12 Days of Christmas - Robin Covington

Done all your Christmas shopping yet? Baking? I've just done my last batch of shortbread (which turned out very well, if I do say so myself) and so now it's time to swap the rolling pin for my keyboard and get on with bringing you all Day Ten of:

The 12 Days of Christmas

Food and Romance

Blogging Extravanganza! 

My awesome guest today is Robin Covington. Robin is the author of hot and spicy romances and I've had the blessed good fortune to have her as a CP for the past little while. We've both made the leap into being published around the same time, and she has been an invaluable sounding board for me. Not to mention the fact that I love reading her books! You must definitely check out "A Night of Southern Comfort". The hero, Jackson, is drop-dead sexy. (And when you get to the end, you need to turn the page to the dedication, where *ahem* you might just see my name...! Still so totally chuffed about that.)

Robin has dug into her family vault for another treasured recipe -- this time something I've never heard of! But I'm thinking I want her to whip me up a batch of Divinity and send it my way!!

My Mama’s Divinity Candy Recipe

by Robin Covington

Thanks Emmie for having me today! 

In my house we are in full on Christmas mode and my kiddos are eagerly waiting for Santa to come bearing gifts of Legos, Barbies and Nintendo games.  Once I am off work on Thursday we will start baking, making Gingerbread houses, and making divinity candy for the holiday. 

The stunning decorations at Robin's house! 

If you’ve never had divinity candy – it is a sweet, airy confection – that melts in your mouth.  (If you don’t want to make it, I recommend ordering it from Savannah Candy http://www.savannahcandy.com/product/Classic-Southern-Divinity-Candy/)

My Mama made the candy when I was growing up but only at Christmas so it was a special treat that signaled the beginning of the holiday.  We would then spend the weeks leading up to the big day sneaking pieces out of the tins in the kitchen and hoping we didn’t get caught. (It’s a miracle we didn’t end up on the naughty list!)

Divinity is a southern tradition – like collard greens and corn bread – and I am proud to carry it on. This year my daughter is seven and I will have her help me with it and we’ll make our own memories. I am so glad that I have the family recipe to pass down to her and I look forward to sharing stories with her as we create the yummy treats.

Happy Holidays  and Peace in the New Year to you and yours!

Ingredients

2 cup chopped pecans
1 teaspoon pure vanilla
3   egg whites
3/4 cup cold water
1 cup white corn syrup
4 cup sugar

Directions
In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, stir together the sugar, corn syrup, and water.  Stir only until sugar has dissolved. Do not stir after this point. Cook syrup mixture until it reaches 255 degrees on a candy thermometer, bringing it to a hard ball stage.

While the syrup is cooking, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Once the sugar mixture reaches 255 degrees, carefully pour a slow steady stream of syrup into the stiffly beaten egg whites, beating constantly at high speed. Add the vanilla and continue to beat until mixture holds its shape, approximately 5 minutes.  Stir in pecans.

Using two spoons, drop the divinity onto waxed paper, using one spoon to push the candy off the other.  This may take a little practice because the technique is to twirl the pushing spoon, making the candy look like the top of a soft serve ice cream.  If the candy becomes too stiff, add a few drops of hot water.  You will need to work fast when making this type of candy.

Let sit for 30 minutes and serve.

The very best news from Robin is that she has a new book out! Just in time for Christmas, you can sample  her new wonderfully hot and romantic novella - Secret Santa Baby! 

Whoa! That cover!! Pass me the brandy custard, please, I've got some things I need to, uh, discuss, with "Santa"... 

And  don't forget my challenge to you all! As part of TDoCFaRBE I'm encouraging you all to undertake a Random Act of Kindness throughout the festive season. To make it super-easy, you can simply send Random Acts a donation and wear a smile all day.

12 Days of Christmas - Hayley Cafarella

Wow, is time whizzing past, or is it just me? It's already the Nine Ladies Dancing Day of:

The 12 Days of Christmas
Romance & Food
Blogging Extravaganza

We have something a little different here on TDoCRaFBE today! The lovely Hayley Cafarella isn't a romance author. She's a blogger, who blogs intelligently, humorously and bravely about her life with a chronic pain condition called CRPS. She's also recently discovered a love of cooking and food -- particularly in ways it can be healing and nurturing for your health.

When I asked Hayley to take part, I wasn't sure what angle she might take, but I didn't expect her to become a romance author. I should have known to expect the unexpected -- because that's exactly what she's done! A romance with a twist -- a romance with a pudding. Yep, you heard it right. Take it away, Hayley...

