Christmas: Make a 100 wishes bay leaf garland

Make a 100 wishes bay leaf garland or wreath this Christmas.

You will need:

A needle and strong thread, in any colour
Lots of bay leaves.

1. Tie a knot at the end of a long piece of thread and run the needle through each leaf until you have gathered a large bunch.

2. Next, pull and tie the two ends together. 

3.The garland can be tied to a door or placed on a table. Use the bay leaves over winter to cook with, write down your wishes, dreams and hopes and share them with your friends. Simple pleasures. 

Taken from The Magpie & The Wardrobe: A Curiosity of Folklore, Magic & Spells by Sam McKechnie and Alexandrine Portelli (Pavilion Books)

 This was originally published in December 2014.. Get hold of your copy of this month's The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe

From our December issue…

More December inspiration…

How to win at games

Christmas: the season of goodwill, and beating your family into submission. Here are a few tips to speed you to victory. It might be Christmas but that’s no reason to go easy on Aunt Joan 

MONOPOLY
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
A timeless classic. Build a property empire... as well as family rifts that will persist for decades. 
ANALYSIS
Buy orange. In Monopoly, jail is the single most-landed-on square, because there are so many ways of arriving at it. But it’s more about leaving jail. As the most common numbers thrown with two dice are 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, the orange properties – 6, 8 and 9 throws away – offer the steadiest revenue stream. For every 100 hits on purple or blue, you tend to get 122 on orange and red. It’s also about the amount you can extract. Add up the total required to buy all the properties and put hotels on them. Then add up the maximum rent on each. The higher the ratio of income to cost, the more attractive the set is to own. On this measure, light blue is best, followed by orange.
Then it’s time to crush your opponents. Assuming that £750 will be more than enough to bankrupt Uncle Simon after a few glasses of sherry, what is the minimum we can spend for each set of properties to achieve that? Spending £1,750 on the orange set (compared to £2,720 for green) gets you there.
Of course, this highlights that this isn’t really a perfect simulation of the capitalist market at all. Real Monopoly players have long known this, which is why a serious game will see side deals in the form of washing-up offers or promises to take the dog for a walk. Isn’t the free market wonderful?
Remember, there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’... But there is an ‘I’ in “I’m going to whoop your backside at this boardgame even if it means we stay up all night”

CONNECT 4
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
The Ronseal of games. Drop tiles into a grid until there are four tiles in a row. 
ANALYSIS
There are 42 spaces on a Connect 4 board – seven columns by six rows. If six columns are filled, that means 36 tiles have been placed. Half are red, half are yellow. The 37th tile – the one that has to go at the bottom of the unfilled column – must therefore be filled by the player who went first. If the other player has their threat on the second row of that column, this is bad news for the first player, who is forced to facilitate their victory. Conversely, if the first player has a possibility to complete four tiles on the third row of that column, it is very good news.
This scenario happens all the time, and there is a simple way to exploit it. If you go first, ensure your threatened four in a row will be completed by putting a tile on an odd row – the third or fifth (your opponent will block a threat on the first row instantly). If you go second, ensure it’s completed by putting a tile on an even row – the second, fourth or sixth.

MUSICAL STATUES
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
Standing motionless for extended periods of time. Especially helpful if you’ve got hyperactive six-year-olds to entertain. 
ANALYSIS
Find ways to move your muscles without doing so visibly. 
Scrunch your toes to get circulation going in your feet. Or put all the weight on the left heel and right ball, then slowly shift it to the right heel and left ball. 
Dancing style is also key. Think along the lines of ‘dad dancing’, so that when the music stops, you’re in a position you can hold, rather than arms aloft doing the ‘Y’ of ‘YMCA’. 
Don’t imitate your dad’s expressions, however, as facial muscles are not used to holding a position for a long period of time. Holding a massive grin on your face is remarkably difficult.

