Preparation time: 1 minute
Cooking time: 3 minutes
Skill level: few things in life are easier than nogging an egg

Ingredients

• 2 (fresh and free range) egg yolks
• sugar – 2 tbsp
• milk – warmed – 2 mugs/glasses worth
• brandy – 80ml

Mix together the egg yolk and sugar and divide between two mugs/glasses.

Pour over the warm milk and stir.

Add a generous shot (40ml) of brandy to each.

Serve and cheers.

Verdict: Definitely one of the tastiest of the Christmastide tipples. A boozy dairy dessert in a glass.

Food: A splendid tomato, onion and Stilton tart.

Entertainment: Christmas with Raymond Blanc in October.

Preparation time: 1 minute
Cooking time: 3 minutes
Skill level: easier than making a cup of tea.

Ingredients

• Kirsch – 100ml
• juice of 2 lemons
• finest Yorkshire tap water – 500ml
• honey – 2 tsp

Put water, lemon juice and honey in a saucepan and bring to the boil.

Add the Kirsch and keep on a low heat until ready to serve.

Serve.

Verdict: Boozy Lemsip.

Food: Accompanied by baked polenta and roasted vegetables.

Entertainment:‘MasterChef – The Pros’. The final. Congratulations to Ash.

Preparation time: 1 minute
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Skill level: slightly more skill required than for making Glogg, because you have to peel a satsuma.

Ingredients

• Pimms – 250ml
• Brandy – 100ml
• apple juice – 500ml
• ground ginger – 2 tsp
• 1 satsuma – segmented
• dried apple slices – handful

Put all the ingredients in a saucepan and simmer gently for 10 minutes.

Pour.

Drink.

Verdict: A nice boozy gingery warming drink. Like a hug in a mug. But not like cup-a-soup.

Food: Accompanied a very tasty gravalax…recipe to follow.

Entertainment: The penultimate episode of ‘MasterChef – The Pros’. Ash is the obvious winner.

Preparation time: 1 minute
Cooking time: 5 minutes plus 15 minutes infusion time
Skill level: If you can manage to open a bottle of wine, you can make glogg

Ingredients

• 1 bottle of sub £5.00 red plonk – 750ml
• 6 cloves
• fresh ginger – sliced – 70g
• 10 cardamon pods – halved
• caster sugar – 85g
• dried apple slices* – handful
• 2 cinnamon sticks (very much optional at Yumblog Cottage)
• brandy – 40ml
• plus some flaked almonds and raisins to serve

Pour the wine into a saucepan and add all the other ingredients (apart from the brandy).

Heat and simmer gently for 5 minutes.

Turn off the heat, cover and allow to infuse for 15 minutes.

Add the brandy and serve with a few flaked almonds and raisins in the glass

Verdict: An excellent (and more potent) alternative to mulled wine. Ours didn’t taste much of cardamon, but that could have been because our pods were bought sometime in the last millennium.

Food: We had ours as a precursor to Raclette.

Entertainment: An accidental second viewing of ‘Surrogates’ on DVD. We spent the first hour trying to decide whether it’s familiarity was due to a previous viewing or the cliché-ridden storyline. Turned out to be both.

* Completely optional – we happened to have recently bought an unexpectedly expensive packet of the stuff at a Berlin Christmas market and wanted to use some before it got as old and stale as the cardamon pods. That said, once re-hydrated in booze, these apple slices made a very agreeable nibble.

Unpleasant food photograph of the week: ‘Snowflake Cake (with pubic hair decoration)’, GoodFood, 101 Christmas Dishes.

Preparation time: 2 minutes plus 10 seconds shaking
Cooking time: 0 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 2

Ingredients

• white rum – 20ml
• vodka – 20ml
• blue curacao – 10ml
• cream – 10ml
• pineapple juice – 60ml
• cream of coconut – 20ml

or

Flamboyantly pour all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker.

Shake.

Pour into a fancy glass over a little ice.

Add a straw or two if desired.

Drink.

Repeat.

Trabants in Dresden

Verdict: If you like the constituent ingredients, you’ll love this.

Drink: Probably came midway between a bottle of Cava and a few vodka and tonics.

Entertainment: A mixture of TV and ever-deteriorating child care

* September 2007

** Actually for me it was ‘Tarot Sport’ by Fuck B*****s (somehow predicting the future as it was released in 2009)

* Topical reference for the kids.

Preparation time: 5 minutes plus 30 minutes steepage
Cooking time: none
Skill level: none
Serves: 2

Ingredients

• fresh mint leaves – big handful – chopped
• 1 piece of root ginger – about the size of a ‘very’ large thumb or 2 normal thumbs – finely chopped
• honey – 4tbsp
• fresh lemon or lime juice – 90ml
• sparkling mineral water
• ice

Put the chopped mint, ginger, and honey into a medium bowl and add 450ml of boiling water.

Leave to steep for 30 minutes.

Strain into a measuring jug, pressing down on the solids with the back of a ladle or spoon to get out as much of the infused liquid as possible.

Add the lemon or lime juice and enough cold sparkling water to make the liquid up to one litre.

Fill glasses with ice cubes and pour over the lemonade.

Verdict: Despite it’s lack of gingeriness this is still a very refreshing minty/lemony drink.

Drink: If you want to turn this into a proper adult drink I would suggest it could be invigorated with a shot or two of vodka…please drink responsibly.

Entertainment: Amusing Yumblog Junior with bright colours, strong patterns and a multitude of squeaks and rattles.

“Magic”

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: nun
Skill level: easy
Serves: how much lemonade do you want and are you adding booze to it?

Ingredients

• 4 unwaxed lemons
• caster sugar – 175g
• chilled filtered tap water – 1 litre
• ice-cubes

Take four unwaxed lemons and cut each into eight pieces. Put in blender along with some ice cubes, half the sugar and half the water. Zap until you have a thick pulp. Strain through a sieve into a large jug.

Return the pulp to the blender and add the remaining water, sugar and ice. Zap again until you are happy it can be blended no more and sieve into same jug/serving receptacle.

Drink.

Smile.

Verdict: In the highly subjective area of sweetness and sourness this ratio of lemons to sugar is bang on, you get a great sour hit with enough sweetness but not so much that you feel like you’re having a liquid pudding.

Food: Kippers for him, a strange melange of edamame beans and miso soup with noodles and wakame seaweed for her.

Entertainment: Owing to Andy Murray apparently being more important than food, the Supersizers was postponed this week so we took the spectacularly wrong decision to watch Mission Impossible II on ITV 612. Truly a rubbish film and that combined with the interminable cloying adverts for washing liquid involving hideous wispy vocals and uber-twee wafty French bird, we had to bail half way before our ire was over-roused.