The Very Special Christmas Pudding: A Love Story

by Hayley Cafarella

This is the story of a very special Christmas Pudding. He is a pudding that captivates all who cross his path, teasing noses with his enticing scent and tantalising the tastebuds on every tongue he’s ever met. When he arrives, dripping with brandy custard and holiday happiness, hearts flutter and stomachs cry out in craving. Dark and mysterious, he’ll draw you in. Delightful and warm, he’ll fill you up. He is a pudding that has never once left a stomach, or a soul, unsatisfied.

His sugars and spices are shrouded in secret, the mystery as alluring as his flavour. Only one person holds the key to his locked heart of goodness. One very special person, for let us not forget, he is a very special Christmas pudding. She is my grandma, of course, grandmothers are the most magical of people.

I’ve known this special pudding for all of my life. Year after year, we’ve shared a sweet, Summer romance. I’ve dreamt about him in Aprils and Mays, longed for him in Julys and Augusts, spent Novembers bubbling in anticipation and Januarys grieving his absence. In spite of my yearning, he only ever visits on that one day in December and is gone in a flash, occasionally lingering until Boxing Day, but rarely beyond that.

Until now.

We all must grow up eventually and when we do, torches are passed, preparing us for the day when we must carry traditions towards future generations ourselves. This is the year that the secrets of the very special Christmas pudding have been whispered lovingly in my ear.

I knelt as the sword was placed gently on each of my shoulders, and as I stood, I felt the heavy pressure of expectation from the bellies of my extended family.

Could I really summon such a special pudding all by myself? Could I satisfy the people who love him so dearly, who longingly await his arrival every year? Could it be possible to get that magic into the recipe when I don’t even have children, let alone grandchildren?!

Armed with Grandma’s pudding bowl and handwritten recipe, I prepared to practise as many times as it might take to reach pudding perfection. I called on my very limited experience in dessert making, some helpful friends, and my Googling prowess to muster up the skill set that I needed. I visualised him, that delectable pudding prince and I vowed to cook with all of the passion that he stirs up, deep down inside me.

It takes a lot of special pieces to put together such a very special Christmas pudding. With a long list, including ingredients that I’d never before encountered, I hunted through the supermarket until I’d gathered all of the things I would need.

I bought my first bottle of Brandy that day, choosing her carefully from amongst her sisters on the shelf. Later on, I poured her over a bowl full of dried fruits, mixing them gently and leaving the sugary lovers to spend the night soaking in their combined state.

When I returned the following day to finish the job, my knees jangled with nerves. I agonised over every detail in the recipe, fitting the pieces into place in my mind and making sure I knew what I was doing.

No, there isn’t cream in the pudding, that’s the method it’s telling you to use on the sugar and butter...but, yay! Now there’s cream to serve it with.

I measured and grated, microplaned and mixed. I made bread crumbs from fresh bread and whipped up a sweet bowl of batter. I added juices and spice and everything nice. One by one, I worked through all the secrets of the very special Christmas pudding. He smelled so tempting as I introduced the soaked fruits and completed the mixing part of pudding creation.

Mixing

With the mixture sitting pretty in the heirloom pudding bowl, the time had come for the trickiest part. I needed to tie a foil top onto the bowl. No gaps would be tolerated, no tears or lazy knots. Grandma had warned me that this would be difficult and grandmothers never lie. Getting this right took two people and about an hour.

For five and a half hours, he steamed in a stockpot on the stove. It’s such a secretive method of cooking, with no windows into how he was doing in there. I’d never cooked any pudding before, let alone one this special, and it was all I could do to contain myself as I tried to be patient.

Finally, it was time to pull him from the pot. This also took two people, but only a couple of minutes. Quite surprisingly, neither of the people were burnt in the process.

The minutes slowed down as my first attempt at cooking the very special Christmas pudding sat cooling on the bench. I was so nervous and excited that I bounced around as I waited.

Now I know why you have pudding at Christmas! Because it’s a surprise! Look, it’s all wrapped up and I have NO IDEA if what’s inside is any good. The pudding is a Christmas food AND a Christmas present!!

Surprise!

With my eyes watering and my jaw clenched, I steeled myself towards the moment of truth. I took scissors to that painstakingly placed string. I tore back the foil to find out whether or not I remained worthy of my place in my family.

And there he was. It was really him.

He's HERE!

The very special Christmas pudding sat right there on my bench, beaming brightly with his powers of attraction. I wanted him immediately and in his entirety. I wanted to shove delicious chunks of him into my mouth until I could swallow no more.

