25th September, 2008 (8:30 am)
The Day With the Cheesecake. Again. (13)
As it’s the national MacMillian Coffee Morning tomorrow and - as well you know - I can bake but cannot cook, I’ve decided to whip up my Five Steps to the Perfect Strawberry Cheesecake (I know - the recipe isn’t there anymore. How annoying is that?). And because Teesee, Sharon and I have been swapping recipes like grannies over a garden fence, I figured I’d contribute this one. Enjoy!
You Will Need:
12 Digestive biscuits
3 tablespoons of butter
500g of mascarpone cheese
1 cup of strawberries (it’s not an exact science and depends upon how much you like s’berries)
50g icing sugar
You Will Need To:
1. Crush digestives with mallet/rolling pin until only fine crumbs remain;
2. Melt butter in pan. Stir in biscuit crumbs until it is all coated with butter;
3. Leave to cool. Then squash base into the bottom of a greased bake tin with loose bottom. Press down tightly with back of metal spoon;
4. Squash the strawberries into mush (this is a good recipe for anger management). Add icing sugar, and then the mascarpone cheese. Mix well. Add to top of biscuit base, spreading evenly;
5. Leave in fridge for an hour or two . . . or for however long you can bear to wait.
Let me know if you make it with a picture or two and a commentary on what you think! Hmmm. I want cheesecake for breakfast now . . .
Comments: (13)
24th December, 2006 (9:01 am)
The Day It Was Christmas Eve 2006 (7)
I haven’t updated for ages and as there’s a strong chance I won’t again for a little while, I figured it was worth jotting down a few lines now while M is still in bed and S’s engrossed in SpongeBob - who knows when I’ll get the chance again. :P S’s wound up like a bedstead spring and as I’ll have approximately three hundred million presents to unboxed, put together and then find somewhere to store over the next few days, it may be some time before I can get back here!
I haven’t been sick again, but thanks to everyone to emailed to make sure! For now I’m fine and dandy and awaiting my scan on the 2nd January. S’s also fine and recovering well from his hospital trauma and we’ve finally lost the last lingering traces of glue. Yay! He has his ultrasound on the 27th December for that examination of his kidneys, but I’m hopeful that it’s okay and we’ll be discharged from that service with the all clear. Things are finally on the up!
It’s been pretty quiet around here, though, and surprisingly (suspiciously?) ordered. I finished S’s shopping last week some time, so other than a last minute flourish by M - as is he annual custom - we’ve been pretty organised for once. The food’s been bought, the drink, the over-indulgent treats etc., and we’re organised enough to make the soup for tomorrow’s Christmas lunch today in anticipation. Yesterday S and I made some mince pies from scratch, which are bloody gorgeous, even if I do say so myself (even though I spent the whole time worrying what the hell my pastry was going to taste like, since I haven’t made my own in living memory). They’re dirt easy and cheap to make, so if you fancy the recipe, just ask. :)
Tomorrow we have our in-laws coming here for dinner, which we’re all really excited about - although in fairness, as M cooks it’s no additional strain on me! But more than anything, I can’t wait to see S in the morning; see him open his stocking, and then come downstairs to see what Santa has brought for him. Having kids put a brand new perspective on Christmas and it really does bring back some of that childhood magic. I’m insanely in love with S at the moment, for he’s been a complete joy to be around of late; funny and sweet and kind and wonderful. It sounds grossly sickening, but as long as I have him and the man who made him with me, I don’t need anything else this Christmas. I’m so wonderfully blessed.
Although, as it happens, I’m pleased to have a stack of books, a Badminton racquet (I know - how sad am I?) and some techy treats under the tree, so I won’t turn them down or anything . . .
Anyway, I’ll leave it there. Merry Christmas, guys - I hope Santa brings you everything you want, and that you all have a happy, healthy and relaxing Christmas . . . particularly Claire, who sent me a surprise Christmas gift - THANK YOOOOOU! *hugs* Thanks also to everyone who sent cards - I also managed to send all mine, so if you haven’t had one and were expecting it, it is on it’s way, I promise!
Comments: (7)
13th September, 2006 (2:22 pm)
The Day I Needed A Snippet Section (5)
What I’m about to write merely emphasises how I need a sidebar/snippet section somewhere, but I thought this was too good to share. I’m usually months behind the rest of the world in seeing/sharing these kind of things, so my apologies if you’ve seen this before . . .
Noah takes a photo of himself every day for six year. There’s also this and this if you’re interested. :)
In other news, Sam and I made chocolate chip muffins today and I don’t know what surprised me more; the fact that they actually looked like muffins when they came out of the oven or the fact that I actually bothered to make them in the first place.
