Recipes - Maria Runs

Home-made gifts

Hey peeps!

I am about to get on with a big mountain of present wrapping. This year I have made a few home-made edible gifts too, so thought I would share them with you.

First up, Christmas pudding fudge. Do not be scared of making fudge! A sugar thermometer makes it easier, but if not you can test that the sugar has reaches the soft ball stage by putting a little bit in cold water, and seeing what the texture is like.

I just add in a bought pudding (as they are cooked), but you could add your own mixture of dried fruit, nuts and spices.

Last week I made some candy cane fudge.

This was the same basic fudge recipe- 100g butter, 450g light brown sugar and a tin of light condensed milk, melted together in a pan to 113C.

Then I added 100g dark chocolate and a drop of peppermint extract, and then beat with an electric whisk. It went crumbly very quickly- the chocolate must change the texture. I then poured it into a lined brownie pan.

I crushed up some peppermint candy canes (think they were from Sainsbury’s) and some chocolate, and sprinkled this over the top while the fudge was warm.

The chocolate melted and then stuck the candy cane pieces to the fudge. It looked so pretty!

Spiced nuts are always a favourite of mine too. Last year I made some gorgeous spiced nuts with cranberries and coconut. This year I tried out a new recipe from The Pink Whisk, for honey roasted nuts, but I think I prefer the other recipe (I did add in some cinnamon). These had to bake for 45 minutes in total, which seems a long time for nuts I think. I tried a few and they are still tasty.

You can’t see the nuts that well as the tags are in the way- oops!

Last night I spent some time making some Christmas chocolates. I saw that Laura made some chocolate coated figs, and I had some figs in the fridge. Although I missed off the salt in the end.

On Sunday I was down in Southampton while Andy was at the football. I only wanted to pick up some candles in Ikea for my parents, but I ended up picking up a few treats too. Those little flower things are tea infusers- they are meant to float in your cup.I also bought some cute little spotty bowls, marzipan oat rolls (just to try them), and some marzipan and chocolate alongside a recipe card for marzipan treats. And Dime bars. I was very excited to see these back again, as the last few times I have been to Ikea they only had their own brand ones which were not as good (we tried them). Oh, and mince pie filling from Holland and Barrett! Anyway, the point of that is that I did the marzipan and figs together.

I melted the chocolate to dip the figs in, and then had a bit of fun with my chocolate mould tray making little marzipan sweets.

I melted the chocolate, put some in the mould, then added a little bit of marzipan (and sometimes a dried cherry too) and then topped with more chocolate.

The figs are on the left- baking paper on a table mat for them to harden on.

I added a little white chocolate star to them too, just to make them look more festive. And I had a little bit of marzipan left so just made them into balls to dip into the last bit of chocolate.

They popped out of the mould really easily too.

Yum- looking forward to having some of these as a snack later when I watch The Snowman- my favourite Christmas Eve tradition. (I will take some for my parents too- they are not all for us!)

Finally, I made a gingerbread house!

Er, it didn’t go quite as planned. I think the icing was too runny, so the first time I put the roof on it fell off.

Then the front sort of caved in a little bit, but I don’t think you can tell!

This is really a present for Andy, as he loves gingerbread.

Literally right after I finished this, I watched the Bake off Christmas special, and they made a gingerbread house. I have never thought of it before, but they decorated it before they put it together. No drippy icing troubles. I shall have to remember that for next year!

Note to self- it is not a good idea to get out the Christmas table cloth right before getting royal icing all over it…

One year I made some gorgeous apple and mango jam too- no time this year so will save that for another time. It was a good flavour to go for as I have not seen it in shops so it made a change.

Right, after being cooped up inside all of yesterday I am going to head off on a run as the rain seems to have stopped. I went for a gentle one on Saturday and it seemed to go OK, so I am easing back in gently, and doing my stretches too.

Have a lovely Christmas Eve!

What home-made presents do you like to give or receive?

Baked apple with ginger

Last week I was sent a gorgeous hamper from Flora.proactiv.

It contained all the ingredients needed to make this lovely recipe; baked apples with ginger.

It also contained some Christmas treats.

A heart shaped baking dish and chopping board, a pestle and mortar set and a fab Christmas apron (which I have been wearing a lot!). I felt very lucky unpacking it all.

