sweet nothings...

I went to the end of year fire festival tonight, joining a parade of thousands carrying fire torches through the streets of Edinburgh, from the mound to Calton hill. When we reached the top of the hill there was a bonfire and amazing fireworks. The pictures were a little blurry, these were the only ones that I can actually make anything out in the picture! I have some videos though, which I shall post soon

The very lovely breakfast made for me by my very lovely boyfriend this morning

The view from my kitchen window whilst having breakfast...still snowing!!!

The view from my living room window...
the queue for the butcher shop stretches around the corner three times the length you can see!

Today we woke up to find Edinburgh covered in a thick blanket of snow, it's so deep that it comes half way up my boots! I haven't seen snow like this for a long time! I've certainly never seen proper deep snow in the centre of town before! Very exciting!

Instead of making my own snowman, I went out with my camera this morning and took some pictures of any snowmen I happened to pass. In Inverleith park I found the 'mum and baby' snowmen and the 'snow chicken'. The 'pineapple snowman' and the mini snowmen were in the botanical gardens. The 'scarecrow santa' snowman was in the christmas tree sales yard

The pond in the park near where I live has frozen over, and all the poor swans, ducks and geese are squashed into a small corner of the water which is not yet covered in ice! I hope it doesn't freeze over completely! I went there yesterday to feed half a loaf of old bread to them.

I used to love feeding the ducks and swans in Salisbury, but every time I try to do it here I have to abandon it and give the bread to my boyfriend to throw to the birds, as there are so many scary seagulls swooping and flapping around me, like a scene from Daphne Du Maurier's 'the birds'! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birds_(story)

The ice looked beautiful though, almost as though you could skate on it! I've never seen that happen in Edinburgh before! It's an unusually cold start to the winter here this year. Normally the snow doesn't start until the end of January, but this year we might even have a white christmas!









I took these pictures of Edinburgh castle and Ramsay Gardens today, on my way to visit my mum. I thought they looked really pretty, like they had been dusted with icing sugar





When I got to where my parents live, there was so much deep snow everywhere, and it was snowing amazingly fluffy giant snowflakes! It was so peaceful and beautiful! By the time I had returned to town however, the snow had stopped, and it was back to slushy streets crammed full of people panicking over their christmas shopping. I think the hill my parents live on must be some kind of magical snowy narnia bubble...

eeeeee! view from my kitchen window this morning!

view from the living room window! (eee!)

view from the bedroom window! I feel like i'm sleeping in an igloo

I decided to finally get round to trying a recipe from my boyfriend's newish Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall recipe book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/River-Cottage-Everyday-Hugh-Fearnley-Whittingstall/dp/0747598401/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260955009&sr=1-1 This fish one looked quite easy and quick to make. If I made it again though I would use half as much lemon, more garlic, and grill the fish instead of frying it. I don't like frying anything, grilling is much more healthy, tastes nicer too!

I made the salsa first: one lemon and rind (too much!), slosh of olive oil, spoon of capers, bunch of flat leaf parsley, 10 leaves of basil, one clove of garlic, salt and pepper.

Then I fried the fish for about 3 minutes each side, adding the salsa for the last minute. Before I started the fish I also cooked some potatoes to make mash, and steamed some broccoli.


It looked like this in the illustration in the book...

Mine looked like this though! I was hungry and in a bit of a rush
Looks like i've thrown the food at the plate from a distance!

Tasted nice though

I thought these poor trees looked like they had been wrapped up in cocoons of spider webs by some kind of monster christmas tree eating spider. I get the shivers every time I have to walk past!

Every year Norway sends Edinburgh a beautiful christmas tree. http://www.edinburghschristmas.com/content/Edinburgh%E2%80%99sChristmasTree/2476/ It is displayed on the hill leading up to the old town and the castle, overlooking the German market and all the fun christmasy things going on in princes street gardens (which I will hopefully get round to blogging soon!)

skeleton stampede!

elephant skeleton!

I made this for dinner tonight, it was really good! I whizzed together in the blender two roasted romano sweet red peppers, a clove or two of garlic, 30g of ground almonds, 30g of parmesan, 2 tbsp of olive oil, 2 tsp of balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp of lemon juice, and some salt and pepper. It was so easy!

Last night the christmas cake was finally finished! It was made about two months ago, in the middle of October... http://my.opera.com/kirstycat/blog/2009/10/15/christmas-cake we have been feeding it with brandy every week http://my.opera.com/kirstycat/blog/feeding-the-xmas-cake

On Saturday night I put the marzipan layer on it, and on Sunday night my boyfriend added the final layer of royal icing We couldn't afford to add any plastic decorations to the top (the nice ones were about £15 each!), so it was decided that it should be kept nice and simple. It is now sitting in its box, patiently waiting to be eaten

I brushed the cake with warm apricot jam before rolling out the marzipan and sticking it to the cake. The icing was then added, and fluffed up a bit to make it look like snow, and should soon set into a nice crispy crust of icing. I can't wait to cut the cake and see how it turned out!!








fa la la la la, la la la la!