The first bite was heaven in a mouthful. The perfection of such a very special Christmas pudding, combined with sweet relief and overwhelming nostalgia, created that certain feeling that Christmas is all about.

Mmmmm, Christmas spirit.

The very best thing about a practice pudding working out perfectly is being absolutely allowed to eat as much of it as you like! There are no family members to battle for it and no extra Christmas dinner guests trying to get their slice. He’s all mine, this very special Christmas pudding.

All mine at last.

My next venture into pudding cooking won’t be a rehearsal. Come Christmas day, I still have to convince the rest of the family that I’m up to the task of annually preparing such a very special Christmas pudding.

Will they still love him as much as I do? Only time will tell...

But for now, it’s just me and my practise pudding. My dark, delightful and delicious, practise pudding. Just as happy as a human and a pudding could ever be.

Lovers

Oh goodness, is it just me, or does everyone want a slice of pudding now? Don't forget to visit Hayley's blog to learn more about CRPS and all sorts of health-related topics. 

And  here's my usual reminder about Random Acts. As part of TDoCFaRBE I'm encouraging you all to undertake a Random Act of Kindness throughout the festive season. 

The latest hint from Random Acts is about all the pesky change that collects in purses and wallets at this time of year. Why not start a collection and dump it all into a jar or bag? Then, when it gets to a suitable size, drop it off at your favourite charity! 

Or you can simply send Random Acts a donation and wear a smile all day.

12 Days of Christmas - Louise Reynolds

It's my merry pleasure to welcome you to day Day Seven of: 

The 12 Days of Christmas

Romance and Food

Blogging Extravaganza! 

My wonderful guest today is Louise Reynolds, who is not only an amazing writer (her first book, Her Italian Aristocrat is out now with Destiny Romance and is a fantastic summer read) but a very lovely friend of mine. 

Louise and her family are going out for their Christmas feast this year. I have to say that my family have done that in the past, especially when we'd relocated and didn't have a lot of family and friends around -- going out to a restaurant seemed more cheery than sitting by ourselves. And it was! I have some very fond memories of Christmases spent in restaurants. And one of the best bits? No dishes to be done when you finish!  

A Different Christmas Dinner

by Louise Reynolds

For the first time, this Christmas we’re having Christmas dinner at a restaurant. I would be feeling really bad about this but as we’re going to Sydney and taking my mother, a restaurant meal is the only possible choice.

But it’s made me think of the Christmases of my childhood. My family circle has dwindled for a number of reasons and of late, come Christmas time, I find myself filling the empty spaces with the production of elaborate meals garnered from the latest cookbooks and magazines.

It wasn’t always like this.

My mother didn’t spend days flicking through food-porn to find the very latest in fashionable food to put before her family and guests. Early in December, a turkey and ham were ordered and a pudding and cake were made. On Christmas morning a kitchen table press-gang peeled mountains of potatoes, pumpkin, sweet potato and parsnip. Giblet stock and sage, onion and bacon stuffing were prepared. The ham had been ceremoniously cut days before, my mother using a lethal carving knife with the precision of a surgeon, peeling back the burnished flap of skin, assessing the colour and thickness of the layer of fat with the eye of a connoisseur and then taking the first slice. The ham was invariably pronounced either a disaster or the best ever.

The seriously alcoholic brandy sauce was also eagerly anticipated. Not for the faint hearted, this concoction of cream, brandy and golden syrup was so utterly delicious that I have been known to request ‘just a bowl of sauce, please’.

Buy links here!

My mother laboured over a meal that, if not set in stone, left very little room for negotiation. Not by a single oyster, sweet potato or glacé fruit did her children allow the meal to deviate from the way it was every year. The plum pudding was always turned onto the royal blue and gold Houses of Parliament serving plate and the silver dish that now sits on my dining table always held nuts ready to be cracked. Food, the notion of plenty, was the table decoration, with cut glass bowls of chocolates, nuts in the shell, cherries and glace fruit placed down the centre of the table.

But what I’ll be missing most is the fun. There won’t be any of that gorgeous silliness involved in our Christmas lunch in a 5 star hotel overlooking Sydney Harbour. No one will wear a pair of hinged cherries as earrings. I doubt that we’ll sport cheap paper crowns that slip tipsily to the side as the afternoon wears on. There may be bonbons but they’ll be civilised affairs. And everyone will be wearing shoes. No one will walk barefoot through a tangle of discarded wrapping paper on the living room floor until one of us inevitably steps on an evilly sharp little piece of plastic.       

