It’s been a busy day

With only a few days till Christmas, and one day till we head away in out caravan, it’s been a busy old day here today.  I needed to do some baking to take up to my daughter’s home for Christmas, and had promised to make some of my delicious Chocolate Cherry Slice.  This is rich and decadent and is  a lovely treat for Christmas.  Made with a chocolate base and topped with a coconut and glace chocolate topping, it is certainly a winner.

Chocolate Cherry Slice

I also offered to make a bacon and egg pie to help with dinner tomorrow.  We will have it cold with a salad,I expect.  This has plenty of bacon slices and eight double yolk eggs so should be nice and tasty.  Bacon and egg pie is a family favourite here in New Zealand, usually served hot for dinner, and is excellent served cold for a tasty  picnic lunch.

Bacon and egg pie

I needed to use up a couple of oranges which were starting to look a little sad, so made an orange and raisin cake as well.  The cake won’t be needed over Christmas with all the other usual treats on offer, so is now in the freezer, to use later.

And checking out the veggies in the fridge I found half of a red and half a green cabbage, left over from making coleslaw last week.  With not much room for them in the caravan fridge,  they needed dealing with too.  The green cabbage was chopped, bagged, and frozen and I can use it for stir fry meals later.  As for the red cabbage, I knew I had a recipe tucked away somewhere to make use of it, which I had made one previous Christmas.  Using sliced red cabbage, onions, apples, spices and white wine vinegar, I cooked it all slowly in a pan, put it into two containers, and into the freezer it went.   I’m pleased that I was able to use these items and that nothing was thrown out and wasted.

After my cooking marathon, I started packing the caravan.  Prior to a trip, we move the caravan from the area around the back of our village, and park it in one of the car parks outside our home.  Which means we can plug it into power to get the fridge cold, and it is so much handier for the many trips too and fro with food and clothes.  I mustn’t forget to put the bag of presents in too.  My knitting bag and stitchery project is already safely packed in the van, along with several books to read.

Our caravan just a hop and step away, ready for packing

With these jobs out of the way, I needed an after lunch nana nap!  It’s been cloudy here today, but very warm, so warm, in fact, that I had to change into shorts!  The Santas will wave us goodbye tomorrow when we head away for our Christmas/New Year adventure.  I’m rather fond of the big Santa,and made him in a class many years ago.

Hello Santas

Sending everyone warm Christmas wishes, and hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Day.