Home Made Christmas: Preparations - Part One.

It's the most wonderful time of the year! When you're not having to deal with an almost two year old, a newborn baby and the financial burden of only being on maternity pay, that is... This combination of factors prompted me to make the decision to do a home-made Christmas - something I'd talked about doing for years but for one reason or another never really committed to.

So here's my start. I plan to put together some small hampers full of delicious goodies for our family and try my hand at something a little different (candle making perhaps?) for some of the other special people in our lives. But what needed to come first was the chutney's and marmalade to give them plenty of time to mature.

My first Home Made Christmas goodie is Mary Berry's Christmas Chutney. I knew I had to have chutney of some form or another and the combination of ingredients in this recipe seemed to fit the bill perfectly. My Dad even donated his leftover tomatoes from his greenhouse, making the chutney even cheaper & even more delicious. And aside from some timely preparation (peeling, chopping...), the recipe was easy to follow, even for the most novice of cooks.

I opted to make this chutney first as the recipe recommends leaving it to mature for at least a month. Not to mention the fact I'll probably not have time to spend throwing chutneys now I'm dealing with a toddler and a newborn! For now though they're stored in our cupboard, doing their magic, ready to be added to our home-made hampers come Christmas. 

I felt like a little bit of a cheat with my marmalade, opting to use a Home Cook Marmalade tin; but the reality is that it's simply a tin of pre-prepared oranges (so not chopping, pipping or boiling) and all the rest of the cooking is done at home. I threw these together during John's nap time and was thankful for just how easy it was to achieve five good sized jars of marmalade - perfect for the family & our extremely tolerant neighbours.

Home Cook also do tins for Strawberry Jam which are perfect if you're not a fan of marmalade & great for this time of year when all the best jam fruits are going out of season.

Amy's Top Home-made Christmas Tips.

Think ahead. Plan your recipes & do what you can in advance of the big day. Most preserves need time to mature so its worth doing what you can now, cutting down on stress closer to Christmas but also getting the best from your creations.

Use recycled jars. We've been saving all our empty jam & sauce jars for a couple of months now and I also asked my parents to do the same. You could easily spend a small fortune on brand new jars but there's really no need, plus recycling is better for the environment too! Just be sure to sterilise your jars before filling.

Personalise your jars. It's easy enough to spray paint the lids of your jars, which is particularly nice when using recycled ones. Or how about using some jam jar covers? I'm also putting together some personalised labels for our jars but you can also buy different decorative labels or even opt for handmade ones.

Stay tuned for more of our Home Made Christmas as we slowly edge closer to the big day. Including Christmas decorations, cards and sweet treats...

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