Christmas week

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with lots of laughter, love and good food. Life has been busy in the Bite-Sized Thoughts household for all the right reasons - my parents joined us from Australia on Christmas Eve and we have been soaking up their company after not seeing them for a year. Mini Bite was 5 months at their last visit and is almost 17 months now, so they are catching up on all her changes too.

We have enjoyed Christmas and ventured to some new local and semi-local sights - picture highlights below.

A present pile (and toy storage) all for Mini Bite

More presents (the walker wasn't one of them but was within the photo anyway!)

Our Christmas table

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Fruit medley puff pastry tart

I made this tart back in May, but somehow neglected to post it until now. This is no reflection on the quality of the tart, which I remember loving both in taste and for ease of preparation.

My version was so easy because I used store bought puff pastry (Jus Roll is helpfully vegan) and store bought apple sauce. I don't routinely have either in the house, but if you do keep them to hand you could have this made and cooked within 30 minutes of thinking about it.

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It's starting to look a lot like Christmas...

London Christmas scenes...enjoy!

Oxford Street

Selfridge's

Selfridges

Tottenham Court Road

Tower Bridge

What Christmas sights are you enjoying?

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Vegan pumpkin spice cake

Last week was my birthday, and birthdays are always a good excuse for cake. For home consumption I made the hummingbird cake I've posted twice before, which was just as good on this occasion as on occasions past. I also made a pumpkin spice cake to take to work, using the rest of the tin of pumpkin I recently bought.

Mr Bite doesn't like pumpkin, which is a shame, because I'd love to enter this cake into regular rotation. It was truly delicious. Three colleagues asked for the recipe, and whilst pumpkin preparation is annoying if you don't have the tinned variety to hand, I can attest it would be worth it here.

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In my kitchen - December 2017

I am linking this in to the monthly In My Kitchen round-up, hosted by Sherry of Sherry's Pickings.

I suspect a lot of December IMK posts will start with some reflection, or expression of alarm, about the end of 2017 drawing near. I too have no idea how we're at this point of the year. Winter is upon us and Christmas is on the horizon. Here is what is happening in my kitchen as we hurtle towards 2018. 

In keeping with Christmas, I recently brought home the M&S vegan Christmas chestnut roast wrap. There are quite a few vegan Christmas wraps and sandwiches about, and I have also tried the Pret a Manger and Boot's sandwiches. If I'm honest, I preferred both of those to this wrap, but it was nonetheless pleasant enough. I think the chestnut flavours were just slightly too strong for me. 

More successful was this vegan and gluten free pumpkin pie I found at Whole Foods on a recent journey across London (if I can manage it, any journey across London features a stop at Whole Foods).

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