CHARADES
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
Embarrassing yourself, through the medium of mime. Act out a cultural reference in a way that makes it obvious what it is. Best to avoid A La Recherché du Temps Perdu.
ANALYSIS
Be as simple as possible – too many movements are confusing.
A vigorous waving motion might be the universally accepted mime for “You’re really close, but not quite”, but among aficionados there exists what essentially constitutes a full sign language.
If the guess is correct, but should be in the past tense, move a hand backwards over your shoulder.
If it’s the opposite of what was guessed, hold your palms in front of you and swap your hands over.
If someone needs to be more specific, grind a fist into one palm.
Drill your team in these signs before the port arrives so they can fully appreciate your imaginative genius – even if they might not appreciate why they invited you in the first place.

QUICK FIRE TACTICS

JENGA
WHAT: Pull blocks from the tower without causing it to topple over.
HOW: To steady the tower as you remove a block, put your elbow on the table and your forearm vertically against it.

SIX DEGREES OF KEVIN BACON
WHAT: Link Kevin Bacon to any other actor, just by the films they worked on together.
HOW: Look for anchor points. John Wayne and Cary Grant will help you get to early-20th-century American cinema. Gérard Depardieu and Stellan Skarsgård help the leap to Europe; Amitabh Bachchan to Bollywood.

QUIZZES/TRIVIAL PURSUIT
WHAT: Gladiatorial combat for providing one’s social supremacy through the recall of unusual facts. 
HOW: There’s a central, inescapable truth about quizzing: it’s about knowledge. Sorry.

Adapted from How to Win Games and Beat People: defeat and demolish your family and friends! By Tom Whipple (Ebury Press)

This was first publised in our December 2017 issue. Our current December issue has a round-up of our favourite board games for this Christmas, which Competitive Claras (and Christophers) should not miss! In the shops now or buy in the clicky link below…

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Nest | Soak in a spruce needle bath

Don’t throw away your Christmas tree clippings. Spruce needles are an invigorating natural remedy, great for clearing the head. If you feel a cold coming on or are simply exhausted, have a bath with this spruce tree essence and let the scent of a forest work its magic

You will need:

3 fresh twigs from a spruce tree, washed
1 litre water

1 Cut the spruce twigs into small pieces, place them in a saucepan and add the water. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes.
2 Now remove the pan from the heat, cover with a cloth, and let the solution of twigs infuse for another 10 minutes while you run your bath.
3 Strain and add the solution to your bath. Relax in the bath for 20 minutes, breathing in deeply and taking in all the wonderful forest scents.
4 Go to bed immediately and rest!

From Vinegar Socks, Traditional Home Remedies for Modern Living by Karin Berndl and Nici Hofer

More from the January issue:

More natural remedies:

 

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View the sampler here.

Black Friday: Alternatives to the shopping frenzy

This Friday is Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the US that has become the biggest shopping day of the year.

But while many fight it out in the aisles, there are alternative ways to spend your day

Want to join them? Here are some ideas for alternatives to Black Friday:

• This Friday, The Wild Network is challenging us to #OptOutside and get some #WildTime as an antidote to the spendathon of the busy shopping day. Here are ten ways to get outside. 
• How about making Christmas the homemade way? Head to our Pinterest board for some handmade decoration ideas or browse our making projects.
• The Simple Things Sunday Best campaign celebrates quiet ways to reconnect with friends, family and home. Try one of our ideas. 
• If you are shopping, opt for local, independent makers rather than the big stores. It really makes a difference. 

Do you have alternative ideas for Black Friday? Join the conversation over on Twitter and Facebook. 

Words: Lottie Storey

Recipe: Christmas Breakfast

Easier and lighter than a full English, these cute bacon and egg toasts look really impressive and don’t take much effort. A good one for hungover guests

Christmas Breakfast

3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
6 medium slices white or brown bread
6 rashers smoked streaky bacon
4 spring onions, thinly sliced
6 eggs
salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 Portobello mushrooms, grilled, to serve
vine tomatoes, roasted, to serve