The recipe was very simple to follow, and smelled wonderful when the apples were cooking. I love baked apples but I have never added water while they are cooking- perhaps that is where I have been going wrong?

The dates and ginger were stuffed into the apple cores, then the Flora.proactiv, honey, ground ginger and orange zest was mixed up ready to be spread over the cooked apples.

I loved the combination of apples and ginger- very warming and wintery. I love the way the apples pop up and burst out of their skins. The orange zest was a great addition too- I would not think to have apples and oranges together.

Are you a fan of baked apples? I always forget about them and then when I have them I love them. They are especially good with some custard.

Perfect pasta and baths for the win

Hey everyone, I hope you are all doing well.

Since I visited the physio I have been trying to have regular baths. Now, I am not that good in the bath- I don’t like sitting around and I generally get too hot, plus it always takes longer than a shower. To make the time pass quicker I have sorted out a temporary measure- (and also because I am getting behind on my marathon talk listening as I usually listen on my long runs)- I have worked out that I can use my running headphones (they loop around my ears and won’t fall out) and tuck the mp3 player into my hair bun (mental blank- can I just call it a bun?) and then, success- I can listen to a podcast in the bath. Hooray.

I was kindly sent some bath salts (magnesium flakes) last week from Better You, what perfect timing. The instructions were to pour the whole packet (250g) under running water and then soak for 20-30 minutes. I didn’t take a photo of them in the bath, but they looked like coconut flakes- really huge chunky bits of salt, but they dissolved really well.

I also really liked the packaging- nice and bold and clear. They are available online and I think quite reasonably priced compared to the Epsom bath salts I have bought before. Something to add to my Christmas list as well, as I think I may need to carry on with the baths when I start running again.

We have also been enjoying plenty of pasta, thanks to this very generous package from Sainsbury’s.

My favourite has been the wholemeal spaghetti- we have enjoyed it with lovely Zest green pesto, courgettes and peppers. I had a lovely meal the other day with some Zest sundried tomato pasta, avocado and cherry tomatoes. It sounds like a strange combination, but seriously it is lovely.

Today I had mountains of work to do, and Andy was out, so I needed a quick and easy dinner (usually I am very lucky in that if I am working Andy will sort my dinner out for me)- I baked some herby tofu and some butternut squash, and then cooked up some of the chunky pasta tubes. Some red pesto stirred in to the cooked pasta and voila! A quick and delicious dinner. I was making some more honeycomb while it was cooking…

Bubbling away!

Anyway, of course it was ready just as the timer pinged for the pasta, but even though I left it for a little bit the pasta was still perfectly firm.

Just what I fancied.

I look forward to trying all the other pasta types- we don’t have enough cupboard space to have all the packets on the go at once, so it may take a while!

I am starting to feel very antsy indeed with no running for over a week now. At the moment I have zero pain, and although I feel I am moving cautiously, I have felt fine and am sure I could run if I wanted to. But I don’t want to start back too soon and make it worse. I have not booked another physio appointment yet- I keep getting home too late to call. I am going to give pump a miss tomorrow, as I think the squats and lunges are not a good idea, but I might try a gentle run on Friday. It is my local Parkrun’s 100th run on Saturday, but I am not going to that as I have the Jingle Bell Jog on Sunday which I want to be fine for, and I know I will be tempted to push too hard at Parkrun. The race is a 5K, and we have to wear Santa suits, so no pb chasing- I shall be running gently and possibly aiming for my slowest 5k time. But hopefully it will be fun and festive- I have never run a race in fancy dress before so I am looking forward to it.

Also, I got my first Christmas card today! To be fair it was from my cousin who has moved house, so partly it was so I had his new address, but I am still so impressed with their efficiency. I think that is another job for the weekend!

Honeycomb experiment

So for years I have wanted to make honeycomb, but all the recipes I have seen have sounded too scary, and have included weird things like glucose syrup, which I have not even seen in shops. Imagine my delight when the latest Waitrose magazine included a recipe for honyecomb, and all it needed was sugar, golden syrup and bicarb. I had to give it a go!

