Recipes for The Twelve Days of Christmas – I’m celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas still, and would like to share some of my favourite recipes here. From fabulous leftovers to festive cakes and tarts, I hope you will embrace the season as I am – with age-old traditions and delicious food, as Christmas is not over just yet!
Celebrating the Traditional Festive Season
Happy New Year to all my readers! I hope you brought in the New Year with family and friends and had a great time. After a wonderful Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, it was just the two of us on New Year’s Eve, in our PJ’s with a bottle of wine, a running buffet throughout the evening and the telly! We DID manage to stay up until Midnight, and enjoyed watching the spectacular fireworks from London, before crawling off to bed in the early minutes of the New Year. 2018 was a year of highs and terrible lows – I lost my mum after she suffered a major stroke, and I’m still reeling from her passing. With both parents gone now, I feel very lonely and have yet to adjust to being an “adult orphan”. I went on some amazing press trips all over the world, from South Africa, Canada and Asia, to the West Indies and the UK. I’ve still got to share some of my stories with you from my trips, so do keep popping back to read all about my adventures, as well about all the fabulous food I ate too.
As well as travelling the world, I was also very busy working with some great UK brands developing and creating recipes with them. From quick pickles and handy (and healthy) ready-made soups to local Welsh produce and dreamy, creamy desserts to healthy breakfast pancakes, it was a year of some really fabulous brand collaborations. And then I published my first solo book! After many years of writing notes and collecting recipes, my first book “Lavender & Lovage: A Culinary Notebook of Memories & Recipes From Home & Abroad” was published in November 2018. It’s a big book, over 400 pages, with 160 recipes and lots of photos – all styled and taken by me. I’ve been very humbled to see lots of positive reviews posted on Amazon and on many food blogs, with one review from Josceline Dimbleby (shared below) being the icing on the cake, as she is one of my favourite food and travel writers and is a fellow member of The Guild of Food Writers.
‘Packed with evocative memories of Karen’s much travelled and multi-faceted life, an exciting variety of mouth watering dishes inspired by that life, fascinating snippets of factual and historical information, and the visual treat of her beautiful photographs to bring it all alive – this book has everything. A real treasure trove!’
Josceline Dimbleby
I have no idea what 2019 has in store for me and my family, but I’m hoping it is more hopeful and happier than 2018. And, as I like to celebrate Christmas in the old and traditional way of the Twelve Days of Christmas, right up to Twelfth Night and Epiphany, I’d like to share some seasonal recipes with you today, with some leftovers recipes added for good measure. I wish you a very happy, healthy and hopeful New Year, and thank you for sticking with me here, through thick and thin! Do keep popping back to see all of my new recipes, travel stories and thoughts, and if you fancy following me on social media, then I’ll share the links below for ease. Please DON’T be shy, if you read my blog regularly, or have just discovered it, do leave a comment below and introduce yourself, all the best for 2019, Karen
Join me on Social Media:
You can buy my book here:
“Lavender & Lovage: A Culinary Notebook of Memories & Recipes From Home & Abroad”
Recipes for the Twelve Days of Christmas:
Using Leftovers:
North Country Creamed Turkey & Celery Hash
Easy Christmas cake chocolate fudge
Turkey, Stuffing, Bacon & Cranberry Club Sandwich
Parsnip, Potato & Sprouts Cheese Gratin
Nigel Slater comes to Supper: A Rich Dish of Sprouts and Cheese for a Very Cold Night
Recipes for New Year, Twelfth Night, Epiphany, Burns Night and Beyond:
Twelfth Night, Apples and Wassailing: A Traditional English Wassail Recipe
Twelfth Night, Epiphany and Spices! Curried Beef & Apricot Pie with a Salt Glaze Crust Recipe
Victorian Epiphany Tart Recipe
Twelfth Night, Epiphany and Delicious Bread! King Cake: Rosca de Reyes
Plough Monday, Cottage Loaf and a Ploughman’s Lunch (Recipes)
Christmas & New Year Cumbrian Chimney Pot Pie
Raspberry and whisky cream pots
Mini Beef Wellingtons with Boozy Berry Sauce
Roasted “Tartan Veggies” with Smoked Sea Salt, Honey and Thyme and other Burns Night Recipes
Ma Broon’s Burns Night Tribute Supper! A Guide to the Great Scottish Feast with Recipes
Donna Hardin says
Hello Karen…I do hope this next year will be one of much happiness and blessings. You put words to my fears…”an adult orphan.” I lost my mother when I was a young child…my sweet dad is in his mid 80’s and that thought creeps into my mind every once in awhile. I cherish every phone call and every time I am able to spend with him. Sending cyber comfort. I love your recipes…and look forward to digging more into the many you have posted today. Thinking about a Robert Burns High Tea with friends…but somehow, I feel insecure as I have never done this before. We will see!
Karen Burns-Booth says
Thanks so much for your kind words Donna and you carry on doing what you are doing, cherish every phone call and the time you spend with him – I visited my parents regularly and spoke to them nearly every day on the phone, so I have wonderfully happy memories to cling on to. You should do a Burns Tea, it and you will be FAB! Let’s do it together! Karen 🙂
Carrie says
I just found your blog before Christmas. Everything looks so good. Happy New Year!!
Karen Burns-Booth says
THANK YOU so much Carrie and a VERY Happy New Year to you too! 🙂 Karen