1 Preheat the oven to 190C/Fan 170/375F) and grease a muffin tin with the melted butter. 
2 Flatten the slices of bread by rolling over each one a few times with a rolling pin. Use a 10cm round biscuit cutter to cut a circle out of each slice of bread. If you don’t have one, you can use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut the circle instead. 
3 Cut one of the circles in half and push one half down into a mould in the muffin tin, with the curved edge at the top, so the edges of the bread stick up out of the mould. 
4 Then push the other half in the mould so that the two halves overlap slightly and completely line the mould. If you find you have some gaps, just use some of the bread you cut off to fill them in. Brush the bread with the remaining butter. 
5 In a heavy-based frying pan, fry the bacon on one side over a medium heat for four mins. 
6 Lay a piece of bacon, cooked side down, into each muffin cup. Sprinkle some spring onion over the bacon, then crack an egg into each muffin cup. 
7 Season and bake in the oven for 20 mins. 
8 Run a small knife around the bread, which will now be toasted, and pop out each muffin from the tin. 
9 Serve immediately with a large grilled mushroom and some roasted vine tomatoes to make a complete dish. Otherwise they’re great on their own for a little ‘elevenses’.

Recipe from Breakfast Morning, Noon & Night by Fern Green (Hardie Grant)

Read more:

From the December issue

Christmas posts

Breakfast recipes

December's The Simple Things is full of festive makes and bakes, wreaths of hawthorn and bay, and twinkly lights a-plenty. Buy, download or subscribe now.

Food from round here: Plum pudding

MRS CRATCHIT set the bar rather high when she appeared from the kitchen bearing a home- made plum pudding in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843). So wondrous was the ‘speckled cannon ball’ blazing in ‘ignited brandy... with Christmas holly stuck into the top’, that Bob Cratchit regarded it as his wife’s ‘greatest success . . . since their marriage’.

It is often asserted that Dickens and his Victorian contemporaries ‘invented’ Christmas. Yet the plum pudding may have its origins in the 16th-century plum pottage, a peasants’ meat soup thickened with breadcrumbs and flavoured with spices and prunes. Mercifully, the meat has disappeared, but the spices (nutmeg, allspice, cloves, cinnamon) and plums (usually in the form of raisins – ‘plum’ was a catch-all word for dried fruits) remain.

Modern hosts hoping to elicit such ardent sighs of admiration as those enjoyed by Mrs Cratchit shouldn’t panic if they missed ‘Stir-up Sunday’ – the traditional day to make the Christmas pudding on the last Sunday before advent. This tradition has more to do with the words of a 16th-century prayer than the myth that a steamed suet pudding tastes better if you let it ‘mature’ for five weeks. Although if you’ve ever cooked a Christmas dinner, you’ll agree that advance preparation is the key to avoiding a festive meltdown.

You don’t need to stir it from east to west, either (in honour of the three wise men). But do insist, as custom dictates, that every member of the family takes their turn to stir the mixture while making a secret wish*. It will save you considerable arm ache.

TUCK IN: Jo and Richie Evans hand-make plum puddings in Devon, using local ingredients and their grandmothers’ recipes (figgys.co.uk).

* If following the tradition of dropping charms into the batter – a sixpence for riches, a ring for marriage – be sure to warn your dinner guests. 

Words: Rachael Oakden

Read more:

From the December issue

Christmas posts

Food from afar

December's The Simple Things is full of festive makes and bakes, wreaths of hawthorn and bay, and twinkly lights a-plenty. Buy, download or subscribe now.

Christmas gifts: Homemade tea bags

Gather together friends for a ‘crafternoon’ of festive food while you create bespoke handmade gifts

A truly personalised gift, you can make these rustic bags with your friend’s name on and their favourite tea.

Handmade tea bags

Makes 18–24 tea bags – six per gift

unbleached cheesecloth
fabric for the label, string, twine, linen ribbon, silver ribbon
a needle and thread
loose leaf tea
small brown Kraft bags seasonal foliage
black ink stamp
alphabet stamps

1 Cut the cheesecloth into 13 x 13cm squares.
2 Cut the string (that attaches the tea bag to the tag) into 15cm lengths.
3 Cut your fabric into a long 2.5cm strip and then cut that into 6cm pieces.
4 Fold down one short end of a fabric piece with the right side of the fabric facing away from you, then place one end of the string in the centre and sew into place.
5 Fold the fabric in half so the ends meet, and sew the sides together. Repeat until your required amount of tags are done.
6 Place around 2 tbsp of tea into the centre of the cheesecloth square. Gather the corners to make a pouch.
7 Tie the string from your tag to the pouch very securely, sealing the tea within.
8 Trim the excess cheesecloth and any excess string. Repeat.
9 Add 6 tea bags to each brown bag. Fold down the top twice, make a hole centrally with a hole punch and thread through and wrap around string, twine or ribbon. Add some seasonal foliage.
10 To create the name tag, cut a strip of wide linen ribbon, use a hole punch to create a hole at the top end, and use an ink pad and stamp kit to stamp the name. Attach to your bag with the ribbon.

