Aren’t you all domestic goddesses 😀 we spend very little on food, nothing fancy all basic stuff, the trifle I will make for Christmas will be from a packet of Birds, , with a tin of fruit cocktail in it, a double pack, that does for two years. I spend more on wild bird food and the cats than I do on us.
Ive done the ‘all home cooked’ Christmas years ago, now I do everything for ease. Used to make everything, right down to the sweets, then, one year I’d worked so hard on it all I went to midnight mass and passed out, not once, but twice, woke up on the vestry floor with some saying to me ‘trust me, I’m a doctor’ 😀
I decided after that, that Christmas will be a very simple family affair, minimum spending and minimum work.
We all have a lovely time and no one notices the quick and instant foods I give them.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
The restaurant (The Hungry Monk) that came up with banoffi pie isn't far away from us - closed now I think. But while I was in Argentina, I got into dulce de leche (or the kids did when I used to bring it back). Over there they had what I would know as 'Wagon Wheels' with dulce as the middle - and a similar thing to a Walnut Whipp filled with it. I started making my own for the kids by evaporating down pints of milk - used to take hours. Now I just put a couple of cans of condensed milk in a pressure cooker for half hour (sounds dangerous, but it's fine).
The opened tins always used to develop finger prints where the kids would 'secretly' scoop it out....
Same with me normally - the trifle in the past was just whipped cream, bought in custard (Ambrosia!),jelly, tinned fruit and sponge fingers (and that bit of liqueur!). So simple.
I don't think this 'Nigella's Monster' that I'm thinking of doing will cost too much - hopefully no more than £10-£15 (although the wine she talks about might blow that) in general - and if it does 4 people for two days, then it's not toooooooo bad.
@steveTu I think your idea sounds absolutely yummy. Don't listen to those who didn't like the sound of it. Recently we were in an Italian restaurant in Bury St. Edmunds and we had something similar but with pannetone, it was gorgeous. Mascarpone is like thick cream, yum. I love chocolate chips too. I have a sweet tooth, but then I have a savoury tooth as well!
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
I laugh now at the price of pomegranates, after the war they were so cheap, my mum used to buy them for me, all the kids had them and we used to suck the juice off the pips and spit them out, contest was to see who could spit one the furthest. Dirty little tikes!
Now they are expensive and have become fashionable. Or should that be the other way round, any other oldies on here remember them.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Bury St Edmonds always reminds me of Julius Caesar - '...I come not to bury St Edmonds, but to praise him...' - I was forced into reading that play for my 'O' Level back in 19...
I think I'll do the 'mini-me' version next weekend and if it kills anyone, then it will only be me...I'll have a bucket handy just in case (like the scene out of The Meaning Of Life?).
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we spend very little on food, nothing fancy all basic stuff, the trifle I will make for Christmas will be from a packet of Birds, , with a tin of fruit cocktail in it, a double pack, that does for two years.
I spend more on wild bird food and the cats than I do on us.
Ive done the ‘all home cooked’ Christmas years ago, now I do everything for ease.
Used to make everything, right down to the sweets, then, one year I’d worked so hard on it all I went to midnight mass and passed out, not once, but twice, woke up on the vestry floor with some saying to me ‘trust me, I’m a doctor’ 😀
I decided after that, that Christmas will be a very simple family affair, minimum spending and minimum work.
We all have a lovely time and no one notices the quick and instant foods I give them.
Now they are expensive and have become fashionable. Or should that be the other way round, any other oldies on here remember them.
As a chap I used to know once said of a similar misunderstanding, "not sure about the wrong end, I think you may have the wrong stick"
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”