But it will be Christmas. We’ll be with the people we love. And that’s enough.Merry Christmas, Emmie, and to all your readers. May the year ahead be filled with blessings of every kind.

Thank you, Louise! And  here's my usual reminder about Random Acts. As part of TDoCFaRBE I'm encouraging you all to undertake a Random Act of Kindness throughout the festive season. 

My tea-drinking peccadilloes are well-documented on the internet. The latest hint from Random Acts is written for coffee lovers, but it applies to tea lovers too! Why not spot someone their daily cuppa (whether camomile or caffeine!) and make their morning? Or you can simply send Random Acts a donation and wear a smile all day.

12 Days of Christmas - Sarah Mayberry

Welcome to day six of:

The 12 Days of Christmas

Food and Romance

Blogging Extravaganza! 

Halfway through! Is your Christmas shopping all done?? No, mine either. But on to happier topics...

My guest today is the absolutely awesome author and (I'm very proud to say) my SuperRomance stablemate, Sarah Mayberry! Sarah's heartwarming (and quite spicy) romances are the stuff of legend and like so many of my wonderful Extravaganza guests, her books are well-represented on my shelves. Sarah has not only brought us a wonderful tale about a family heirloom Christmas pudding, she's even provided the recipe! With all this recipe goodness we're serving up for TDoCFaRBE, there's no excuse not to be straight into the Christmas baking this year...

The Legend  of Nana's Christmas Pudding
by Sarah Mayberry

Before I start waxing poetic about my Nan's pudd, a big thanks to Emmie for inviting me to blog about something so close to my heart (and stomach). With Christmas just days away, I am about to launch into the marathon that is my Day of Pudding Boiling (you'll see why it's a marathon in a moment) so this topic is top of my mind right now.

The legend of my grandmother's Christmas pudding is a bit like Emmie's fruit cake story in that until they've eaten some of my Nan's pudd, many people don't realise they even like plum pudding. In fact, some people might even consider themselves avowed plum pudding haters (poor, deprived fools!). Usually this is because they hate sultanas or currants or some other variety of dried fruit. I must admit, if I was held at gunpoint  with bright lights trained on me, I might also confess to not being the world's greatest sultana lover, too. But all such considerations go out the window when faced with a bowl full of Nan's goodness.  There's something about the boiling process or perhaps it's the sheer simplicity of this recipe that results in a really lovely, rich pudding that isn't overly dried-fruity, even though it's chockas with the stuff. 

Put simply (and, of course, completely objectively) it is The Best Thing Eva. There's no fancy stuff in this recipe - no suet, or glace anything, or nuts or anything vaguely spicy. It's just dried fruit, brandy, eggs, butter, flour and golden syrup. And when it's been boiled for seven hours (six when you make it, one on the day of serving) it's moist and delicious and well worth the "I'm so full I'm going to be sick" feeling that is the inevitable end result of Christmas feasting for so many of us. 

I have no idea where this recipe comes from, but for as long back as I can remember, Christmas day at my maternal grandmother's house was always capped off by Nan unwrapping the pudding, drowning it in brandy sauce and handing it out to a table full of expectant relatives. Usually the pudding had been hanging in her pantry for a few months, maturing to perfection. Even as a child I knew to savor it, because unlike a traditional roast dinner, I knew I was only getting this pudding once a year. Needless to say, there was always  a queue for seconds, and the huge saucepan of brandy sauce never went the distance no matter how much Nan made. 

At a certain point Nan got too old to go through all the fuss of pudding making, so she passed the baton onto my sister, both my mother and my aunt having declared themselves not interested enough in cooking to master the art of the pudding. Once I saw that my sister could replicate my Nan's success, I got in on the act, too, and introduced my husband's family to the joy's of Nan's pudding. Now, every year my sister and I reserve a day to make our pudding. For that day, we are tied to the kitchen, watching our boiling pudding, adding water to the pot, generally fussing around this precious thing until its six hours in the hot seat are up. 

Unlike Nan, I have never tried to make my pudding early and leave it hanging for months to deepen the flavors, or whatever that's about. My sister lost a whole pudding to mold one year, and we both agreed it was too painful a process to risk that kind of attrition. So now we boil our puddings a week or two before Christmas and store them in the fridge. A little less romantic than Nan's way of doing things, I know, but very practical. We have also freelanced from Nan's recipe a little by increasing the amount of brandy we use to soak the fruit. Nan's recipe included only a few tablespoons of the good stuff. My sister and I both decided this was barely enough to dampen the fruit! So we glug a decent amount of brandy over the fruit so that it's got plenty of liquid to soak up and rehydrate with. The recipe below has been adjusted to allow for our heavy-handedness, so feel free to tweak to suit your own tastes. 