All it needed was 100g sugar and 4 tbs golden syrup- it ended up being very sticky so I think next time I would only use 3, but that is the trouble with volume and not weight amounts. Anyway, you heat it up until it reaches 140C, and then beat in 1 1/2 tsp bicarb with a wooden spoon. I had lined a large baking tray as I had no idea how much it would puff up, but a normal one would have been fine. It did spread quite a bit, so a smaller tray with high sides would have been better for chunkier pieces.

It didn’t take that long to set, so then I went about breaking it up and dipping it in melted chocolate.

Then I took it into work today, and it was gone by lunchtime!

I am so pleased with how it went, and now I have another item I can make for Christmas gifts.

In other news, my hip has been better today, but still not right. I am a bit worried about the physio appointment tomorrow (I hate that sort of thing anyway), especially if the pain is all gone. I am hoping she can work out what it is even if I can’t feel it any more.

To stop myself being tempted by pump I booked a haircut this evening, so after work I raced over to Welwyn, sat in Starbucks listening to marathon talk (I am so behind, but I heard my recap of the Brighton 10K- they liked my Royal Flush negative split!), drinking a chai latte, before going to the hairdressers. Then we are packing as tomorrow evening we are getting the Eurostar for a weekend of Christmas markets in Europe. Exciting!

Anyone been to a physio before? What shall I expect?? Also what shall I wear- I don’t even have tracksuit bottoms…

Have a lovely weekend!

Pumpkin pie slices

So, at this time of year I love to make a pumpkin pie. But I am not much of a pastry fan, so I sometimes make one with a sort of cheesecake base instead. On Friday evening I decided to get baking, and this was what I made:

For the base I crushed about 150g digestive biscuits and melted 75g butter- I added some cinnamon to give it some flavour, pressed it into pie dishes (and mini loaf pans) and baked for about 5 minutes.

Then for the filling. This is super easy. And to be honest if I was making it just for me I would just make the filling and bake it as it is so good, like a thick spiced baked custard.

Mix together 1 tin (425g) pumpkin puree (on offer on Ocado at the moment), 1 egg, a little tin of evaporated milk (200ml), 200g coconut sugar, 1 tbs plain flour, 1 tbs peanut butter, and a tsp of cinnamon, ginger, a little ground cloves, and lots of grated nutmeg. (I also added a little orange extract as I thought it would go well, but this is not essential). Pour this onto the bases and bake at 170C for around 30 minutes.

Then it will be dark and smelling amazing, plus it won’t have much wobble left.

As I made lots of little ones we gave them away at the weekend- one to my parents (dropped it off after Parkrun) and one to Andy’s parents.

On Sunday I went on a run in the morning, and then spent a lot of the day working. We went to the cinema late Sunday afternoon (to see Philomena, which was so good but also emotional) and then we came home to soup, sourdough bread, and then pumpkin pie slices. Delicious.

Now on to my woes. On Monday my leg was feeling a bit stiff, but I had planned a rest day anyway. I popped to town after work to do some shopping, and then to the supermarket, and I was fine walking around. However I woke up at 4am this morning in a lot of pain- my hip! It feels (yet again) like it has popped out slightly. I have been on google- possibly I have a groin strain? Or it might be something to do with the joint- I think this is more likely as it seems to come and go. Anyhow, I could not get back to sleep, or get comfy, and I was hobbling about in the morning barely able to put any weight on that leg. Luckily there is a sports clinic near me (the place I went to for my sports massages all those years ago) so I gave in and rang them up today, and I have a physio appointment for Friday. I was chatting to Andy about it, as it has happened on and off for a while now- in fact the first time I can remember was before the Olympics as we went to Derbyshire for the weekend and stopped to see the torch relay, but I was having trouble walking through the town to see it.

But it meant of course I didn’t get on my planned run today, and will be giving Sweatshop a miss tomorrow too. Although as the day has worn on I have felt better and can move about more, so I might manage a walk tomorrow if it feels better than today. Grrr.

On the plus side, yesterday I managed quite a bit of Christmas shopping, so I feel pretty pleased to have begun that, seeing as about 5 people told me it was only a month to go. I might even attempt some honeycomb as I have always wanted to try and make it, and the last Waitrose magazine I picked up had a pretty simple looking recipe in there.

Are you a pie / pastry fan? Anyone feeling Christmassy yet? December is fast approaching!