Turn to page 30 of December's The Simple Things for three more makes - Stollen muffins, Peppermint creams, and Lemon, olive oil & rosemary body scrub - plus a menu fit for a crafternoon, including Chicken & bacon pie, and Eggnog with cognac.

Read more:

From the December issue

Christmas posts

Homemade gifts

December's The Simple Things is full of festive makes and bakes, wreaths of hawthorn and bay, and twinkly lights a-plenty. Buy, download or subscribe now.

Growing: Fruit and nut trees

In December's The Simple Things, Cinead McTernan explores the world of fruit and nut trees and selects the species most suitable for a domestic garden. Here, we pick out some of our favourite fruit and nut recipes from previous issues.

Spiced pickled quince

Looks stunning in the jar and goes well with soft goats’ cheese or cold meat.

400g granulated sugar
700ml cider vinegar
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp coriander leaves
1 bay leaf
4 quinces

1. Put sugar, vinegar, peppercorns and herbs into a large saucepan and bring slowly to the boil.

2. Peel, core and quarter the quinces; cut each quarter into three and place in the liquid. Bring back to the boil and then turn the heat down and simmer for 40 mins. The quince will soften and turn a rich pink colour.

3. Allow to cool slightly and then spoon into sterilised jars before pouring the liquor over and sealing. They’ll keep for a couple of months.

Recipe by Lia Leendertz, taken from issue 29 (November 2014 - buy back issue now)

Quick walnut tart

This is very fine if you make your own pastry, but once in a while shop-bought pastry can make the difference between making something and not.

240g sugar
180ml double cream
2 tbsp good honey
1 tsp fennel seed, ground
1 tsp cinnamon, ground
200g walnuts
500g sweet pastry
1 egg, lightly beaten

1 Preheat oven to 180C/Fan 160/350F. 

2 Add sugar to a pan on a moderate heat. Stir as it starts to turn to caramel, and once or twice more until all the sugar turns.

3 With the pan still on the heat, slowly pour in the cream, stirring as you do – it will form ribbons but keep going and it will become smooth. Stir in the honey, fennel, cinnamon and nuts. Leave to cool while you prepare the pastry case.

4 Butter and flour a 22-24cm tart tin.

5 On a floured surface, roll out the pastry to 5mm thick and line the tin.

6 Spike the pastry using a fork and bake for 10 mins. Brush pastry with beaten egg, and bake another 7 mins.

7 Spoon the nut mixture evenly into the tart and bake for about 30 mins in the centre of the oven. Let cool for 10 mins, before removing the side of the tin and leaving to cool on a rack.

Recipe by Mark Diacono, taken from issue 40 (October 2015 - buy back issue now)

Recipe by Lia Leendertz, photography by Kirstie Young

Gianduja liqueur

This chocolate and hazelnut liqueur is definitely worth the effort of spending a little time with the nutcracker. Gianduja is the forerunner of nutella, a chocolate and hazelnut paste created in Turin during the Napoleonic era, when a resourceful chocolatier mixed his limited supply of cacao with hazelnuts to make it stretch further. This is adapted from a recipe in Andrew Schloss’s Homemade Liqueurs and Infused Spirits. Siphoned off into pretty little bottles, it makes wonderful Christmas presents.

450g hazelnuts
200g cacao nibs
750ml vodka (40% proof)
300ml simple syrup* (you can buy this but it’s easy to make, see below)

1 In a large, dry frying pan, toast the hazelnuts until they start to take colour, then tip them into a cloth and rub off as many of the skins as you can easily get to come off.

