49/52

Maggie: hmmm, I am detecting a theme for my December portraits. The girls got to celebrate their second St Nicholas, and they are still as unimpressed by Christmas pjs. Chocolate on the other hand? They though the Lindt Santas were for cuddling though, so not sure how melted they will end up!
Elisabeth: She refers to Santa as Santa baby, always. They were pretty impressed with their loot. 
Rob took both of these photos again. 

Joining in with Jodi for the final four weeks of the 52 portraits.

We have a very busy week ahead. Grade 12 speech night and formal for the girl's older sister. Birthday party prep for Saturday. Can you believe they will be two on Friday? They can, both girls respond with a perfect "two" when we ask "how old are you going to be?"
We just started teaching them Happy Birthday, which they seem to enjoy very much. Elisabeth asks "again" so we sing it up to 10 times!

They have been very good about the tree really, they were so excited by everything, pointing out "birds", "socks", "balls", "Santa baby", and we're working on Reindeer.

Hut Christmas 2013 - St Nicholas

I have written before about my families tradition of celebrating St Nicholas on December 6th.

Today I got to watch our daughters open their gift from St Nicholas for the first time.

Given that they don't need shoes yet, they don't actually have any, so they couldn't clean them and put them out last night. Also I didn't think lollies and chocolate were appropriate for tiny wee babies, so instead I bought some Christmas pyjamas (after Christmas last year!) for them to wear from now until Christmas.

You know what I think Maggie realised she'd been ripped off, her face here seems to express some disappointment with her gift! Next year I might add some fruit to their goodies. Elisabeth was quite impressed with the box they came in.

Happy St Nicholas day to you!

Speculaas recipe

I've had a few requests to share the recipe I used for the Speculaas biscuits I made on Sunday.
It was Margaret Fulton's from her Christmas book (which I picked up for $10 at Coles last year after Christmas, love a bargain).

Ingredients:
3 cups plain flour, plus extra for kneading.
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I used freshly grated)
1/2 teaspoon ground aniseed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger or white pepper (I used pepper)
250g butter
1 and 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons rum or brandy
1 egg white, beaten
125g slivered blanched almonds, for decoration
Golden syrup (my addition) see recipe below.

Preheat oven to 190degC. Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, aniseed, salt and ginger or pepper together in a bowl. Beat the butter until creamy in a large bowl, then add the brown sugar gradually (well actually I just creamed the butter and sugar together cause I didn't read this step very carefully!). Beat until light and fluffy then stir in the rum or brandy.
Gradually add the flour and spices to the creamed mixture, stirring until combined, then form the dough into a ball. Unfortunately my dough was too dry so I added golden syrup until it came together.
Knead the dough on a board sprinkled with flour. Roll the dough out into a rectangle about 5mm thick. With a sharp knife or cutter, cut the dough into 6 x 3cm rectangles. Lay on greased baking trays, brush with the egg white and decorate with slivered almonds. Bake for 12 minutes or until they are brown and firm. Cool and store in an airtight container.
Makes about 40.

I did find an old issue of Gourmet Traveller that also had a recipe, they played around with the spice mix (adding ground green cardamom pods, and star anise in place of the aniseed). They also recommend popping the mix in the fridge overnight to allow the spices to mellow and really permeate all the way through the dough. You could even leave it up to 3 days! Traditionally the Speculaas are imprinted with images of St Nicholas or Sinterklaas with a special wooden mould- but apparently they are hard to come by in Australia.
They were quite easy, and nice and crisp and spicy. Perfect with a cold glass of milk.
Enjoy.

Happy St Nicholas Day

I've written before about my family celebrating St Nicholas day on the 6th of December.
Now we're passing on this tradition to the next generation. This morning Rob and I left some fruit, nuts and treats on the doorstep where his daughter lives. My sister sent me a cute text photo of my niece's tiny shoes (she's only 6 months old) with a packet of rice cereal sitting on top!

I've been in a symposium for the past two days, so have been trying to listen attentively to people talking, (perhaps not so successfully) and my heads done in. What I really would like to be doing is sitting on the window seat, in the late afternoon sun, with a cool drink. Not long now.

Christmas countdown & clean shoes

The countdown to Christmas has really started now. Sure, I’ve put up the decorations last week, we’ve got dried fruit plumping up in brandy for our Christmas cakes, and we’ve been shopping for presents for everyone (nearly there!) But on Saturday night we had to put our cleanest shoes on the back doorstep.
This is something I’ve done every 5th of December since I can remember. My mother is Hungarian and like many Europeans, her family has kept the tradition of St Nicholas. On the eve of the feast of St Nicholas, children have to put out their freshly cleaned shoes and if they have been good during the year St Nicholas will visit overnight and fill them with sweets or presents.
I’m the eldest of five children, so it was always a very exciting evening, as we all went about picking our favourite pair of shoes. Much debate was had over if we picked a big pair of boots whether we’d get more! I’m not sure about our polishing technique, but we set about it. We set our five pairs of shoes out either on the hearth, or near a window or the front door. We also (at my parents suggestion) left a glass of milk and biscuit for St Nicholas, a carrot for his horse (apparently that’s how he got around!) and a list for him to pass onto Santa. This last bit was a bit of blending- my mother’s Hungarian & my father’s Australian Christmas traditions- to help them on their shopping trips. I remember we struggled to sleep- thinking of what we might find in our shoes. Hoping St Nicholas hadn’t caught us misbehaving and thereby earning ourselves a stone instead of a lolly. As soon as the first of us woke up, we’d shake the others awake and run out to see what St Nicholas had left us: chocolate Santa’s, lollies, nuts, popcorn, chocolate coins, and fresh cherries. Then we’d spend the morning eating chocolates & lollies instead of breakfast.
I may be a bit older now, but St Nicholas hasn’t been able to give up the habit of visiting all of us each year- he even makes sure that some little treats get to my siblings in northern Tasmania & the UK.
So now I feel like I'm on the downhill run to Christmas -when do you feel like it’s the start of the silly season?