singular motion

i'm now 30 and single.... the practicalities and logistics of ending a relationship where we chose to co-habitate are sucky.

that is all

well holy shit

it's not like i didnt see it coming, but i still didn't expect it, you know?

left overs...

well, they were a jar of cherries that had been there a while as opposed to left overs, but either way, they were in the fridge, then they were in the brownies, now they are all gone..
i didn't even make up the recipe, i used someone elses...
the basic mix was lots of butter, chocolate, sugar, eggs and cherries, with a little bit of flour, cooked for nearly an hour, still super moist... i'd make it again but we are mostly out of butter and chocolate...
and i am up to my eyeballs in rehearsals for about the next month so don't have time to bake. i have to do some real cooking tonight coz we are out of frozen meals - you know the bulk cook and store for those times when you are too lazy to cook... OMG we have run out... so i'm gonna do spaghetti and meat balls from my new 1000 AWW (Australian women's weekly) recipe book. and something with some chicken sausages... not sure yet...
on the reheasal front - this week alone i have a tonight at home, sectional on tuesday, rehearsal on wednesday, rehearsal on thursday, friday night drive to canberra, saturday rehearse all day then perform sat night, sunday crack of sparrow drive back to sydney for a cd recording... then it starts all over again...

that is all (all??? seriously????)

ok

so i'm 30. now, today. eh, nothing much has changed since yesterday. happy birthday me!

2 outta three

ain't bad, except when it's two outta 3 that you got wrong... like those verses in that song... or like the things i baked on the long weekend
you'd think it'd be perfect. three lazy days, no plans, gorgeous sunny days with cold wet nights, a house full of flour butter eggs and sugar... my jaffa cupcakes tasted strongly of neither chocolate or orange, the chocolate icing tasted too sweet and looked like a little pile of perfectly crafted dog shit. and they were sticky. like stick to the roof of your mouth kinda sticky.
then there was the pear slice that i tried for the second time. they started out so well, the butter rubbed into the chocolate cake mix beautifully then it pressed into the pan to form a perfectly flat surface, then i forgot to half bake it b4 i added the topping... also i either have a pan that is really to large, so the mix doesn't quite make the edges, or i have a pan that is really too small and the slice ends up to thick and throws the ratios out.
so that was my two sucky attempts. i did however, manage to put on a really good indoor picnic for the signing crew who all came around to rehearse. there was 11 of us, and they were all more than thrilled with the food.
i think i got some great photo's of bunny rabbits and orange trees, but i have yet to look at them on a big screen.

that is all.

it turns out

that my laziness with a keyboard and rebelliousness against a former place of employment make me seem incredibly gen y. according to http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2009/04/23/friends-dont-lie-2-friends/ my lack of capitals is very gen y... how disappointing for me, when i am so precariously entrenched in gen x...

sour cream thief

i was going to bake, but between buying sour cream and having time to bake on sunday someone (gee i wonder) ate some sour cream. so i didn't bake, coz i needed a full tub. oh well, i will bake some time this week. not sure when - i am singing tonight, having kylies chicken on tuesday, singing on wednesday, singing on thursday then having a friend over for dinner on friday. i need to have half my baking done for sat morning, the other half was for me to enjoy this week... but such is my life - i'll fit it in some time, it should only take half an hour, so maybe if the sour cream is at home tonight i will bake when i get back from singing...

hutch. and brunswick.

slice....

the recipe below is not mine. it is something i ate last week. i will be making it soon, and then it will be mine, coz i'm gonna make it different. i just need somewhere to put this so i don't lose it...

sour cream slice
1 pkt plain cake mix
add 125g melted butter and
1 cup coconut
spread mix in slice pan, press down and bake in 180C for approx 20min.
spread with 1 sml tin of pie apple (or stew ur own)
top with a mix of 300ml sour cream and 1 egg (beaten together)
sprinkle with cinnamon and bake for another 15-20 min, until sour cream sets.

seriously good stuff... when i make it i will put my recipe up. it's something i used to make when i was about 14 or maybe a bit younger, but i lost the recipe and this is the first time i have found anything like it. This recipe comes from Robyn's Mum.

my weekend construction

no baking over the weekend, didn't have time. i spent 5 hours of sunday evening building a deluxe wide screen cat tv... this is also known as a rabbit hutch... one end is a double story hutch (1.26x0.9m), and as well as that we have added a run (1.83x0.6m). the damn thing is huge and prolly cost about $500 all told. i would recommend to anyone else, buy the extension that is available, don't try to make it ur self. it's cheaper and easier. but when we release the hounds - i mean put the bunnies in - this evening i'm sure they will love it. they better... pictures to come, it was 9pm when we finally finished so i didn't get a lot.

what's in a name

Hunter:
4. an animal, as a dog, trained to hunt game.
7. hunter green. a dark green color of yellowish cast.

