Christmas Food!

Mulled wine syrup

James and I spent Christmas at my mum's house. It was lovely - lots of great food, drink and company. One of the most successful recipes we tried was Jamie Oliver's mulled wine. It involves making a syrup of dark sugar, a little bit of wine and clementine juice, as well as clementine peel, lime peel, lemon peel, cinnamon sticks and star anise. This means that when you add the rest of the red wine and orange juice you don't have to boil it so long, and save more of the alcohol!  It went down very well.

On Boxing Day, my sister made Christmas Pudding Apple Strudel. We had a bit of Christmas pudding left, and so she used it to make this lovely dessert. First she grated Bramley apples and cooked them up with cinnamon, allspice and ginger. Then, she layed out filo pastry sheets, using melted butter to stick them together, and covered them with the apple and crumbled Christmas pudding. She rolled it up, sprinkled it with sugar and cooked it for 40 minutes. It was delicious, especially with brandy sauce!