Fruits + Vanilla + Memory Lane

I will start with a trip down memory lane, coming from a traditional Scottish family Christmas time there was certain foods that we always had and we associated with this time of year

Scottish Tablet or as we called it Swiss Milk Toffee

Its not a toffee at all and its not a fudge, it has a crumbly texture

 Its made with Condensed milk, sugar, milk and butter and once brought to a rolling boil you have to keep stirring it and once it has started changing colour you remove it from the heat and beat it until it starts to set.

It is very sweet and high in calories but a lovely treat.

There are plenty of recipes on the Internet for it.

Next is non alcoholic Ginger wine, mum was never a drinker the occasional snowball or cherry B, we never really had alcohol in the house, I am not really a drinker either , I always loved this drink again it was only made in the winter, Sophie over on My Empire Of Dirt reminded me of it the other day and I had a bottle of the ginger essence in the cupboard

This is so easy to make, sugar water and ginger essence, Its nice cold over ice and is also nice as hot drink on a cold day, I have know some have it with a tot of whiskey. 

If you want to give it a go they do the essence on Amazon.

Talking of essence I thought I would do some vanilla essence

I had some vanilla pods, sliced them down the middle, popped them in a small bottle and went to top it up with vodka, only to find there wasn't enough, I poured in what I had will pick up another bottle and top it up, shake occasional and it will be ready in a few months.

Yesterday we got into town to bank some cheques

and called into the fruit and veg wholesalers to buy a net of carrots for the animals

The dog has one every day and the goats and Alpacas have them, they are only a couple of pound for a big sack, we have a few of them as well

while we were there we picked up

 5 punnets of Raspberries for £1 now in the freezer

 Grapes £1 for this lot I am going to do some grape juice with them

Box of tomatoes £1 I will make up some Salsa I think

There was a box of apples £1 again we will feed them to the animals

Melon 60p

Cucumber 30p

It looks like its back in the kitchen preserving this week :-)