More Nigella

It's been a while as I've been spending some time at my parents, but I have managed to do two more recipes from Nigella's "Kitchen", both of which were actually a success!

The first one was the "crustless pizza" which is kind of like an omlette/frittata (not sure if I've spelt either of those right)!  And after an inital panic when it behaved more like a souffle in the over, it worked very well, looked fairly similar to the picture, and led to a request for second helpings from my daughter!

I think I will definately be doing this one again for a quick tea.

The next one that I have attempted is the BBQ mince recipe, which is very much a spag bol type mix, but with slightly different spices in it.  It was yummy though, and as suggested I served it which a bread roll and cheesy nachos.  Again, approved by the 5 year old critic!  I especially liked the idea of just peeling and halving the onions, carots and celery and thowing in the processor to produce a finely diced mixture, then softening in the pan.  As one who is is no good at chopping, this idea was great, and why I hadn't thought of it before I don't  know.

Boggle Flash Reivew

I was so excited when I actually got asked to do a review of something on my blog.  I had seen lots of other people doing reviews of things ranging from toys, to books, to make-up, but thought it would never actually happen to me.  But it did, so here goes, my first ever review. 

When the parcel arrived at my door I was rather too excited I think based on my age, and ripped the paper off rather quickly, behaving a bit like my 5 year old will in a few weeks time.  I was really excited to see how exactly these 5 letter cubes talked to each other.

There are 3 different game settings, but the main ideas is that you get a random set of five letters generated on the cubes.  You then score a point every time you rearrange the letters into an actual word of three to five letters.  Once your time runs out, the cubes show your score, followed by the maximum score you could’ve got.  This was actually very depressing as I frequently got less than fifty percent of the total points available!!! (Not sure I can blame the toy manufacturers for my lack of brain power though!!)

I tried it with many different people ranging from my five year old (even though the recommended age was 8) through to my in-laws who are, how do I word this, retired!

Everybody enjoyed it, and easily understood the printed instructions.  It even held the attention of a group of 16-20 year olds at a youth group I help run!  My five year old did manage to play as well, as there is a setting where you only use three or four of the cubes, and she could manage to make three and four letter words.

For me the biggest plus point is that it comes with a very robust little box with a lid, which is small enough to fit into a handbag for entertainment on the go, or on holiday etc.  The only downfall that my testers came up with is that although there was a multi-player setting, it didn’t really feel as though you were competing against each other as you each got different letters.  The other improvement that was suggested is for it to list all the words you didn’t get in the time, as some of the testers, especially the teenagers, didn’t believe the max score quoted.

Overall I think it is a good, educational game.  The RRP is £24.99 and it is available now from all good toy retailers such as Toys R Us and Argos etc, although some searching will find some offers just ready for Chris

Number 2

I had got this title in my head ready to come upstairs and type the blog, and now that I've actually typed it, it does kind of imply that I'm doing a blog about toilet habits!!!
Rest assured I am not going to talk about my bowel movements (at least not this early on in my blogging history!) It does however refer to the second recipe that I have now completed in my "Kitchen" quest.  What did I go for second, did I break away from the baking, and break into the cooking?

No! I played safe again with the apple and cinnamon muffins.  I did worry when I'd done all the mixing, and I ended up with this!!!

 Looks a bit more like we're returning to the toilet talk from before than a yummy cake mixture, but I carried on, and as you can see from below, they actually came out OK.  They looked edible, and not unlike the picture in the book.  I tried one, still warm, and was impressed.

Then came the real test, my 5 year old daughter!! She walked in after the school , and I was elated when I got the "something smells really nice in here mummy" comment.

"Oh I've made apple muffins, do you want one?" (add your own image of perfect hair, smart apron and a row of pearls to this domestic goddess like converstaion, then remove them, because its certainly not how it carried on!)  My darling daughter took one bite, and exclaimed "Mummy these are disgusting!"

Not what an aspiring Domestic Goddess wants to here.  The muffin got left on the plate, and I returned to the still rather messy kitchen, crushed by a 5 year old!

Luckily, my husband tried one later, and decided he liked them, although perhaps he was being tactful, as I later found out, my daughter had told him how much she hated them at bed time.  Oh well.  I will not be defeated.  I will carry on!

A challenge with a difference

I have decided to set myself a challenge, and this has nothing to do with making cards!  I have been watching the film Julie and Julia, and have decided to that I to want to set a similar challenge, although I don't have Julia Childs cookbook!

I felt a certain affinity with the character in the film, although my cooking never comes out looking like hers did, and I certainly don't get rounds of "WOW, Delicious" when I put my microwave meals in front of my husband each night.  I think it was probably the "melt downs" that I could relate to, although she only seemed to have one or two throughout the film, and I seem to have three or four per day over much more mundane things, certainly not over the unsuccessful turning out of an aspic jelly!

So I have decided to do the same with my latest cookbook purchase which is "Kitchen" by Nigella Lawson. 
ISBN: 9780701184605, £26.,Published by Chatto and Windus.

(perhaps I should have done "how to be a domestic goddess" based on the name of my blog!!)  I haven't set myself a target, as I am already expecting the project to fail based on the fact that I have more cookbooks on my shelf than meals I have cooked recently.  I have however made a start, which has surely got to count for something?!

I am being a bit secretive about the whole project (which doesn't seem to make much sense when I'm just about to publish it on the World Wide Web, but my readers are very few!)  Again, I think the reason for me not telling my husband is the expectation that I will not suceed!  Perhaps if I get to the end of it, I will indeed achieve my dream of Domestic Goddessness (unsure about that as a real word!)