He’s already better than me though. And makes less mess.
[Edit] Claire dropped me a note to say that she can’t comment. I can okay, but if anyone else is having a similar problem, could you please drop me an email?
V xx
Comments: (5)
29th April, 2006 (7:10 pm)
The Day My Eye Ate Me (9)
I’m suffering with a horrible eye infection that feels as thought it’s trying to eat my body from the eye-socket out, so that’s what’s keeping me so uncharacteristically quiet of late. It hurts like buggery to stare at this screen for any length of time - or the TV, for that matter - so I’m retiring to bed early in a sulk, hoping it’ll be better by tomorrow.
To compensate and cheer myself up, I treated myself to a homemade kinda-diet-ish-friendly dessert of two scoops of vanilla ice-cream, a chopped banana, a handful of crushed nut cereal (Crunchy Nut Cornflakes in my case) and a teaspoon of Golden Syrup. Now the sugar has hit my blood stream, I feel all the more better for it - comfort eating, where would I be without you?
The regular readers amongst you may recognise several of those ingredients from other homemade recipes - yes, I have a thing for ice-cream, bananas and syrup and I frankly live in bewildering suspicion of anyone who doesn’t feel the same way, much as I don’t trust any male of legal age who can’t drive and any woman who refuses to ever wear make-up. They send my spidey-senses a-tinglin’ . . .
[Edit] I just re-read that. Okay. Hands up who thinks I’ve had too much sugar? Man, maybe my eye’s chomping down on my brain now . . .
V xx
Comments: (9)
15th April, 2006 (12:35 pm)
The Day I Ate My Child. *Dramatisation. May Not Have Happened* (6)
Occasionally I get to thinking that I have this motherhood thing licked; admittedly, this is usually on the days when I’m able to dress, feed and brush S’s teeth without resorting to bribery or threats or, worst yet, banishment to the Naughty Step. There’s something so fundamentally playful and curious about kids at this age, it’s nothing but a pleasure to be in his company - he’s such a beautiful, funny and generous little soul.
And then something happens to remind me that I’m still a naive rookie and that only a lunatic - or someone wading deeply in the sea of denial - would even let that thought cross their mind. No remotely switched on mother would permit their child to go out into the muddy backyard in wellies and coat and assume that they wouldn’t a) roll about in the mud; b) try to eat said mud and c) then run the mud right the way through their recently cleaned carpeting. I almost slapped my forehead when I saw what he was doing in horror at my own naivety - he was rolling around like a pot-bellied pig on crack.
So, anyway. How’s you? I know I need to update more, but I’m experiencing a real apathy towards the whole blogging thing right now. (I can only assume that this is in turn affecting you guys, for I don’t seem to be getting so many comments either. Is apathy contagious?) But then, I’m experiencing a general apathy to life, so is it really any wonder that writing here is proving so troublesome?
What annoys me most right now is realising that my head can’t (or won’t) permit me to write in two different styles simultaneously. For years I wrote no fiction - my writer’s block more of a concrete dungeon than a small Do Not Cross barrier - but I felt like writing here at least proved that I wasn’t completely brain dead. Now that my fiction seems to be moving along nicely, my non-fiction writing’s gone to shit. It’s grossly unfair - like having to sacrifice one child to feed the other. And yes, that’s an exaggeration.
Anyway.
My tide of design work is also starting to dry up. I’m finishing up a commerical project now, have a few odds and ends to tie up, one more re-design to do and then - hopefully - I’ll have a little room to breathe come the end of next month or so. Although the lack of work means a distinct lack of cash (and we have a trip to London I need to finance), I’ve been desperate to re-do Get What You Give and get SHH.com up (finally), not to mention work on a few other woefully neglected personal projects, so I’m looking forward to the break. It’ll be nice to sit down and open Photoshop because I want to, not necessarily because I have to, you know?
Maybe this weekend will pull me out of this fug. Not only do I have a wondrous four days off work, I can legitimately spend those four days stuffing my face with piles and piles of chocolate eggs (I’ve never quite lost my childlike awe for Easter Eggs - sweets wrapped in chocolate, chocolate wrapped in shiny, coloured foil - I ask you, when does that ever stop being cool?). I’ve actually started a healthier eating regime in an attempt to shake off the weight that’s been creeping on since Christmas. Only I - genius that I am - could start a diet three days before Easter. What a fuckwit.
Right. I’m off now to make Jam Roly Poly pudding with my little pot-bellied pig. By the time we finish and if we manage to create something that, you know, doesn’t poision us all (culinary skills and I parted company many, many years ago) you’ll probably have problems identifying one fat-bellied pig from the next.
V xx
Comments: (6)
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