Tuesday, 5 April 2011

A list of one thing (so not really a list) that I hate. Hate more than....

...being late, U2, mediocrity, bad cake and hangovers.


1.  When I went to put lemon cake mixture into my only working oven to find, in the time it had taken me to put together the mix, the element had overheated and gone kaput.

Let me just clarify, No EFFING OVEN SO NO EFFING CAKE!!!!!!

Please someone take this blade from my heart. 
I am not exaggerating.  I am beyond devastated and am not even going to discuss that homemade pizza was on the menu tonight....
Ignoring the fact that Mr Biscuit is and Electrician and elements are easy to get a hold of etc etc....my heart is broken, I feel I have lost a limb.  My birthday cake- my wee gift to myself - is still sitting on the worktop wondering it's fate.  Will it make it into an oven- am considering the risk of moving it to my parent-in-laws - or never furfil it's telos and become sponge because of it hanging around in it's unbaked state for hours?  I admit it will be hard for the baker in me to risk moving and/or baking at this stage in the game!

I wonder do you, my fellow bloggers, know me enough to understand the gravity of  my loss?

Yes of course you do!! 
 Don't you???

"you go home and you cry and you want to die!" and "heaven knows I'm miserable now!"

Morrissey knows what I mean!


Today I am putting the 'drama' in Drama Queen, well because I want to *stamps foot*!

X

Monday, 4 April 2011

A Random List of 38 things I love (that I can think of at the mo) for my birthday!


Which is today by the way!  You find me hungover (not enough sleep for the amount of wine I consumed. I should know better at my age!) and feeling very delicate...the sofa and my new Gene Kelly box set awaits.


A List

1.Cake -  I know it comes as a shock!
2.When you move a fairy bottle and an ickle bubble pops out of the top.  For some reason I have always called washing up liquid shopping up liquid.  Mind you I always call cotton buds pipe cleaners.  I get names muddled very easily.
3.When my eldest made the joke about an orthodontist being a dentist who writes books.
4. Getting absolutely soaked in the rain and having to strip off and get completely changed, even knickers.  I have a vivid memory of one occasion doing this at uni in Glasgow which left me so invigorated with being alive, I have never forgotten it.
5. A really good bowl of soup.  I could eat soup every other day easy peasy.
6. The smell of wild garlic on a woodland walk.
7. A robin puffing out its chest.  My most favourite bird to see in the garden.  Makes me think of the Jackson Five too which in turn leads me to think of 70’s music clubs of my youth in Edinburgh, MC5, very short dresses, hotpants and feather boas.
8. Roast chicken.  Easily the best Sunday dinner of all time and number one in our family Top Ten Meals.  We do like to do Top Tens whilst sitting at the table together.
9.Pantomimes.  I will boo and hiss at the baddies in my loudest voice every time. 
10. Feeling part of a crafting community - it’s all so very inspiring.
11. The alchemy of baking - it is truly amazing!!
12. Stroking a newly smoothed, sugar pasted cake.  It’s almost erotic how much I love doing it.  If you had a go you’d understand.
13. When my hubby makes fun of me mixing up the name of electric appliances.  I do every day.  He says because I don’t fully pay attention to what I am saying.  He has a point.
14. When a plan comes together!   Picture me with cigar in mouth.  Something I haven’t done for a long, long time but I do remember partaking in way back when a) I was a smoker and b) it was sometimes a great idea to end an evening at a pub.  Smelly though!
15. A box of embroidery thread – akin to Willy Wonka’s edible room, it’s so enticing and magical.
16. Harry Potter, Doctor Who and Percy Jackson.  I am a geek!!
17. When you’ve been slicing chilli and your fingers numb your tongue for hours afterwards.  Me and my Biscuits will take turns for a finger dab on the tongue at the dinner table, much to the annoyance of Mr Biscuit.
18. Brora cardigans.  I am lucky in saying I own one ( purchased for our wedding day, cost more than my dress) and would love to be able to afford many more in many colours.
19. Knitting – especially small animals with coloured needles.
20. Cats napping.  It is a sight that fills me with such contentment.  My Hamish ‘the mancat’ can snore for Scotland making me chuckle to myself when alone.  Laughing when you are by yourself, I think, always feels all the more funny.
21. Trampolines.  “Bouncy  Bouncy.  Ooh What a good time!  Bouncy Bouncy.  Shoes all in a line!”  They are just silly and I always end up hurting my back but I will insist on going back on them.
22. Dancing.  I LOVE dancing.  It makes me so happy. I will be on a dance floor all night.  I confess I barely spoke to a soul at our Wedding, I was too busy dancing, from the first dance to Runrig at the end.  I very rarely have a partner and care not a jot if anyone else is on the dance floor.
23. Flowers. Lillies, roses, tulips to name but a few.
24. Donkeys.  This is the animal I would have if I had land.  Of course not just one, never only one.
25. Buttons.  Luckily I have a Dealer for this addiction.  (Fishy, you know I mean you.)
26. Foxes.  I always feel just a little bit wrong in loving an animal that will kill and not necessarily eat its victims.  I love their pointy faces, I cannot help myself.
27. Watching trees blowing in the wind.  It’s hypnotic and like the next ‘love’, a reminder of my insignificance.  Except when I have been watching The Happening, then they FREAK me out something silly.
28.The sea, especially on dull grey Scottish days where it looks like concrete it’s so still. 
29. Breaking eggs.  Since the days of being a teeny toddler pretending to be Calimero [cartoon chicken who wore half an egg shell on his head] putting a tea cosy on my head, I have be taken with egg shell. 
30. Reading for large blocks of time.  I don’t do it much these days for lack of such indulgent time yet every now and again I give it a go and usually nod off.  I remember reading more than one book in a day and confess when a new Harry potter came out, once I got to the end I’d start over again.
31. A large glass of red.  I love red wine, particularly Austrailian.  When I eventually get over to visit my brother in law, I WILL be touring the vineyards!  NB.not so much today - blast this darn hangover!!
32. Tea in a china cup and saucer.  You all know why!
33. Jane Austen.  I love the language and the excruciating romance of her books.  The rules, the taking of tea and calling cards, visits, the dancing, the humour.  Wonderful!
34. Hedgehogs.  They can roll into a spikey ball!!!  What more can I say?
35. Christmas.  Simply Christmas.
36. Disaster films.  The more devastatingly ‘end of the world’ the better.  Special effects these days make for amazing films but I am still partial to a bit of Towering Inferno or The Poseidon Adventure.
37. Me in a Narrowboat meandering along a canal (Guy Martin optional).  If it wasn’t so darn expensive I would do it every year.  A custom built one is first on the lottery wish list.
38.Classic Fm.  I don’t do radio.  I get very irritated by songs with singing, it may aswell be people screaming at me but classical music calms me and I had the best Christmas baking build up ever in 2010 listening to it EVER.  Except Lawrence LB, he kinda spoils it.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
     Can  you imagine the length of this post if I was older? Deary me.  I think I may share the same trait as the wonderful Stephen Fry in using many words instead of a few to say what I want to say. I so wish I had lemon cake (hoping the sponge would help with the HO) but will suffice with the ickle white chocolate tarts I have in the fridge leftover from yesterdays Mother's Day family gathering.  I am in need of a sit down and a cup of tea.



