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My collection of books (in Danish ) by Margery Allingham featuring Albert Campion. Well read 😀📗 Thanks to Crime Classics, Net Galley and Agora Books I was able to read 4 short stories from one of my favorite  writers of classical crime stories. The novels feature Albert Campion in three of the stories. Two are  crime stories and one is Christmas with his wife Amanda  and the dog, Poins. The last novel, Happy Christmas , is about a couple celebrating Christmas like Victorians and with the help of an old lady living at the top of the house. Margery Allingham is always delightful to read, so this was a real Christmas treat!

The mirabelle plums are ripe now - so the time has come to make the jam I use when making honey cake for Christmas. I made 4 jars. Ingredients: 1,6 kg mirabelle plums pitted 1 kg sugar Atamon Pit the mirabelle plums and crush them. I use my Bamix Multi-purpuse blade. Add sugar and cook for about 1½ hour - until you have about ½ left. Take it off the heat and add Atamon. Put into cleaned glass jars. Danish

There are lots  and lots of  cherries (morello) this year.  We picked some for the freezer, others for the cherry sauce for Christmas - and then a lot just to consume  😋🍒🍒, and there are still plenty on the tree. Cherry conserve: For the two jars - each ½ liter - I used : 500 g cherries, pitted 4 Dl sugar 2 Dl water ½ tsp citric acid Atamon Atamon is a special Danish liquid preservative - consisting of water, preservative (E211), antioxidant (E270), color (E150) and flavoring.  Bring sugar and water to a boil. Add the berries and the citric acid and let simmer  2-3 minutes. Remove from stove and add Atamon. Put in cleaned jars. Danish

The Christmas Promise by Sue Moorcroft Ava Bliss lives in London with her friend  Izz. She has started her own business as a milliner, and it is hard to make ends meet. Selling handmade hats isn't easy. Furthermore she is being stalked by her ex-boyfriend, and he threatens to publish  intimate pictures of her. At a get together arrangement she meets Izz' boss, Sam. That gives a lot of complications, especially when they start to date pro forma. The story takes place in december and at Christmas The genre is feel-good , chick-lit. It is a well written book, and the work in a PR-agency and the art of hat making is  interesting and well told  The subject of  hate porn is  described with great insight. Danish

Cast on 61 stitches and knit 4 rows, and the pattern. Remember to end all uneven pattern rows with 1 k, and start all even pattern rows with 1 p . Knit until the cloth has the desired length, and then knit 4 rows and bind off. Pattern: 1.row: knit 2.row: 4 p, 1 k, 5 p 3.row: 4 k, 3 p, 3 k 4.row: 2 p, 5 k, 3 p 5.row: 2 k, 7 p, 1 k 6.row: 9 k, 1 p 7.row: 1 k, 9 p. 8.row: 9 k, 1 p 9.row: 2 k, 3 p, 1 k, 3 p, 1 k 10.row: purl 10 X X X X X X 9 X X X X X X X X X 8 X X X X X X X X X 7 X X X X X X X X X 6 X X X X X X X 5 X X X X X 4 X X X 3 X 2 1 You have to remember that all uneven rows start in the right side of the diagram and X=purl and ▢= knit. All equal rows start in the left side of the diagram and X=knit and ▢=purl. Danish

One of our traditions for Boxing Day dinner is a spaghetti / curry salad. It's a recipe that originates from my childhood home. This year it looked like this: This year, it was not Matjes (young herring) fillets, but spicy  pickled herrings I used as decoration. Now the recipe: Curry Salad with Matjes fillets 1 dl mayonnaise Make the mayonnaise smooth with the cream.  Season with curry to your taste. Break the spaghetti in small pieces and boil according to the package. When cooked  pour  it in a sieve and cool under running water. Drain and put it in the  curry-mayonnaise. Put it  in a dish and garnish with eggs, tomatoes and herring fillets. Serve with rye bread. 1 tbsp whipping cream  1-2 tsp curry spaghetti egg tomato matjes fillets Danish

With this picture from Pringé in France (vacation 2004) I wish you all a Merry Christmas. Danish

Brown cookies is an absolute must at Christmas and in December at our house. Brown cookies are said to have roots back in the Middelage - I have "only" baked them a little more than 50 years 😃 . I make  a portion dough and when it has cooled  and is solid, I part it in 4 pieces and make them into rolls and put each in a plastic bag and put them in the freezer. Then I can bake them once in a while, and they will stay crisp. It is also a great advantage they are frozen, because that makes it much easier to cut very thin slices. If you cut too thick slices the cookies will not be crisp. Danish Brown Cookies 250 g butter Heat butter, sugar and syrup till boiling point  Dissolve potash in the water and add.  Peel and chop the almonds  Blend the orange peel with a bit of the flour. Stir all the ingredients together and let cool  When the dough is cooled and solid , separate in 4 pieces and make 4 rolls and put them in the freezer. Cut i thin slice...

