Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me....

It feels so good to be cooking again after such a long hiatus. I a, of course spoiling you with another Christmas themed bake, it is my favourite time of year! This tart could use up any left over Christmas stilton you have lying around, or if you have none left (likely), it gives you an excuse to buy more, because as I've said before Christmas is really all about cheese. This pear, stilton and walnut quiche is a lovely vegetarian option to a Christmas feast.

Ingredients

375g shortcrust pastry
50g walnuts
4 shallots
Thyme leaves
100g Stilton
3 pears
6 eggs
Salt and Pepper

Putting it all Together

Preheat the oven to 200c/180fan/gas mark 6

In a food processor, whizz the walnuts until they are broken up to a crumb. Keep a little of the pastry back and then add the remaining shortcrust pastry in chunks. Blitz together until the pastry has broken down and then come back together with all the walnut crumb, giving you a lovely walnut pastry.

Using the pastry, line a fluted tart tin, pressing gently into the sides and allow the excess pastry to hang over the edges. Cover this with clingfilm and pop in the fridge to chill.

While the pastry is chilling, heat a frying pan with a little oil add in the sliced shallots and thyme with salt and pepper. Cook these on high until the onions sizzle and then turn down to low. Cook the shallots for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are softened and golden. Set aside.

Remove tin from the fridge and remove the cling film. Fill the tin with baking paper and baking beans and place in the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and remove the baking paper and beans before baking for a further 5 minutes or until golden.

Reduce the temperature to 160c/140fan gas mark 3 and take the tart out of the oven.

While the pastry is still hot, use a sharp knife to cut the pastry flush to the rim of the tin and then fill the pastry with the caramelised onions.

Cut two of the pears into cubes and slice one of the pears lengthwise. Top the onion with the cubed pear and sprinkle over the stilton. Decorate the top with your sliced pear. With the pastry you saved earlier roll out and cut out a little partridge to sit on top.

Whisk the eggs and season before pouring around the sliced pears to cover the ingredients underneath. Pop bake in the oven to bake for around 20 minutes until golden.

This can be eaten straight out of the oven or served cold. A gorgeous quiche that mixes the sweetness of the pear with the savoury of the stilton and walnut. A very Merry Christmas indeed!

Terry's Chocolate Orange Cheesecake

What better way to restart the weekend blog posts than with a festive Terry's Chocolate Orange Cheesecake!

This is a no-bake cheesecake so really does require minimal effort but will wow dinner guests or family this Christmas because its big on flavour and full of all the fun things in life. I recently made this for the second year running for my #friendmas and it went down a treat yet again.

Ingredients

Cheesecake Filling:
500g full-fat cream cheese
85g icing sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon orange extract
2 x 175g Terry’s chocolate orange (1 normal & 1 dark chocolate)
300ml double cream


Biscuit Base:
600g chocolate digestive biscuits
280g unsalted butter
Decoration:
Terry’s chocolate orange segments, mix of normal and dark

Putting it all Together

To prepare the base: Melt the butter in the microwave. Whizz the biscuits in a food processor to a fine crumb. Add the melted butter and mix until well combined. Tip the mixture into a 23cm springform cake tin and press down until firm smoothing over with the back of the spoon. Pop in the fridge to chill and get started on filling.

Melt the chocolate orange over a bain-marie and leave to cool slightly. In a mixing bowl beat together the cream cheese, orange extract and the icing sugar until softened. In another bowl whisk the cream until soft peaks form.

Fold the cream cheese and cream together and then pour in the chocolate and fold through.

Get the tin out of the fridge and then spoon the chocolatey cheesecake mixture over the biscuit base and smooth over with a spatula. Pop the orange segments on in an alternating pattern, cover and pop back in the fridge to chill for around 6 hours, or if you can overnight.

When you are ready to serve to all those hungry people, remove the cheesecake from the tin and decorate.

Serve with some cream and you are good to go. Christmas in a cheesecake!

The Goulding Wedding

The Dresses
It really was love at first sight with my dress. After going to the National Wedding Show I saw it being placed back on a hanger and took a photo. Then I went back three more times to look at it before calling my mum, asking if I could try on a dress without her, put it on and didn't want to take it off. I tried on 9 more dresses a couple of weeks later but this was it for me. The dress is a Mori Lee by Madeline Gardner and provided by the  lovely ladies at Belle of the Ball Bridal. I always knew that I wouldn't wear heels to my wedding and so hunted for some ivory lace flats finding a pair for £10 from George! I also had some alterations by the very talented Jennie West. The Bridesmaid dresses were from Quiz and the Maid of Honour's dress was from AX Paris.

Groom's Attire
When browsing Pinterest for Groom suits we liked the grey tweed suits best and they went well with the colour scheme of pinks and greys however it soon became apparent that it was ridiculously hard to find grey tweed to rent anywhere! In the end the Groom's suit was from Next, waistcoat was from Moss Bros, and shoes from Jacamo. The Usher's suits ended up being a bargin, we got the jackets from Tesco reduced from £60 to £12! We bought grey tweed trousers and waistcoats and they wore their own shirts and shoes.

