Category Archives: All about me
Who says you can’t buy a boy flowers for Valentine’s Day?
Okay so I cheated a little but I think the ‘boy’ in question was quite impressed with this little Valentine’s offering. Unfortunately for him and as politely reminded by his 4 year old daughter this morning, ‘no touching the chocolate until Easter, as we have given up chocolate for Lent’!
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Happy Birthday Grandpa
These days I don’t need much excuse to don the apron, roll my sleeves up and get the baking gear out of the cupboard and last week to celebrate my Dad’s (Grandpa’s) birthday, provided the perfect excuse. Over the last few years, the children’s birthdays have given me ample opportunity to practice making Victoria sponge and Madeira cakes and I for one was ready to consume something different. Inspired by a Facebook photograph of a cake that my friend made for her husband’s birthday recently and my father’s love of chocolate, ok my love of chocolate, I decided that a chocolate sponge cake was in order. My mother reminded me that this was not in fact my first chocolate sponge cake offering. As a child, I had spent several hours throwing together a chocolate sponge cake in celebration of one of her birthdays. A recipe at the age of 8 or 9 was obviously considered a hindrance to the creative process. The fact that I refused to touch even a morsel of the finished article, speaks volumes about the success of that experiment. Anyway, this was Ava’s first chocolate sponge cake and definitely the first time that three generations of the Collins girls have baked together (for those of you who know my mother, you’ll know how rare this is!).
I have faithfully followed Delia Smith’s sponge cake recipe for some time now and naturally expected another Delia special, with a chocolate twist but when my Google search resulted in a chocolicious offering by none other than Mary Berry, of Great British Bake Off fame, I knew I was onto a winner, so here is the finished result:
Later this month it is Grandma’s birthday and I’m reliably informed her favourite cake is a coffee walnut cake. That definitely would be a first for me. Does anyone have a recipe that they care to share?
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Slow cookers in vogue?
I’m not usually a follower of fashion but it would seem with my latest purchase that I might just be on trend this time, at least amongst the yummy mummy brigade. I have purchased a slow cooker . I was motivated to buy one on two grounds. At some point I will have to return to paid employment and I’m pretty sure learning how to use a slow cooker will not be high on the priority list then and secondly, one of my New Year’s resolutions was to cook at least one new dish a month. I’ve managed to cook two new dishes in the last two weeks (see below); does that mean I can have a month off?
On reflection however (isn’t hindsight a great thing?), I should have researched my purchase better and having now activated the on switch on my slow cooker, I have had two thoughts. 1. It could do with being a bit bigger. I can only really feed our family of four with the volume I selected and 2. I should have purchased one with a timer switch (my husband, the problem solver, assures me that we can buy a timer like you do for lights that should do the job.). So, I am considering whether to throw my current model on the buy and sell sites and make a loss and buy one that does exactly what I want, or to carry on with what I have which does the job.
Anyway, to accompany my slow cooker, I also purchased ‘Hamlyn All Colour Cookbooks 200 Slow Cooker Recipes’, an invaluable resource for the novice slow cooker user. So far I have cooked the ‘beef and root vegetable hotpot’ and the ‘ham in cola’ and was pretty pleased with both (pictures below). I do have a small ‘beef’ with the ham dish though. The sauce is very salty and the smell (which in my opinion is pretty vile – pregnant ladies with sensitive sniffers beware!), radiates throughout the whole house for days. That said, the ham itself was delicious. Anyone have any other recipes I could try? Please post below!
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Sewing, a necessary life skill?
The last time I picked up a sewing needle was probably at Textile class at secondary school and back then when I most certainly was not having children, EVER, saw it as a bit of a doss lesson where I sat back in my chair and waited for the bell to ring. While other more accomplished classmates were whipping up dresses and skirts, I was attempting a tea cosy which was always destined to gather dust in the loft.
I now realise of course that I should have paid a little more attention in class. One careless exit from the car seat, by one over eager little lady, resulting in one small, but very obvious hole, in her pink ballerina tutu. I suspect that ballet classes may not go beyond this year and so my desire to be thrifty, won out against my lack of desire to sew.
Sewing needles and thread are such objects of rarity in this house, that I actually had to delve into my loft to find the tools require to fix the hole. Tools retrieved and to my astonishment I managed to not only thread the needle but remember to tie a knot in the thread so that it wouldn’t simply pass through the material and made a repair of sorts. Here are the results:
Spurred on by my sewing success, when a last minute shop for a tacky Christmas jumper resulted in an epic fail, I removed an image of Santa from my son’s toddler group Christmas party bag and sewed it onto an old red jumper:
This year I may, and I emphasise the word MAY, open the box containing Andy’s Nana’s old sewing machine which has been sat in my lounge for over 2 years….small steps.
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Happy New Year!
2012 ended on a high for one lucky lady, me! A pass out for the night to see Gary Barlow with some lovely girlies and a trip down memory lane from ‘A Million Love Songs’ to ‘Pray’ and ‘Back for Good’ that reminded me of my school days, to ‘Never Forget’ that brings me back to dancing in the clubs at Uni and ‘Greatest Day’, which is my baby girl’s song – what a night! I can’t wait to see what lies ahead for 2013.
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I Did It Mummy 