So, without further ado, here is Nan's recipe:

Nan Wade's Christmas Pudding

250g currants                           5 eggs

250g raisins                            1 tlbsp golden syrup

250g sultanas                          1 tsp carb soda

125g dates                                250 ml brandy

250g brown sugar                60cm x 60cm unbleached calico, available from most fabric retailers                                     

375g sifted plain flour              kitchen string

250g butter

Cut up raisins and dates so that all pieces are of an even size, about  the size of a sultana.

Mix all the dried fruits together.

• Pour brandy over fruit, mix well and let soak at least overnight. ( sometimes I let it sit 3 or 4 days as I build up to the big 6 hour boiling day)
• Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition.
• Add the soaked fruit & golden syrup , mix well.
• Add the flour and carb soda. Fold dry ingredients in.
• Boil the pudding cloth.  Sift flour over the surface of the pudding cloth to give the pudding a skin.
• Place ingredients in the centre of the cloth and tie up with kitchen string, looping it tightly around the "neck" of the pudding several times, nice and tight.  Place a saucer on the bottom of a very large stock pot and bring water to the boil. (This stops the pudding from "catching" on the bottom of the pot.) Put the pudding into the rapidly boiling water on top of the saucer, and put the  lid on immediately. The pudding will float, but don't worry about that. I usually use water up to about the string line.  Boil the pudding rapidly for 6 hours.  The water must never go off the boil, so replenish from a boiled kettle if necessary, being careful not to pour water directly over the tied neck of the pudding, as it can get  a bit soggy there if water seeps in. 
• At the end of the cooking time, lift the pudding from the water and store in the fridge until the day of serving. On the day of serving, boil the pudding for a further hour to heat it. To serve, cut the string and peel the cloth away from the pudding. Cut into wedges and serve with brandy sauce and vanilla ice-cream. 

The brandy sauce we make to accompany this is basically a sweetened white sauce with brandy added - milk thickened with cornflour, sweetened with sugar, and the brandy added to taste. 

If you are tempted to give this a try, I promise you you won't be disappointed - it comes out a gorgeous golden-syrupy color and tastes so rich and delicious. I cannot wait till Christmas day now that I've written this all up - yummm! Sadly, I only have the  one picture of my pudding from last year. This year I will take many more so I can show it off with pictures as well as words next time anyone is foolish enough to ask about my Nan's pudding.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I'm sure Sarah won't mind me book-ending her post with a little reminder about Random Acts. As part of TDoCFaRBE I'm encouraging you all to undertake a Random Act of Kindness throughout the festive season. 

The latest hint from Random Acts is a lovely one -- why not give someone the gift of your time and attention and make a visit to your local nursing home or to an elderly neighbour?  

Or you can simply send Random Acts a donation and wear a smile all day.

12 Days of Christmas - L.A. Johannesson

It's Day Four! Welcome to:

The 12 Days of Christmas

Romance and Food

Blogging Extravaganza! 

My guest for today is L. A. Johannesson, author of the fabulous tale, eloves me, eloves me not -- an inside look at the world of online dating. In eloves me, eloves me not, 39 year old singelton, Kayte Wexford dives fingers first into a sea of online dating, instant messaging and email exchanges where she connects with some charming, hilarious, bizarre and downright frightening characters. Just like yesterday's guest, Joan Kilby, L.A. is a Canadian who's adopted Australia as her home. She's got a lovely story about her family Christmas traditions. Take it away, L.A.!

The Sweet Season

by L.A. Johannesson

Christmases past hold some of the happiest memories for me. I can remember bursting with anticipation, waking every morning in the lead up to open that next window on the Advent calendar or breaking the link on the Christmas countdown chain.

It was full of anticipation, preparation and celebration. The season was all about festivities, family, fun and food. Even as a child, I noticed that everyone seemed just that extra bit nicer, more generous, more jovial, just more of all things nice. When questioned, my Mother humoured me with the explanation that people were sweeter at this time of year because they consumed more sugar than normal from eating all those Christmas treats.

Growing up in Canada, I recall the cold and blustery Christmas snowstorms and hoping and praying for a White Christmas. I remember tossing off icy mittens and warming up by a roaring fireplace with spiced hot apple cider in hand. To this day when I smell cinnamon, a fresh mandarin orange or a pine tree, I am instantly transported back to those special yet simple times.