Hair and Makeup
The lovely Emily did both my hair and makeup, and I looked so beautiful on the day. I tend to flush when I am hot/embarrassed/happy/drinking/stressed but I looked nothing but a perfectly happy glow through the whole day. She even managed to put some flowers in my Bridesmaids hair as they were walking out the door! Emily was the kind of person you want with you on the morning of your wedding, someone to have a laugh with and who keeps you calm.

Venue
The underlying theme for the wedding was festivals, as we met and got engaged at Glastonbury, it only seemed fitting. We had originally looked at hiring a field and a tent but quickly realised that an October wedding would not best fit this just in case it rained. We went to view a few Barns in West Sussex instead and were happy when we found Fitzleroi Barn. The venue had all the space we needed for our 120 guests wedding and we were able to decorate how we wanted. The staff were so helpful on the run up to the big day, answering all our questions. We were also able to set up in the barn on the Friday and had great fun with a team of helpers consisting of the wedding party.

Flowers
My flowers were done by the beautiful Wild Willow. Laura was patient with me even when I had to make some last minute changes to the flowers and they turned out beautifully. The Groom was very pleased with his buttonholes and I was thrilled that she had captured my colour scheme in the flowers perfectly. 

Decor
One thing became quickly apparent, this was going to be a DIY wedding! My mother couldn't have been more valuable for this. She stitched over 400m of bunting and then some, cross-stitched all the table names, and made cushions for the snug area. We glue gunned our way through hundreds of glue sticks making wedding wands and my father learnt Calligraphy so he could write the guest names on luggage tags.

Stationery
We used our resources again to try and keep costs down and the Groom designed all of the wedding stationery, including personalised menu cards for each guest, order of service, and a hand drawn map from the venue to church. We then printed them ourselves and bundled everything together with twine. We also lined every envelope with paper, for me it was all about the little details including the little stickers that we stuck the invitations with.

Ceremony
I have always dreamed of getting married in my village church and so that is exactly what we did! We married in The Church of the Holy Innocents and it was just perfect. The organist even played Disney songs whilst we signed the register which neither of us had asked for, he just knew! He played a very jaunty version of Lord of the Dance which was appreciated by everyone as was our Vicar had everyone laughing. I was terrified of everyone staring at me as I walked up the aisle but the second I saw my future husband I just focused on him. 

Entertainment
We had a family band! We tried to keep this as secret as possible on the run up to the big day and it was worth it as it was a lovely surprise, especially as some people didn't even realise that the Groom could play bass and that my father could sing and play guitar! They performed a 30 minute gig with a set list including Love Shack, Brown Eyed Girl and Psycho Killer. We also had my very talented friend Jake who kept the dance floor filled all night with his DJ skills. 

Food
If you know me at all you will know that I am a huge foodie! This was so important to me that the food was right and it is always one of the things that I look at when I go to other weddings. We were required to use a preferred supplier from Fitzleroi Barn, but were given a list of about 6. We went with Good Taste Catering as we were so impressed with the food when we went for the taster. We gave our guests a choice of Toasted Goats Cheese, Trio of Salmon or Antipasti for Starter, Pork in Cider, Lamb Shank and Mushroom and Mozzarella Filo Parcels for Main and a trio of puds including Mini Pavlova, Lemon Cheesecake and Banoffee Brandy Snap Baskets for dessert. 

Drink
Another very important thing! We drove to France and bought over 150 bottles of alcohol! I was determined to have cider at the wedding and so we bought 40ltrs of 7.5% cider to our guests, I think one of the things I have heard the most since the wedding is 'Wow there was a lot to drink!' The Groom also designed some signature cocktails based on us. Mine was the 'Headline Act' which was a Raspberry Mojito and the husband's was 'Soundclash', referring to our first kiss when we stood between two bands at Glastonbury both blaring their music. This was a Spiced Rum and Ginger Ale drink which was the same drink we had the night we first kissed.

Photography
I don't even know where to start with our photographer, Fulton Photography, she and her photographs are absolutely perfect! From the first meeting we clicked right away and I knew she was the one to document our day. The photos came out beautifully and she captured moments that I hadn't even noticed were happening. Becky was warm and friendly and even put the Groom at ease and he hates having his photo taken. I would 100% recommend her to anyone and I think I have even found a new friend which is a lovely bonus!

Videography
Of course we were always going to have our wedding filmed when we try to capture so much of our lives already. We were very lucky to have a friend, Rob, who works in the industry and was kind enough to film for us. One of my lovely Bridesmaids also caught the morning action and the Groom himself edited the video. I am so happy that I have the day recorded for the future and urge anyone getting married to get a videographer!

Best Bits
I worry by nature and although I tried not to on the day I still was a little bit stressed! On the day I woke up at 2.45am and didn't get back to sleep! Several moments made all that worry melt away for a bit however. Seeing my Dad for the first time in my dress, kissing my new husband at the altar, my new niece calling me a 'Sparkly Queen',  seeing all my friends and family, and dancing with my Gran!

Advice
My advice to you if you are getting married, add an hour on to everything - it is so easy to over-run! We ended up being 1.5hrs behind schedule in the end. Go to each table during the wedding breakfast so you talk to all the guests, and make sure you pause just after you are married and look at all your guests - it is worth it to see all their happy proud faces!