On the day of the Solstice (and a full moon! and a lunar eclipse!)

I made gingerbread trees for our table. I love making  gingerbread and trees are fabulous for an edible centrepiece. I make mine with spelt for an extra special nutty texture and flavour.

Spelt gingerbread
185g butter at room temperature
1 egg

450g plain spelt flour
170g brown sugar
1tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp ground ginger
1tsp ground nutmeg
1tsp garam masala
190g golden syrup

Place all of the ingredients in the bowl and mix together for 15 seconds on speed 4. Close the lid locked and knead for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and knead for another 30 seconds. Tip the dough out onto a silicone mat and knead together into a ball. Wrap in the mat and rest for half an hour. Roll out (I use a wooden rolling pin but you can use two pieces of baking paper if you like. I go for about half a cm (5mm) in thickness. Cut out 3 stars in 5 different sizes, place on the baking mat and bake at 180C for 10-12 minutes. Place on the cooling rack to cool.

To assemble a tree - melt 100g of chocolate (I use white but you can use milk or dark). Put the three largest stars together on the bottom, askew from each other, using the chocolate to cement them. Let it dry for a few minutes, then do the same thing with the next 3 sized stars and onwards upwards. Decorate with drizzled chocolate leftovers, or cashous, or icing sugar.

On the first day of Solstice, my Thelma made for me

On Forum Thermomix I posted:

I have 14 very juicy lemons...
So please, lend me your lemon recipes!!! for things that I can preserve. Or else that's a lot of lemon butter Wink Grin.

So I've used up a few things:
14 eggs
7 lemons
Lots of sugar
More butter than you need to know about

= 10 jars of lemon butter so far. Plus some extra for a smidge of a jar that is in the fridge for me. I really hope that this will help spread a bit of Solstice cheer around my lovely friends.

To sum up my approach to this season, here's a post I put elsewhere:

We hold our traditions strongly - celebrate the Solstice with food and candles and wishes for the new year, then Christmas day we volunteer in the morning as a family, and have an open house for waifs and orphans in the afternoon/evening with lots of food and drinks, and a Colin Firth marathon starting with Love, Actually. 

Probably the least "trad" way of celebrating but we've done it 5 years running now and love it. Low cost, low stress, genuine and sincere celebration of what Christmas means to us, and uniquely ours ;). This is my daughter's first and I can't wait to share it with her.

Part of it is also to cook and make many of the gifts we give at this time of the year. This year it'll be a lot of Thelma-assisted ones too.

Ask me how to pronounce quinoa

It's pronounced keen wa. It is not a widely known product but it should be. From the wiki on this:

...a species of goosefoot (Chenopodium), is a grain-like crop grown primarily for its edible seeds. It is a pseudocereal rather than a true cereal, or grain, as it is not a member of the grass family. As a chenopod, quinoa is closely related to species such as beets, spinach, and tumbleweeds.

Quinoa was of great nutritional importance in pre-Columbian Andean civilizations, being secondary only to the potato, and was followed in importance by maize. In contemporary times, this crop has become highly appreciated for its nutritional value, as its protein content is very high (12%–18%). Unlike wheat or rice (which are low in lysine), and like oats, quinoa contains a balanced set of essential amino acids for humans, making it an unusually complete protein source among plant foods.[9] It is a good source of dietary fiber and phosphorus and is high in magnesium and iron. Quinoa is gluten-free and considered easy to digest. 

It is a brilliant product. It looks fabulous and unfurls its little tale when it's cooked. It is so lovely to make a salad from and here's a recipe that is fabulous for Christmas or entertaining.

Festive salad
1/2C quinoa
900g water
1 cucumber, cut into pieces 2" long
1 tomato, halved
1 bunch of herbs (mixed is good but parsley, dill, oregano, mint or other fine-leaved herbs are lovely)
Zest of one lemon
Juice of lemon
20g olive oil
Pinch of salt

Put the water into the Tmx bowl. Add the basket and the quinoa into the basket. Cook for 12 minutes on Varoma temperature at speed 3. Remove and set aside in a large bowl to cool. Dry the bowl well! Add the zest and process for 5 seconds at speed 8. Add the herbs, tomato and cucumber, lemon juice and olive oil. Process for 2 seconds at speed 5. Yes that short - you don't want a cucumber/tomato dip! Add to the quinoa, taste and adjust seasoning. Serve - I like eating quinoa salad warm.

Salad days

While I mean it in the literal sense of the word, salad days means something completely different:

"Salad days" is an idiomatic  expression, referring to a youthful time, accompanied by the inexperience, enthusiasm, idealism, innocence, or indiscretion that one associates with a young person. More modern use, especially in the United States, refers to a person's heyday when somebody was at the peak of his/her abilities—not necessarily in that person's youth.

I mean it literally - it's been hot and strangely muggy here in Adelaide this week, and now it's damp, a little rainy and cool again. I did take the opportunity this morning to make guacemole from the EDC and then the beetroot salad which is (a) a mainstay of an demo and (b) absofreakingdelicious and (c) perfect for using some of my FoodConnect box which was positively flush with beetroot this week!

Beetroot is so amazing and fabulous to eat raw but there are so few easy ways to do so. Beetroot is a pain to work with but the Thermomix makes short work of it. Perhaps that's the best thing about the Thermomix - it makes food that is otherwise inaccessible much more accessible!