Come early December, my mother would enlist my help with the Christmas baking. Over the course of two or three weekends we would prepare a selection of sweet treats to be enjoyed at holiday parties, given as gifts and left out for Santa. To honour those special times with my Mother in our humble little suburban kitchen, I’m sharing two of our favourite recipes with you.

My personal favourite? Nanaimo Bars (a Canadian tradition) a no-bake, chocolate, butter cream bar on a base of graham cracker crumbs, cocoa and coconut: here’s a video recipe!

http://www.joyofbaking.com/NanaimoBars.html

The Whipped Shortbread was Mom’s top pick. They were no roll, no cut, no muss, no fuss, yet retained all the same taste of buttery goodness of a traditional shortbread. They were light, airy and just melted in your mouth. We would add red or green sugar sprinkles for a more festive touch.

http://foodie.ca/2010/12/14/whipped-shortbread/

Once made, the treats were stored out of sight locked in the freezer. Mom would have to hide the freezer key as us kids had a habit of raiding the stash.

There was one year when my teenage brother just couldn’t take it anymore, He wanted those treats so bad. Not being able to find the coveted freezer key, he actually removed the freezer hinges instead, allowing just enough room to pry open the freezer door, reach in, pinch a few and satiate his craving.

 

Yes, they were THAT good!

However you celebrate the holiday season, I hope you enjoy it. Merry Christmas.  Remember whether you eat these treats or not,  ‘tis the season to be a little sweeter.

Where to buy eloves me, eloves me not.

Don't forget, as part of TDoCFaRBE I'm encouraging you all to undertake a Random Act of Kindness throughout the festive season. Don't miss the very helpful hints Random Acts is providing on all kinds of acts of kindness you can perform. Or you can simply send them a donation and wear a smile all day.

12 Days of Christmas - Joan Kilby

Bonjour! 

I'm so thrilled to welcome you to Day Three of:

The 12 Days of Christmas

Food and Romance

Blogging Extravaganza! 

It's my absolute pleasure to welcome my guest today, Joan Kilby. Joan is renowned for her heart-warming romances and she's one of my fellow fantabulous SuperRomance authors.

What some people might not know is that Joan is an adopted Australian -- she grew up in Canada. She's here today to tell us about some of the differences she's noticed between Canadian and Australian Christmases AND she's giving away an absolutely fabulous recipe for panforte! Thanks Joan!

Christmas Dinner -- Canucks versus Aussies

By Joan Kilby

When I was growing up in Canada, Christmas dinner meant a 25 lb roast turkey, stuffing--or dressing as we called it--mashed potatoes, cooked vegetables, home-made bread rolls, and from the German Mennonite side of the family, bubbat, a raisin-laced, doughy, cakey stuffing that, along with everything else, was drenched in lashings of gravy made from pan drippings. This was followed by homemade pies--pumpkin, apple and plum. Also, Christmas cake, shortbread, mince tarts, Nanaimo bar and butter tarts. Whew!

We Canucks need heavy food at Christmas to create a layer of blubber as protection against the long cold winter in case we get caught in a blizzard and have to live off our fat reserves for a week or two. In Vancouver (where I’m from) you would be more likely to drown from forty days and forty nights of rain but the blubber would still come in handy as a built-in flotation device if you were swept away by the deluge.

Fast forward to present day Australia. I’ve lived here for upwards of twenty years but I will never get used to having Christmas in summer. Every year I think wistfully, This year I’ll make a hot turkey dinner. Then I look at the weather forecast. I’d have to be crazy to swelter in the kitchen all day when it’s 35 C outside! Yes, sometimes it rains on Christmas day in Melbourne but it still doesn’t feel like Canada. Probably what I’m really pining for is my lost childhood but that ain’t coming back. So I have another dip in the pool before I put on the barbecue. After all, it’s Christmas.

I serve cold roast chicken, sliced baked ham and half a dozen different salads. I love the Aussie tradition of seafood at Christmas so barbecued prawns with chilli, ginger and garlic are a favourite starter. Dessert is a fruit platter and my own homemade panforte, the spicy Italian fruit and nut cake. All in all, it’s a lot lighter and healthier than turkey with five starches.

Here is my recipe for panforte which I’ve adapted from several recipes. Classic recipes use fruit peel and glace fruits but I prefer dried fruits. It makes a great Christmas gift, or an energy boost when you’re starving but you’ve still got pages to write before you can call it a day. It’s a lot of work but it’s so worth it.

