Mini Christmas Puds and a Tagine

I think it's okay to properly mention the C word now, yay Christmas!

The things I like most about Christmas:

1. The smell - delicious cinnamony, clovely, cranberry, evergreenness

2. The colours - Rich greens, deep reds, golds - lush!

3. The warmth - Cracking fires, warm house. I love coming in from the cold, unwrapping all the layers and snuggling on the sofa with a warm sweet drink.

4. Last but by no means least, the food! Smoked salmon canapes, pigs in blankets, spiced cider, herby sausage meat, roast turkey, roast ham, roast potatoes (!), onion gravy, chocolate truffles, bucks fizz, mulled wine.....sorry lost my train of thought....dribble dribble.

So this year the boy is coming to my parents for Christmas, very exciting. Usually it's just mum, dad and me eating so we have a lovely meal, but not too big, because the boy is coming there will be more food yay!

I'm not a huge Christmas pudding fan so mum and I usually have Sticky Toffee Pie instead. and dad will either get a small shop bought Christmas pud or won't get any! This year I have made two mini Christmas puddings for the boy and dad.

I followed this Delia Smith recipe. This is a slightly different recipe to usual Christmas puddings, I cooked it for two hours and have frozen it rather than feeding it with brandy each week. They are super cute half pint ones.

We had a really nice chilled out Sunday last week, this doesn't seem to happen that often! The whole day revolved around food. We had a nice fry up in the morning and spent the afternoon eating bread and cheese from the Walthamstow Framers Market. Then we went home to put on a Lamb and Apricot Tagine (inspired by the lovely Robyn at Biscuits and Blackites). I cooked the Christmas puds while waiting patiently for the tagine to cook. We cobbled it up with some coriander couscous and left over Ginger Chocolate Macaroons.

 We have had this tagine for ages but never used it. So glad we finally have because it was delicious and really easy to make.