Even though I already made Christmas sweets, I fancied making oatmeal balls as well. The amount in the glass equals half the amount in the recipe. Oatmeal Balls 250 g butter  Dissolve the instant coffee in 2 tbsp boiling water. Mix everything and knead it together. Form little balls and roll them in desiccated coconut. Store cold 8 dl oatmeal 1½ dL sugar 2 tbsp vanilla sugar 2 tsp instant coffee 4 tbsp cocoa desiccated  coconut Danish

We make our own sweets for Christmas. We usually make 4 different types. Ingredients: 900 g marzipan, 150 g soft chocolate nougat almonds, walnuts, raisins 3/4 dl cognac 200 g cooking chocolate (sometimes a bit more) Type 1 is with marzipan and  soft chocolate nougat - made like a sandwich with nougat in the middle and cut in diamond-shape. Type 2  You roll a little ball of marzipan, put an almond or ½ walnut on top, and dip the bottom in melted chocolate  Type 3 Before I begin making the sweets, I soak 1 dl raisins in cognac for a couple of hours. Then I use the cognac and mix it into one fifth of the marzipan. Roll it in little balls, cover in melted chocolate and put an almond on top. Type 4 Mix chopped almonds, chopped walnuts, the soaked raisins, the leftovers when you cut the diamond shaped sweets and what is left of the nougat. Pour it all into melted chocolate. Use two teaspoons and form little pieces and put it on a tray covered with a baking sheet...

Still flowers in the garden - despite frost and snow. Torben made this little bouquet today. The view is from the balcony this afternoon after a day with sunshine. The sky was lovely when the sun had set. It is not as impressive  and colorful on the picture as it was in reality. Danish

Butter cookies doesn't really belong to the Christmas Cookies, but as there are no children helping with the baking, we might as well bake the ones, we think taste the best. The kind of cookies you  make with cookie cutters in various Christmassy forms,  has a tendency to get a bit massive due to the flour you use when rolling out the dough. So this year it will be butter cookies (Specier), brown cookies ( brunkager )  and then some Honey cake   too. Specier 4 dl flour Knead the dough together. Make it  into  a roll. Store it in a plastic bag in the refrigerator a couple of hours. Cut in  thin slices and bake  5 - 8 minutes at 225 degrees. 150 g butter 1 dLsugar 1 tsp vanilla sugar Danish

One of my "hobbies" in December is to participate in various Advent Calendars on the internet. I was  lucky to win  in one of the calendars and the prize was: SMEDBO shower basket, coat rack with 4 pegs, toilet paper holder and 2 towel hooks. The Advent Calender I participated in was from  VVS Eksperten, and in just two days my prize  arrived. Lovely. 🎄🎅 Danish

One of the traditions in our home  is to bake  honey cake for Christmas  I did that yesterday. Here is the recipe: 500 g honey Honey and butter are melted together. Baking soda is stirred in the lukewarm mixture. Sugar and chopped bitter orange peel  is put in my Bamix Dry & Wet Processor and blended until the peel is chopped very finely.  Stir t in all the  ingredients. Stir thoroughly. Cover the oven pan with  baking paper and pour the dough in the pan. Bake at 150 degrees for ½ hour. Let cool, cut to make two layers and spread the marmalade on one layer. (Apricot, mirabelle or plum marmalade is fine). Add the second layer and brush with melted coating chocolate. Suitable for freezing. 125 g butter 2 tbsp baking soda ½ tsp cinnamon ½ tsp ground cloves 2 tbsp bitter orange peel or pickled orange peel 1½ dl sugar 3 eggs 10½ dl flour 2-3 dl marmalade  125 g dark cooking chocolade When baking and cooling is done, the cake...

After a night in the refrigerator the brawn was ready. Some was put in the freezer - ready for the Christmas lunches, but we had to taste it as well to see if it was all right :  It was. Pepsi the Cat followed the whole process very carefully.  It seems it is constantly hungry. Danish

Now it is time to make  jellied pork brawn for Christmas.. Ingredients: 2 kg knuckle of pork or other pieces of pork. (In principle you can use any piece of meat from the pig. It depends of how lean you want your brawn, but you have to use some bones , skin and fat to make the broth able to congeal. Vegetables: This year I used one diced parsnip, 2 leeks, 1/4 celery, but onions and carrots is also fine. It's about getting the broth tasty. Spices: salt, 2 bay leaves, 1 tsp black peppercorns , 3 dried Siberian peppers or chilies Meat, vegetables and spices should be  3/4 covered in water and cooked so tender it easily parts from the bones. Take it up with a skimmer and let it cool, while the broth cooks to be reduced. When the meat has cooled you cut it in small pieces. Sift the broth onto the meat and stir well. The meat should not be covered in broth but be right under the surface when the meat is pressed lightly together. Spoon it into your forms and...