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