X



Tuesday, 29 March 2011

I am smitten, Chief!

He has an accent and sideburns to die for, Boss.  
Mucky hands from grafting, Driver.  
Rides motorbikes really fast, Chief. 
Will happily drink tea all day, Boss and has a Narrowboat.


What more could a girl want, Chief?


I am smitten!


Now which photo to choose...Fred Dibnah lookalikey overalls or leathers?


Hell...first get the Narrowboat in!!


(image from motorcyclenews.com)


Okay then, leathers too...


(image from picasa)


Okay, if you insist one more...



(image from bikeracingnews.co.uk)


Is that enough? No you say....


(image from grannybuttons.com)


Did I say I was smitten?


Catch the lovely Guy Martin on BBC, Sunday evenings or iplayer.


X

Friday, 25 March 2011

I do it like an Italian...apparently. Every day!



Who am I to argue with the pucker Jamie Oliver?  
 C'mon, who doesn't yearn to be Italian?



We'll just turn over very quickly the fact a few pages later it says Italians don't have chocolate sprinkled on their cappuccinos. 


Ciao


X

Wednesday, 23 March 2011

Me and my pot - a tale of love[s] in the kitchen!


I admit, using humongous pots really does it for me in the kitchen, well does it for me full stop.  I'll double (or triple or quadruple) any old recipe so I can justify using this stockpot.  Even using a long wooden spoon to stir, I still have to get my arm inside, stirring and turning, turning and stirring. 
I feel truly at one with the world stirring, well anything. 
Or like a dinner lady from favourite childhood stories or a witch mixing up her brew to poison a princess.
To be honest I could do with one a bit smaller as you can see that this four litre plus soup barely comes up halfway.  My next largest pot (which is still pretty huge) simply cannot hold the quantities I like to make.  Hubby says I don't need (urgh!!!!) one but I say as long as it fits inside this one no extra cupboard space is required.  That's as practical as I get.  At Christmas time we have to tell the butcher it's measurements to make sure the enormous ham we buy each year for the 'Eve will fit in it.  
It is masseeeeve!  I lurve it. It has lived with us for five years and will do so forever and ever and ever...... 
On Saturday it did it's job providing us with pea and ham [from a chicken!!] soup for having in mugs after a lovely long Sunday walk.
A huge sigh for me and my pot.

