Le Challenge - Gold

This month I am pushing the boundaries. Not my boundaries but those of Lucy and Nat. LeChallenge for October is "Gold". Now, I love thinking outside the box so to speak. I have had a ball knitting prawns and lettuce leaves and midget gem sweets in Le Challenge, but this time I felt I had to do something practical, ie useful. I asked Lucy, who conferred with Nat, and this month I am having fun in the kitchen.

                                               my little jars of gold with home made gold labels

There is a thread of gold running through all these makes. Some more obvious than others. This could be part of a quiz!.... the apricots are obviously gold (well apricot coloured) and they are steeped in brandy which is liquid gold. The cherries likewise are steeped in liquid gold, sorry brandy.


the apricots and cherries in liquid gold (brandy)

The marmalade is gold coloured, and as Paddington will tell you, very very sticky.

marmalade

The greengage jam is sort of gold coloured, well greenish gold. In an episode of Blackadder they discovered green in alchemy experiments, green was to be the new gold.

greengage jam

The olive oil with the home grown chillies are gold liquid, but not as nice as the brandy. Don't confuse the too. A funny story here. We were in Granada and were invited in the hotel to have a personal olive oil tasting. The husband struggled with it but I was able to tell the difference between the various olive oils. The guy seemed pretty impressed with my skills and poured me a full glass. Now a thimbleful of olive oil is ok, but a glass is not for the faint hearted. Here I am  drinking merrily away then the husband reminded me of the properties of olive oil and that we were flying home early the next morning. I hardly slept with the stress of fretting about accidents down wind so to speak. (at this stage my daughter will be going, och mum).

can't open the lid to pop in the home grown chillie

As for the raspberry jam, well it uses golden granulated sugar, as did the greengage jam and the marmalade. And the sugar packet tells me that sugar used to be compared to gold.

raspberry jam, does anyone have any lids I can borrow?

And now to the next part of the thread... I made my own labels. I played about with gold glitter, gold glittery paper and a stamp of a hedgehog masquerading as a choirboy. Don't ask. They were all OTT, too flashy, indeed too much Christmas and its only October. In the end I unearthed some mica paints bought years ago and never used. I sprinkled the powder on the card, sprayed with water then dry brushed out. When it dried, I punched out a parcel tag shape and stamped it with some LOVE bunting. Wrote the name of the stuff on the label, and Bob's your Uncle and Fanny's your Aunt. There has been a lot of love going to and fro on instagram this week,  particularly amongst those who participate in Le Challenge, so the love bunting seemed appropriate.

having fun painting paper

making the labels

The plan is to add some homemade Christmas salt a la Nigella, chutney  and a homemade Christmas pudding. I always make homemade Christmas puddings but we eat them all and they rarely get over the doorstep. Occasionally my friend Liz, who blogs here, gets a Christmas pudding, but not always.

I did things slightly differently this year. I have previously used Hennessey brandy but this is a year of austerity, or so David Cameron says. So, I bought Tesco Napoleon brandy and used tinned Tesco apricots instead of fresh. It remains to see if anybody notices. Probably not unless I tell them.

One other home made thing I have that is almost gold is Limoncello, made by our neighbour. Its really nice. I could sneak it in, but you know, your sins will find you out.

Helen x
linking up with LeChallenge