Christmas pudding, candied peel, tangerine chocolate sorbet

I'm a bit of a deadbeat at the moment, the boyfriend and I have been eating a lot of sandwiches and leftovers instead of cooking something lovely. It's the first Christmas in the new place and rather pathetically I haven't really made much of an effort since we're spending the bulk of the holidays at our parents' and hey, read the side bar, I'm not a fricking millionaire! I just about dragged home a loser Christmas tree home this weekend but then realised that I don't have a big ole box of decorations anymore so ended up draping a bunch of my cheap tacky jewelery over it. Some of it glows in the dark. Here's my favorite little area
Also got a Hello Kitty advent calendar, which I've since abandoned because there were no pictures in the windows and the chocolate was horrible - that alone pretty much almost ruined my whole Christmas right there!
Anyway, I'm trying to get into it, watching a lot of cooking shows etc. and made Christmas puddings again. Last year I didn't know what the heck I was doing and consulted three different books, this year it was even worse. I missed stir up Sunday by about two weeks, it's fairly redundant to say that I was hungover, and for some reason I'd decided to rescue a few tangerines on the turn and make my own candied peel.
Candied peel is pretty straight forward to do, just boil up citrus peels in a sugar syrup, but of course I messed this up because I balked at the amount of sugar you're meant to use and as a result my little shreds of peel didn't crystallize - rats!
Anyway, I made the puddings, soaking the dried fruits (cherries, cranberries, dates and mango - shut up, yes, mango. I didn't have any currants) in whiskey for a week because I didn't have any Madeira. Also I didn't have any nutmeg or cloves so I dumped a load of orange blossom water in there. I'm not happy about any of this by the way, I know I didn't prepare properly and the results are bound to be questionable, there are no excuses. Only one word to describe it - deadbeat.
I'll conclude this account of a day in the life of a lazy loser with a simple sorbet form David Lebovitz. It's just sugar syrup, tangerine juice and chocolate. I had the wonderfully tangy, zesty leftover syrup from the candied peels, and leftover over ripe tangerines - perfectly economical.
Result: Believe it or not, the sorbet was too cold to eat in the winter. I let my portion melt and dipped biscuits in it. The taste is really great, like grown up chocolate orange, but not sure if I will go to the effort of making it again