If we are all in for more 'what does it for me in the kitchen/kitchen porn' (I have a long list).......


I know, I know, more cake!

It cannot be just me who feels this way about kitchen paraphernalia, can it?  I haven't even mentioned my love for ladles or colanders or cake spatulas, or knives or measuring spoons or Kitchenaids and Magimixes or aprons or cake tins or pie dishes or.....I really do have a long list.

X

Wednesday, 9 March 2011

The 52 Marvellous Makes Madness Challenge - Weeks 28 - 32 The Anniversary special!


(image copyright nofussphotography.com)

Five years ago in January Mr Biscuit and I got wed. You see us above, having a smooch cutting our cake (I had to get the cake in!).  For an anniversary gift this year I offered a bake of his choice for each week representing a year.  He's not called Mr Biscuit for no reason!

The 52MMMC Anniversary Special....


Week 28 


He would have me bake these every other day if he could.  From Nigella's Feast.  Very moreish and I love filling and sandwiching these biscuits.  A kitchen job that soothes the soul.  Like most of this Anniversary Special list, I had to make double batches so there was enough for us all.  Mr Biscuit devours biscuits!


Week 29


You've probably spotted the whacking great error here, no actual bourbons.  The story goes, I made them the day before I had surgery (had to be in my kitchen to settle my nerves) and totally neglected to take any photos of them before they were scoffed.  I was in a lot of pain and medicated up to the eyeballs if you remember so I'm sure you'll forgive me.  I based the recipe loosely on the above custard cream one (Mr Biscuit's idea/wish) obviously omitting the custard powder and adding cocoa and dark chocolate to the mixture.  I can't really remember how they tasted.  I'm sure I dunked them in tea to soften so I could manage them with a sore mouth.  They have been requested again therefore must have been alright.


Week 30


Technically called Anzac biscuits but not in our house.  From a recipe by Mary Berry.  Again Mr Biscuit would have me tied to the cooker constantly supplying him with these biscuits, he adores them. I have been making these for years and years from various recipes.   They are fantastic with a cuppa and a sure way to keep the menfolk of the house happy.



Week 31


I have a wee confession...I persuaded Mr Biscuit to request these by reminding him of one he had at a wee deli coffee shop in Kelso last year whilst holidaying at Easter time. I really fancied making them for the first time and grab an opportunity to use my special tins.  They did not disappoint.  Gorgeous wee things from a Gordon Ramsay recipe in a Good Food magazine.  In fact they were so delicious that for the first time in the 52mmm challenge I repeated myself and they became...



Week 32 (too)

We could not help it.  We were quite overcome by how delightful these little cakes are.  In celebration of a new found love I made this...



I do love brooches so.   
In fact here are some new purchases from the shop where I have already purchased brooches in the shapes of a custard cream, bourbon and jammy dodger.  A fantastic shop at Folksy now called CorBlimey Designs.  A pink shrimp and a white chocolate mouse...



I love them.  I am a huge fan of nostalgic brooches and sweeties and biscuits....

 ***
So that's it for The Anniversary Special.   
Mr Biscuit and I did take our time in getting wed, together nine years before, but if we hadn't then we would have missed the chance of seeing our then four and two year old Biscuits looking adorable in kilts and aran jumpers. 

(image copyright nofussphotography.com)

I'm sure you agree!


X

Tuesday, 8 March 2011

Can I tempt you?


I may not be in the same league as serial [button] Temptress that is KirstyFish but I may be just tentatively stroking the title with my fingertips with these....




Any excuse to get my hand me down griddle out!  Therefore it is a must on Pancake Day and this very morn (for the first time ever on a school day) we had pancakes for breakfast.  It felt very decadent indeed having such a feast without the usual lazy weekend morning feel to it.  They were delicious, bathed in Golden Syrup and I confess I made ickle teeny tiny individual ones for two of my cats.  Thomasina was screaming at me the whole time I was at the cooker, she loves pancakes so. (What's not to love?)  And why should they be excluded from the celebrations? 



Go on you know if you haven't already, you simply have to make or buy some!



X

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