Memorandum Monday: And We'll Have Pudding After All

Ah, Monday! A get-up-and-go-to-work day here. A take-care-of yourself-and-don't-stay-late day! (that would be from me). An I'll-be-fine, where's-my-tie? day (that'll be from him, after a break of ten weeks, easing slowly back to the office). We've spent more time together over the last couple of months than at any time since the summer we were married; and I'm not complaining. I have material for a December Memories journal all ready thanks to our extra two-some outings:

In fact, I started early:

and have been filling it with Christmas-in-November. You might remember this one

and there was this one:

and then we squeezed in some baking:

Ah. And at this point, I have to apologise, no excuses, to Mitra, to whom I promised a Christmas pudding recipe several weeks ago now. I completely forgot until I started putting this page together. What did I learn this weekend? That I can't rely on my memory any more. We scrapbookers have a word for that realisation. We call it opportunity. Don't want to forget? Write it down in any number of notebooks, make a page. Can't quite remember? Pull out an album.

Last year, at this time, I made a gift book for our girl, to mark her last Christmas spent at school. Quite a number of friends asked me how I felt about marking that moment in my life when I would no longer have any school children coming home with invitations to carol concerts and Saturday morning fairs. It felt like an ending; and I'm never good with those: but I had no idea how much of a beginning it wold show us at the time time. The race towards Christmas this year has already offered up some unexpected delights here and there are new possibilities for all of us opening up, revealing themselves already, for the new year.

Our girl came home to decorate the Christmas tree on Saturday. She made sure we had our traditional fish and chip supper once the tree lights were finally in place, before she disappeared to find some bright lights of her own. There'll be a page in that, though it's a story I don't expect to forget in a hurry...

....but I'm ramblin' on, when I had intended to post the Christmas pudding recipe for anyone who is curious. Everyone in the UK knows what it is and has a way of making it; but every year I get a question or two from farther afield, so I thought I'd leave it here, just in case.

Granny Fair's Christmas Pudding

Ingredients:

• 3 oz fresh breadcrumbs
• 3 oz self raising flour
• 3 oz Atora vegetable suet
• 3 oz brown sugar
• 8 oz sultanas
• 3 oz mixed peel
• 3 oz crystallised ginger
• 3 ox chopped cherries
• grated rind and juice of one orange 
• 1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 3 eggs

Method:

1. Grease bowl (2 pint mason bowl) and put disc of greaseproof paper in base
2. Weigh fruit and put in a casserole or bowl. Add orange rind and juice and cover
3. Weigh dry ingredients and put in another bowl. Mix thoroughly.
4. Add fruit to dry ingredients and sprinkle in spice.
5. Beat up eggs and stir in. 
6. Tip into greased mason bowl
7. Cover with two sheets of greaseproof paper and then a double layer of foil. Tie on with string, very tightly.
8. Steam or boil on hob for six hours
9. Remove boil from steamer and take off the cover immediately
10. When cold re-cover, ready to steam again for two hours on Christmas Day.

It sounds complicated. It isn't and this has been the Fair family pudding since the days of Great Grannie Fair, who went to Catering College with Delia Smith's aunt. Mmm..I wonder how it compares with Delia's recipe? I've never thought to check that..

A slightly different memo today! That's mine: how about yours? Anything new? Anything you learned that you didn't know before? You know the drill..

Deb, Helena, Mary-Lou, Ladkyis, Karen, Fiona, Maggie, Eileen, Alexandra, Barbara, Jane and Mitra made a memo last week. Go on, give 'em a wave! And have a good week!