Joan's latest book is "To Be A Family" and it's out right now in Australia.

Panforte  

400 g whole blanched almonds, toasted and kept hot to help with mixing

200 g macadamias, also toasted and kept hot

200 g raw pistachio nuts (you could also include hazelnuts)

200 g raisins

200 g currants

540 g mixed dried fruit chopped coarsely- figs, pears, apricots, pineapple, craisins - your choice. I like a bit of crystalized ginger for an extra kick

200 g plain flour

20 g cocoa

2 tsp cinnamon  (I use heaped teaspoons of all the spices cuz I like it spicy)

1 tsp white pepper

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground ginger

300 g dark chocolate, chopped

30 ml water

300 g honey

200 g caster sugar

Method:

- preheat oven to 160 C

- line a 20 x 22 x 4 cm pan with baking paper or edible rice paper sheets

- toast nuts, timing them so they’re ready when everything else is ready to be mixed together.

- in a large bowl, mix the nuts, dried fruit, flour, cocoa, spices and chocolate. I mix the flour, cocoa and spices separately first to make sure they’re evenly mixed.

- bring the water, honey and sugar to boil and pour over mix in bowl. This will be thick and dryish. Don't be tempted to add extra liquid.

- Mix well.

- press into the tin, using a sheet of baking paper or oiled fingers to pat it out. Careful, it's hot! Or press down with half a cut lemon which gives a nice zing to the finished cake.

- Bake for 35 minutes until the top is covered in fine blisters.

- when cool slice thinly to serve

YUM!

Don't forget, as part of TDoCFaRBE I'm encouraging you all to undertake a Random Act of Kindness throughout the festive season. During December, Random Acts is very helpfully making suggestions for all kinds of acts of kindness you can perform. Or you can simply send them a donation and wear a smile all day.

12 Days of Christmas - Ebony McKenna

It is my absolute pleasure to welcome my first guest in Day Two of this year's

12 Days of Christmas 

Food and Romance 

Blogging Extravaganza 

Welcome, Ebony McKenna! Ebony is not only an amazing author of fun and fantastical YA novels, she's an awesome critique partner and friend. Ebony is joining TDoCFaRBE with a tale of a family favourite recipe, perfect for those Christmas leftovers...

Ebony McKenna

Turkey Curry For The Win!

by Ebony McKenna

I’m so excited to be part of the fabulous Emmie Dark’s 12 Days of Christmas, where we get to share some of our Christmas traditions with the world.

If you know me from Twitter, Facebook or even real life, you’ll know I love curry pies. But my all time favourite curry is the turkey curry my mother-in-law makes for Christmas.

It’s a properly English curry as well, so it has sultanas in it. On paper it sounds a little bit horrid, doesn’t it? Admit it, even the headline made you squirm. But this really is one of those ‘you can’t know until you’ve tried it’ dishes that is honestly divine.

This is the dish we all look forward to every festive season. The original roast turkey (which is all kinds of awesome) is served for Christmas lunch, but it’s two days later that the extra magic happens. All that delicious left over roast turkey is sliced up and sauced up with the previously mentioned sultanas and not-previously-mentioned celery chunks.

Just the way to use up your leftover turkey!

Over the decades, dozens and dozens of people have tried it and loved it. Another tradition my mother-in-law has is to invite loads and loads of people over for December 27, to help us get through the leftovers. The biggest was 35 guests. She had tables running the length of the dining room and down through the front lounge. Thank heavens for open-plan living. We could all see each other and wave down the length of the table. Then conversation died completely because we were too occupied with the curry.

Because we’re in Melbourne, we never really know what the weather is going to be like. When it’s a superhot summer, the air conditioner is belting, the paper hats are sticking to our clammy scalps and we all end up in the pool later on. If it rains (and we had massive hail storms last year on Christmas Day) it’s even better to eat curry while listening to the rain lashing the roof.

One day, I’ll have to take over the reins and it will be my turn to make the turkey curry. I am going to have to ask her for the recipe because there’s no way I can wing this. I’m going to have to do the work and get it right. The pressure will be on, for sure.

But not yet. This year I still get to enjoy it without any of the stress.

Oh, and another tradition? The husband and I are so thoughtful about helping the family clear the leftovers, we take empty food containers so we can bring some home.

May your Christmas, Hannuka, Festivus and New Year be full of feasting and fabulous traditions.

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Don't forget, as part of TDoCFaRBE I'm encouraging you all to undertake a Random Act of Kindness throughout the festive season. During December, Random Acts is very helpfully making suggestions for all kinds of acts of kindness you can perform. Or you can simply send them a donation and wear a smile all day.

