Storing coriander

Coriander packs straight from the freezer

I love coriander, an indian meal is not complete without it in my book. I also love to use it fresh in salads but my boy complains loudly. Unfortunately, despite trying every year, I have not yet succeeded in growing this plant, it either runs to seed or just doesn't get going. Thankfully I can now buy large bunches from the supermarket but I still never seem to have any when I need it.

Dried coriander just seems tasteless to me. I have tried coriander paste in a jar before, it was a bit like mint sauce but without the vinegar and was handy to use but ultimately expensive and still lacked flavour. Thankfully I have, thanks to an accidental throw into the freezer, found a solution that works for me. 

Coriander is broken up whilst still in the bag

After a quick look to check that the leaves are healthy, they now go straight into the freezer. Once frozen within the bag it is easy to crumple the plant including the stems and tip into a storage box.

Frozen coriander ready to use. 

A big pile of coriander ready to flavour my curry! Though it doesn't look as good as fresh the flavour is retained and that's the important bit. Time to cook some dahl, I think.

My 2013 Christmas decorations: baubles

Decorated baubles, drying

I believe that this is the only craft that my boys helped me with this past Christmas and even then it was hard going getting them interested initially. But once they realised that glitter would be involved as well as a drying line across the room for J to bash his head on they were all for it!

A Cheesy Chips day

Cheesy Chips

Some days I have lots of get up and go, other days I get by on determination. But occasionally the dark grey skies dampen my enthusiasm to such an extent that I just want to forget the chores and snuggle up with my boys and watch a film or play games.

Friday was just such a day.

It was far from the worst weather day we have had recently, it just happened to be the day when we all wanted to say, 'Stop!' So we did.

Almost. We were good in the morning and forced ourselves to do the essential tasks that keep our household ticking over. But lunchtime came... and we had cheesy chips. These are a treat in this house, a very rare event. And my boys were satisfyingly pleased to receive this unusual lunch. The afternoon rolled out in a snuggly, cuddly but most definitely lazy way. Lots of discussions and quite of few biscuits thanks to an unopened tin left over from Christmas.

It felt good to take a break.

My 2013 Christmas decorations: wreath

After putting up all of this years decorations I looked at what was left in the box, a handful of faux foliage based items that looked chic in our old house but I've never been able to make them work here. So I let them be. Then I watched a 'how to do Christmas' type programme where I saw them using cable ties for many, many uses and I was inspired me to sort out a wreath for the front door using the odds and ends left over.

The wreath base is from an orange leafed wreath that I had purchased many years ago. The orange fell out of favour but I've been reusing this base with fresh foliage for several years. But this year it just felt too wet to gather the greenery so I had been putting it off.

Cable ties are a fabulous way to put this together. Quick, secure, I am so impressed! And if I want to re-do it next year then I can simply cut them at the back and it will simply come apart. So much easier than winding wire or, more usually for me, string around again and again to hold it together. Just a quick wrap of ribbon and it was finished. 5 minutes tops.

I still prefer fresh foliage wreaths but it wasn't going to happen this year so this has been a great compromise and has coped well with the bad weather that has hit us over the Christmas season.

Health: Walk!

I've got to lose weight. And get fit again. The easiest way to do this is to set myself a goal but not of weight to lose but of something I can more easily control.

This January I am going to walk 20 miles. I know, this doesn't sound like much and in the past I would have easily completed this in one week. But the problem with January is that, thanks to meeting up with lots of different people over Christmas, colds and bugs are continually passed around. I want to make my goal achieveable and if I go over it I won't be upset!

This year I have the bonus that I can be more flexible with my own time. I don't need to be constantly supervising the boys though I dare not leave them alone for too long either!

I hope that I succeed.

It's interesting to read over old posts from this time last year. This one seems quite apt and reminds me of how far I have come: January mission

My 2013 Christmas Food: Chocolate Yule Log

Yule Log

I have just found lots of photos that I haven't yet shared so though my decorations may now be down and packed away Christmas is not yet over on this blog!

First to share is this Chocolate Log. It was so easy to make that I highly recommend that you give it a go. Don't worry about making a swiss roll, just bake a normal sponge cake and leave it to cool completely. Then you can attack it with your knife, shaping it as you wish. My Yule log was made in two loaf tins, one small and one large. Despite this good start they both had to be carved quite a bit to resemble the correct shape and fit on the plate. Then they were sliced horizontally to sandwich in a couple of layers of plum jam. Finally I let my youngest have at it with lots of cocoa butter icing. Yes, an eight year old iced this cake. If he can, you can. The icing on the ends was a little that I had saved prior to adding all of the cocoa to the icing mix and I carefully smoothed this onto the 'cut' ends.

Don't bother trying to make the icing smooth, the rougher the better. A final dusting of icing (I used a tea strainer) gives a good finish.

It only lasted one day.

It tasted that good.