2 Pour the cacao nibs into the frying pan and toast briefly, until the aroma hits your nose. Tip out into a cool bowl.

3 In batches, grind hazelnuts and cacao nibs in a food processor until they are the texture of coarse sand (you could use a pestle and mortar instead, but this will obviously take some time). Tip everything into a large, sealable jar and pour on the vodka. Stir well.

4 After around ten days, strain the mixture into a sterilised and cooled jar. Use a colander lined with muslin, and when the bulk of the liquid has passed through, suspend the muslin above the jar and let it drip through for an hour or so. Don’t squeeze or press on the mixture to extract more liquid, as this will cloud the liqueur.

5 Stir in the cooled simple syrup and it is then ready to drink, or to store for up to a year.

*To make the simple syrup
1 I always use American ‘cups’ measurements for making syrup, because you need an equal volume of water and sugar and this is the most straightforward way to measure them. You will need around 1¼ cups each of sugar and water. But if you prefer, this equates to around 300ml water and about 200g sugar.
2 Put the sugar and water into a saucepan and warm through gently until the sugar has dissolved, then turn up the heat and simmer for a minute. Take off the heat and allow to cool.

Recipe by Lia Leendertz, taken from issue 39 (September 2015 - buy back issue now)

Medlar jelly

Little accompanies rich meats and cheese as well as a good jelly. This deep amber preserve has just the right mix of sharp and sweet, with a fruity edge

1kg medlars, quartered (ideally around half bletted, half not)
juice of half–1 lemon
around 500g caster sugar
1 vanilla pod (optional)

1. Put the medlars in a large pan and pour in just enough water to cover. Add the juice of half a lemon, more if you fancy a sharper flavour. Bring to the boil, lower the temperature and simmer for an hour.

2. Leave to strain overnight through a jelly bag or muslin into a bowl.

3. Put a small plate into the fridge to chill. Measure the juice and pour it into a clean pan. For each 500ml of juice, add 375g of caster sugar.

4. Split the vanilla pod along its length and add to the liquid. Warm gently, stirring as the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat to a rolling boil, then boil unstirred, for 5 mins.

5. Turn off the heat and test for the setting point by spooning a few drops onto the cold plate, leaving it for a minute then pushing it with your finger. It should wrinkle. If not, test again in 5 mins.

6. Pour the jelly into warm, sterilised jars and seal. It will keep in a cool, dark place for at least a year, often much longer. Once open, store in fridge - it should last months.

Recipe by Mark Diacono, taken from issue 41 (November 2015 - buy back issue now) 

Almond butter

If you want to make homemade almond butter, you just need almonds and a food processor. Head over to digital editor Lottie Storey's blog - Oyster & Pearl - for a very easy recipe.

December's The Simple Things is full of festive makes and bakes, wreaths of hawthorn and bay, and twinkly lights a-plenty. Buy, download or subscribe now.

Merry: December cover reveal

You’ll know its here when you can smell the scent of cinnamon, cloves, spruce and pine. The lights too are a clue, twinkling on the tree or glowing brightly outside. Embrace the preparations and nod to festive times past; string a wreath of hawthorn or bay, burn a Yule log and sing carols. Make a party out of making presents, then cross your fingers for snow. Come the day itself there’ll be plum pudding and a jolly table to share your crackers. May your December be merry and your Christmas full of The Simple Things.

December's The Simple Things is out today - buy, download or subscribe now.

Competition: Win a feel good wardrobe from EKO (closed 31 Jan 2015)

Chase away your winter blues with luxury organic clothing inspired by the simplicity and natural beauty of the Cornish coast.

EKO has designed a range of luxury basics and day-to-evening dresses made from the kindest of eco fabrics. As the evenings draw in, relax and unwind in EKO’s super-soft loungewear or layer up with its casual day dresses and tunics, to create simple and elegant feel-good style.

We have a £250 voucher to give away. The winner will be selected at random from all completed entries. An e-voucher will be emailed to the winner, which can be redeemed online and spent on the entire collection. Enter below before 31 December 2015 and view full terms and conditions at icebergpress.co.uk/comprules