A Luscious Christmas

My lovely friends at Luscious have made me a Christmas wishlist gallery, with lusciously gorgeous pictures of all the things I'd like Santa to bring me. I wished for indulgent things like expensive lingerie and scented candles, reasonable things like pretty cupcakes and a nice cup of tea, and impossible things like Hugh Laurie and Jensen Ackles. If you're on Facebook you can check it out here. Otherwise, you'll just have to soak in the thumbnail goodness of this gallery pic:

Baking and trophies (but not trophies for baking)

I have never been a sports-minded kind of girl. (Except when it comes to watching some sports, like baseball, for obvious reasons like CJ Wilson.) So my childhood/teenage bedroom, whilst exceptionally stylish, was never filled with trophies. I was a musician and scholar, so I had certificates, and ribbons, and funny colored-cardboard meritorious achievement slips from the local Eisteddfod, but I didn't have trophies.

But now, in my office, I actually have a shelf set aside. Yes, it's only taken forty years, but I finally have a trophy shelf. Check it out:

The latest trophy is the one on the right -- for First Book Sale from the lovely ladies at MRWG - the Melbourne Romance Writers Guild. Next to that, in the middle, is another MRWG trophy -- for the Joan Hunt Award which I was presented with last year. It's an award that's given each year to the member of the group who's put in the most effort during the year. This year the trophy went to the amazingly talented and prolific Charlie Kramer from an outstanding list of contenders.

The trophy on the left is for my RWA Australia Emerald Award, presented at the RWA conference mid this year. (Which, incidentally, is how I ended up with Cassie's Grand Plan coming out with SuperRomance!)

The MRWG trophies are presented at the annual Christmas party, which is a wonderful meeting where the group gathers together to celebrate the achievements and wins throughout the year. I've been a member of MRWG for four years in January (gasp!) and I have learned so much and met some lovely people as a result. I know writing groups are not for everyone, but for me, having a monthly meeting to hold myself accountable for meeting goals and writing a set number of words was really helpful. Writing is a very solitary thing, and for people like me who need a measured amount of interaction with actual human beings, getting together with a like-minded group of people regularly was a life-saver.

The MRWG gals have encouraged me, commiserated with me over too many knock-backs and rejections to count, and celebrated with me when the cards finally fell into place.

So, where's the baking in all this, I hear you asking? Well, no Christmas party would be complete without a table groaning with delicious goodies, and the MRWG party is no different. This year I made "Honeycomb Cream" cupcakes. I love a good Women's Weekly recipe -- they just always turn out well and the decorations always seem achievable.

Here's what mine looked like:

Carving up the Violet Crumble for the topping was actually quite good fun.

I was pleased with how they turned out compared to the picture in the book. (Again, thank you Women's Weekly.) Brown cupcake cases would have looked nicer, but the silver gave them a Christmassy look and I put them on a gold plate to serve them up.

This weekend I'm going to be baking my Christmas cake, with fruit that has been soaking in Grand Manier for almost three weeks. It's going to be 30 degrees (85F) or something fun like that, so having the oven on for three hours is not the best idea, but that's Christmas in Australia for you.

Hope your Christmas plans and preparations are all going well.

Feeling Christmassy

If you celebrate Christmas, I'm betting you're either a person who love, love, loves it, or a person who hates, hates, hates it. Christmas, in my experience, tends to be a polarising thing. And the reasons for each extreme are varied and complex.

Personally, I generally come down on the loves, loves, loves side. But as I get older (insert sound of creaking bones) I am finding it harder to snare that elusive Christmas spirit and find it gets closer and closer to actual Christmas time until I start to *feel* the Christmas.

This year I'm surprising myself by already beginning to come over all Christmassy. A friend recently posted her Christmas cake preparations on Facebook -- and the photo of glossy dried fruit soaking in a bath of scented alcohol was enough to make me breathe in deep and begin preparing my shopping list for Christmas baking. I also headed out and bought a couple of expensive food magazines so I could begin to drool and plan the family Christmas meal.

I'm in Singapore right now and I think that's definitely helping, because apart from some places in Eastern Europe in winter, I've never seen a city so totally embrace the celebration. Singapore is Christmas on steroids! Take a look at some of the fantastic pics I've snapped over the past couple of days. Unfortunately the camera can't really do justice to the spectacular scene that it is!

I cant' wait to get home and put up my Christmas tree. It's not too soon, is it?