I almost wrote this blog before Christmas had even happened, not realising that everyone would then see their gifts before the big day…. Blonde moment much? So, it may have been a while, yes, but I’ve finally gotten round to actually having some free time. Hallelujah. Even finished reading Anna Karenina after a long 365 days of trying, yes thats right, one whole year to read one whole book. At the age of 13 I could read a book the same length in 3 days. I’m hoping this says something about the book and not about the reader…
Says it all really.
In my defence, that sexy little lady behind me was getting ready to leave me for a year so we just had to go out and mourn our losses. Book to finish, or no book! As you can tell by my relaxed pose, this was well after Christmas and all of the last minute “have I forgotten something or someone major” moments.
Christmas is expensive right? Well, as a young lass flitting between her normal job, acting jobs, traveling jaunts and other forms of low-to-no pay forms of procrastination – which I should really think harder about taking days off from my actual PAID job for, but don’t – and general life I ain’t got loadsa dosh to be dishing out on all de fam, like. Prompting me to come up with a marvelous plan. Homemade Christmas. Boom. Shake up the room, I dare ya. Luckily (or maybe it wasn’t luck at all and just the fact my Grannie Jensen got me into it, who knows) I’m naturally crafty and shizzle so I got straight onto the old Pinterest for some inspiration. Pinterest is a wonderful thing. Here’s a link to my mini Christmasy board so you can get a glimpse of all the Pinteresty goodness I found. After procrastinating in the world of pinning for long enough I decided on making scented candles, festive chutney, infused olive oil and infused vodka – the vodka had to be taste tested a lot, y’know to be sure the flavor was exactly right….
The hardest part were the candles, purely because they were quite fidly and it took an age to melt the wax. Not to mention I nearly fumigated myself with cinnamon essence. I used Wiki for a step by step, ordered some eco friendly Soy wax online, pick my fragrances (Christmas Spice and Cinnamon) and got myself a perspex jug to double-boil the wax in and keep solely for that purpose so as not to end up with waxy food in le future. Good thinking, Batman. Didn’t take any photographic evidence (Batman was off-duty) but they all smell divine; fumigation was worth it.
Infusing olive oil is soooo much easier. There’s a few ways you can do it, but I went with the slightly more long winded version as I left it a little late and needed the flavor to strengthen quickly (i.e. I left it until 4 days before Christmas, so I cheated). Apparently its all about reducing the risk of mold when using fresh herbs so I had to dry out a tray of Rosemary stems in the oven whilst heating up the oil to a slight simmer on the hob. You add a load of fresh stuff to the simmering oil, let it infuse for 10 minutes then sieve out all the herbs, bottle it up and put the sprigs of dried out Rosemary in the bottles before corking. If you put in any that hasn’t been dried out it’ll probably start getting a bit worse for ware after about a week – so be warned! Top it all off with a little handwritten typography on some ribbon or string and you are good to go.
Aaaaah chutney. What a success. I’d like to take this moment to thank Mary Berry personally for this wonderful recipe and all the praise it brought me around the dinner table on Christmas day. I’d also like to thank my Mama and Suzzy for taste-testing in those early, worrying, scary stages before it was actually edible. Then I would like to thank the academy… Oh was I going into my Oscars speech there? Whoops! #actorproblems.
Oscar winning chutney aside, now for le crème de la crème.
I know I said the candles were a tough job, but this my friends, is on another level. When you put all the cinnamon sticks in the bottle of vodka you have to…………………………….. leave it…………………………….. for at least……………………… two weeks……………………………. to fully infuse. A mammoth task, I know, but the result is oh so worth it. Not that I’ve actually tried any of the cinnamon lot but the one-off vanilla one I made was a damn good success! Joking aside, infusing vodka is the easiest of the ease. Open a bottle (the better the make the better the infusion) put in your herb/flavour like cinnamon, vanilla, liquorice etc, close bottle shake it around once a week. Few weeks down the line and voilà you av flavoursome vodka.
The only big expense for me was my choice in bottles. I got carried away basically. But have you seen how pretty those little vodka bottles are? Like can you see that one that looks like a mini Jack Daniels bottle? Tell me that wasn’t worth the import tax fee from America? Well, I’ll tell you it almost wasn’t. Robbing gits. Didn’t the government know I was on a tight budget? So if you’d like to get burned on import taxes like me you should go to FestivalReGlass on Etsy and she’ll hook you up with some right fine stuff. Otherwise I also used Wares of Knutsford who are UK based (and much cheaper!).
And we’re done. All bottled up and ready to go there’s only one thing left to do!
Wrap ‘em together and what have you got bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.
(cellophane/twine from e-bay!)
Jensen
x
Tagged: Christmas, chutney, crafting, DIY, festive, homemade, infusion, making, oil, presents, vodka
