Chestnuts and Crackers in December

Although the Christmas tree is up, its not looking overly festive in my kitchen yet.  I guess that will come with Christmas day and the festive holiday when we get to indulge and be thankful for what we have.

I have started making some bookmarked festive food in advance though, such as Johanna's Chocolate Salami and Chocolate Panforte. I have other festive recipes that I want to make, but yesterday I was hit with a stinky cold and a chesty cough. So you can imagine the last thing I wanted to do is be in the kitchen sneezing over things, instead I had resigned myself in front of the TV.

But I have found some energy to sit in front of my computer and share some new stuff in my kitchen. Let me start with a disclaimer, this is not a sponsored blog post - I say this because I seem to have amassed a number of Merchant Gourmet products in my kitchen...carry on reading and you will see. 

Firstly there are whole chestnuts.  Its the festive season and chestnuts are must in every home. 

I am planning on making Roasted Chestnut, Parsnip and Carrot Loaf and Savoury Chestnut, Rainbow Carrot and Lentil Cake.  Funnily enough, over the weekend, I found another box of chestnuts that I picked up a early in the year and still in date.   

Next we have some Quick Cook Polenta.  We haven't had polenta for a while, one of my favourite dishes want to do is Tamale Bean Pie, but over the festive season I am planning on making some Polenta Bombs filled with winter vegetables and Savoury Mosaic Polenta Cake with vegetarian Black Pudding.

I am planning on having a fancy cheese board this year, so picked up some beetroot and three seed oat biscuits and charcoal and sesame wholemeal crackers.  I have had charcoal crackers in the past and disliked them, but wanted to give them another try - also I think they would look good on the festive platter. 

D picked up this jar of potted blue Stilton.  He said the jar could be reused. He has been thinking a lot about our plastic consumption and has been making a concerted effort in reducing it whenever we can. 

I picked up some pistachio nuts and wasabi peas.  More nibbles and nuts to come!

Now onto some world food or ingredients.  I saw this Smoky Spanish Style Grains and Rice on offer and thought i'd give it try.  I also picked it up hoping it would inspire me to make something different for our lunch boxes as I must confess I am getting bored with the homemade pasta salads and sandwiches. 

I was running low on Panko.  I was glad to find some at a supermarket.  I prefer using panko to dried breadcrumbs for my homemade vegetarian Scotch Eggs and Fishless Cakes. 

On a recent trip to Bristol, we stopped at an Oriental supermarket.  I picked up a bag of hot chili flavoured dried bean curd to snack on - think vegan jerky, and a packet of bean curd sheets - I remembered a recipe I had come across calling for it, but when I got home - as usual I could not remember from which cookbook, hopefully it will come to me in the next few days.    

Many of the supermarkets this year were flogging American ingredients for Thanksgiving.  I saw these Tortilla chips - one Fiery Hot Chilli and the Ranch Red Pepper and was tempted by them.  I also wanted to see how different they were from the ones sold in the UK, plus I am a sucker for savoury crispy snacks.  I must say, these were superior than those sold in the supermarket as they had more texture, bite and crunch.  I also picked up two cans of Pumpkin Puree (not shown) that were reduced to 99p each and let me tell you that is a bargain.  

I am sharing this post with Sherry Pickings for In My Kitchen series, it was started by Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial. Celia has been a great source of inspiration to me from her Sourdough bread to her Beeswax Wrap.  In My Kitchen Series is also a nice way to meet bloggers from around the world, as well as an opportunity to take a peek into other bloggers kitchen.