Ah, Christmas... What to do with those unloved bottles of no-name or blended scotch?

 Get your blender out...

250ml whipping cream

1 tin condensed milk

400ml whisky

3 tbsp strong filter coffee

2 tbsp Bavarian chocolate syrup or similar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

Blend for about a minute, bottle in appx 1 litre pop top bottle, refrigerate and drink. Hic!

 For best results, blend everything except the whisky, then pour the whisky in through the top of the blender. 

It's a very strange time for us at the moment at Alledal Gård.

We've been here in Sweden for over 4 years, and during that time we have had some down moments, but mainly we've had a wonderful time trying to make a success of our little farm in Skåne. I have no regrets about coming to Sweden in the summer of 2006.

Now, I'm afraid, the end is nigh, and we are shutting down the farm. Over the last few weeks the chickens, ducks, and geese have found new homes, and hopefully in the next few days the goats will have new homes too. By the end of 2010 Alledal Gård will no longer be an active farm.

We've had some wonderful successes with the yellow ducks and the chickens particularly, and have found it to be incredibly rewarding. And for me personally, a fantastic way to switch off when I come back from work on my main job.

This is the beginning of a new chapter for us, and hopefully over the coming months we'll be able to share more of our plans for the future. If you've followed us over the years, many thanks, and I hope that we've brought some pleasure to you from our little corner of the Swedish countryside. 

One of the things we love on a special occasion is a proper pork pie. 

This recipe is one based on Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's recipe from "Meat", however with a few tweaks, more info, and a lot more photos to help you get it right! The first couple of times I made it, I admit I was scared to death it was going to go wrong.

The first thing to say is that it used Hot Water Crust Pastry - something that brings terror by reputation, but actually isn't that bad!

Every year is the year you're going to make a Christmas Pudding of your own, and not buy one in, and every year you stare at the recipes and think "Oh, I can't be bothered to steam for 2 days and then store for 6 months".

 Why is it so necessary to steam over steam for so long? I mean, a Christmas Pudding is basically a classic suet-based steam pudding. Suet-based steam puddings do remarkably well in a microwave, so why can't you do one in the microwave?

You can.

Yup, you read that right, you can. I'm not saying it's perfect, but compared to the realistic alternative - the shop bought mass produced special - it's a big improvement. This will take you less than half-an-hour from start to finish.

It's based on several recipes, mainly a Raymond Blanc (yup, a Frenchman's Christmas Pudding recipe), Mrs Beeton and a few others, plus a healthy dollop of what I liked spice-wise and fruit-wise in a pudding. 

We've recently got a cream separator from Ebay Germany. It's a Russian model. But by buying it in Germany, and buying a Russian one, we've saved many hundreds of Euro. The Russian one cost about €200.