Anyway, I have started to ramble again, when I'm sure all you want to know is where did you start, and what sort of mess did it turn out to be?  Well sorry to dissappoint, but the first recipe was actually edible! Although I did stick to baking rather than cooking, and I do tend to have more success at this.

Anyway, here it is, Guiness Gingerbread.

It is actually edible, and tastes good! My husband has had several pieces.  I'm not one hundred percent sure that the texture is exactly right, it's more of a crumpet texture than a cake texture and I'm not sure that is correct!  But never mind, it's nice, and is being eaten.

What next?  Back to the book to decide.

CES autumn challenge

I've been off line for a while, but hopefully have quite a bit to put up over the next few days.  Some sad news, one of my beautiful cats got very ill and died at the weekend.  She had a stoke, and took a lot of looking after, hence now blogging, so I think she is better off now.  Still devastating though as I'm sure many of you know.

Anyway, here is my entry for the Autumn challenge over at CES challenges

Can't stop!

The images over at Crafty Purple Frog are so gorgeous that I can't stop.  Dinner is late again tonight!!  I'm still only starting out with the whole card making thing really ( other than a few dables years ago!), so I'm not really doing the images justice, so visit the blog and see what some of the DT have done with them.

Wish I had a bigger stash so I could add more stuff and not have to use so much pinl!.  Hopefully as I keep getting inspired by the wonderful DTs on these blogs, and the wonderful comments they make, I will get better and better

I am also entering this card for these challenges:

Pollycraft - Purple, green +one

Purple Frogs on the rampage!!

Today is the launch of the first Crafty Purple Frog challenge, so get yourself over there any have a look.  They have some great images in their shop which are really easy to use.

Crafty Purple Frog challenge

I am also entering it for  Challenge #52 - Pink at totally Gorjuss

Addicted

Well, now I'm addicted to card challenges, the only problem being I keep getting side tracked, and then forget which challenge I was doing a card for!!!  I have found some great challenges, but then start looking at the links, and the blogs of the other entrants, and then find more challenges and interesting things, then find more links................... I think you get the picture.  Then I go off an make the card I'd thought of, but then come back to try and find the challenge I was entering, and the whole process starts again, link.....link.......link.....!!!!!  Before I know it, it's 6.45pm and I have done nothing but search blogs all day!

Anyway, here is my entry that I've done today, and I have at last found the challenge I was entering it for on Sunday Sketch and Stamp

I'm not very good at listing what I've used, as most of it is just stuff I've bought on impulse and put in my stash.

First Ever challenge!!!!

I've just created my first ever entry for a craft challenge on a blog!!!!!  It was good fun, it's certainly not up to the standards of other peoples, but I enjoyed doing it, and surely that's what it's all about!! Admittedly, winning a prize would give me a nice warm fuzzy feeling, but for now fun will do!

Well here it is then, my entry to the challenge on Paper Cupcakes blog.  I used the free digi stamp that was provided on the challenge, so a big thankyou for that.  It's was my first ever digi stamp as well!!

Crafters Companion blog hop

I have just finished the crafters companion blog hop!! It's my first ever blog hop, and it was great fun.  I'm fairly new to card making, and so my creations are not so great yet (even though I'm really proud of them!) so it was great fun to visit all the different blogs and look at some of the inspiration for using the new stamp sets by crafters companion.  Here's the link if you fancy a go.  There's a great prize on offer too!!!

http://craftercompanioninfo.blogspot.com/2010/10/crafters-companion-swalk-blog-hop.html#comments

Pimp My Snack!!

I have been doing some preparation, and trial runs for some stuff that I am going to do in the Brownie pack that I have just taken over, and can you imagine how excited I was when I found out that one of the activites they can do towards one of the challenge badges was.........wait for it.............MAKING GIANT JELLY TOTS!!!

That has got to be one of the most awesome things ever.  Jelly Tots were great, but giant ones!

The whole task did almost end in total disaster though, as in my excitement, I missed the vital part of the instructions that said "line your cake tins with cake cases".  It took along time to get the very sticky jelly out of the metal tin!!! But on the second attempt they came out great.   I haven't actually tried eating one, I get the impression the thought might be better than the taste!!!  I just hope the Brownies enjoy making them as much as I did, not even sure they still make Jelly Tots??

Technology!!!!!

OK, I know that I wrote how scared I was about writing a blog, what I didn't realise was just how imcompetent I was as well.   Only hours after setting up the blog, the internet started to go almost as slow as me first thing in the morning, and then finally reached my speed.....STOP.

Apparantly I have killed the wireless router, how I don't know, but it's now not working, and obviously everything that goes wrong with the computer is my fault!!! (Although I have to confess I did try to reset it to solve the go slow thing, which may have been an error!!!)

Anyway, I'm back, on a different router, but on the interent all the same, so hopefully now I will actually get round to posting something worthwhile!!

Now I'm scared!!

Ok, so here is my blog.  I managed to work out how to set one up, even with my very limited computer skills, and have even managed to find the right place to start typing the actual blog (although this took me far longer than it probably should've done!!).  But now it all seems a little bit scary.  Whatever possessed me to think I could sit and write anything that would make any sense????  Why on earth would anybody bother reading about my mess ups and mistakes?????  What if my mother reads it, and I've put something really embarrassing on????? (pretty stupid because my mum can't even get on the internet let alone find a blog!!)

Is this going to be another one of those things I dream of doing that never quite works out the way I thought???

Only time will tell............