping a cookery book in a fancy tea towel to give to a friend who is into cookery - how clever is that? I love when someone makes an effort with a present. You can get fabulous tea towels in TK Maxx now - a cut above the standard tea towel  in lovely stiff cotton with unusual designs and half the price of somewhere like Brown Thomas. I have some really pretty ones that I use to wrap my brown bread in when it comes steaming out of the oven! They never see a scrap of washing up.