Stir-up Sunday

Today is the last Sunday before the start of Advent and traditionally it's the day the pudding is made for Christmas, hence 'Stir-Up Sunday'. This gives the fruit plenty of time to steep in alcohol and spices and fill the larder with the smells of Christmas. Sadly though, this tradition isn't being kept this year. However nice a homemade pudding, making one doesn't exactly fit in with the weekly budget and I also have one leftover from last year (an unwanted pudding from a family member's hamper that was looking for a home). Instead of the scent of cinnamon and brandy, the house is full of the smells of banana, having just whipped up a batch of breakfast muffins using oats and over ripe bananas plus some leftover buttermilk in the fridge. Officially this is week 19 of the austerity budget and I am trying to save a little more than normal so that the rules can be relaxed a little over Christmas. This means that most of the dishes for this week will be utilising ingredients that are particularly thrifty. Thriftiness does not have to restrict inspiration and last night I made a rather delicious chicken curry using a traditional Goan recipe, with chicken thighs, coconut and poppy seeds and a side dish of spiced potatoes and spinach from some remnants in the fridge. Tonight we have venison sausages (on offer so very good value) with mash, Savoy cabbage and gravy. Later this week I will be making a 'rib ragu' (a recipe from Nigel Slater, see here) which sounds rather ominous but is a rather clever way of slow cooking a cheap cut of meat (and hopefully getting a couple of meals from it) and roasting a large butternut squash for soup and risotto.

Finance is also limited for knitting projects so I am using every last scrap of odds and ends of finished projects to knit twenty-five little socks with the aim of making an advent calender to hang in the house. I'm going to embroider these with the days of December and am now racing against time as I still have seven more to go! I still need to get a decent sized branch to hang them from but am waiting until the weather clears a little. It has been non-stop rain for days and I feel rather lucky to be living on a steep hill as the surrounding areas are completely flooded, the fields an endless reflection of the sky.