Quarry:
Synonyms: aim, chase, game, objective, prey, prize, quest, ravin, victim

Brunswick:
Brunswick green. [G. Braunschweiger grun, first made at Brunswick, in Germany.] An oxychloride of copper, used as a green pigment; also, a carbonate of copper similarly employed.

the cat - hunter, the rabbits quarry and brusnwick. i like to theme my pet names.

previous themes in my life... cat Kes (star trek voyager) cat willow (buffy) dog yoda (Star wars) dog jaja (also star wars) sci fi much??

i had a series of fish named finger, cake, filet, sushi, sashimi, and a few called chips.

i have a few photo's of the runny babbits - they are sooooo cute, but i am tired and lazy. soon. Quarry likes to hide his face in ur jumper, or betwenn ur knees, and when we let him hop around the house he was a bugger to catch. eventually cornered him in the bathroom. Brunswick is identical to quarry, but about a millimetre bigger all over, and a lot bolder. will sit on ur lap quite happily, will even sit upside down on ur lap. when it was time to be picked up again he just sat and was picked up. decided to do a big leap on to the couch poof, then wasn't brave enough to get down. i love my little bunnies. we adopted them from the rspca. better to have preloved bunnies than have to work out how to raise a baby one. and they keep each other company.i'll have photo's really soon.

update - this photo is of Brunswick and Quarry. they are identical. seriously...

lemon tea cakes

yummy goodness and a cooking lesson for boys all rolled into one.

today was a good day. nor scratch that today was great. last night i have a small group of people over for a few drinks and polite conversation, a few of them chose to sleep on my lounge room floor. more than happy to supply pillows, blankets, and looks of confusion as to why they would ignore the super deluxe double air bed already pumped up in the other room... seriously?

anyhoo, this morning rolled around, i cooked franch toast for 5 very appreciative bellies, i played with my new pet rabbits - post to follow - ray ray connected my new dvd/vid player (thanx k-rudd). ray ray played with my nintendo 64 (yes, from the mid 90's). there was discussions about xbox 360's. i now own one... thanx ray ray. i mentioned that i was going to make cupcakes and ray ray was in awe - he's never made cupcakes from scratch. i think it freaked him out even a little bit more that we did the whole thing without looking in a book, and the end result is yumtastic. so ray ray and i made cupcakes (recipe below) and we played games on the tv, and me and ray ray and rose played with our two new pet bunnies. then rose and i made lasagne for dinner - i made a rocking white/cheese sauce. i was impressed with my mad cooking skills, coz i have no mad gaming skills... amped - snow board.. my average score was about 4000, the lowest "wow you made it" score is 50,000... get the idea. mad gaming skills - i don't haz them. teaching 18 yr old boys the simple joy of a good batch of cupcakes mad skills? i haz them!

Tea cakes with lemon icing

125g butter
2 cup sugar
3 eggs
3 cups SRF
1t baking powder
1t vanilla
1 1/2 cups cold strong tea (three tea bags)
1 1/2 cups sultanas

Lemon frosting
2 cups icing sugar
1/2 lemon - juiced
some butter (that's the technical measurment of course...)


OK. beat butter till fluffy-ish. add sugar, beat. add eggs one at a time, beat. add baking poweder and vanilla, add flour, tea, flour, tea, flour. add sultanas, 3/4 fill muffin sized patty cases. 15 mins @180C, rotate every which way. about another 15 mins - test with a toothpick. for icing - beat it all together. make it lemonny to taste.

my white suace...
melt the leftover butter from cupcakes and icing - about 75 - 100g at this point. whisk in flour till it becomes a paste - about 1/2 a cup i guess, i didn't measure. add milk, peppercorns, mixed herbs. keeps whisking till ur arm drops off, then chage arms. when that one drops off rope in ur partner for a bit. keep adding milk add cheese, add more milk. eventually you will have enough, the heat will thicken it and bake out the flour taste. it was simple and tasted great.

in-laws should be out-lawed.

or maybe just the male ones... they leave on friday morning. it's a shame mummy has to go too, it'd be nice to have just her here for a holiday... i'd love to write more but it's well after midnight on a school night so i am off to bed. i'll write more when they are gone and i have my house back!

if you don't care it doesn't really hurt.

or what you don't know can't harm you.
today was my last day at work. i did next to nothig all day, other than remove any trace of my existence from my computer, and tidy up a few very small loose ends. i got a few emails from friends asking where i was being taken out to lunch. every one hurt a little more. "the company" did nothing to say good bye. i got a card (not signed by the CEO or ED) and some flowers, and a small morning tea spread. the flowers and morning tea were organised by two of the ladies i share office space with, and i believe paid for from there own wallets too. two women who get paid less than i did, which was below average anyway. there was choclate cake, chips, bickies dip and cheese. home made dip. it was good - apparently it's all about adding the french onion soup mix slowly till you get the perfect balance. it wasn't much, but it told me where the love is. I also got a lovely apron from Miss P which i will wear often and with pride (thank you Miss P - and yes that is what i have regularly called her, it's not just an attmept at anonimity). i gave a few small presents, coz that's what i do, and made one lady cry. well, i didn't call her names and throw sticks, but she did cry. ooooo and i met Will. he's a cutey. he's really tall, prolly close to 3 feet already... he's not even 18 months.

i've been telling myself i dont' care, and in some ways i don't. i know who liked me and who didn't, and i know who will miss me and who i will miss. in so many ways i feel like it was a war of attrition against me, and they won. but they didn't. i had chosen to leave a long time ago, and the timing was just coincidental. maybe. i chose to leave, then saw the signs of war, not the other way round. i've been trying not to let myself "know", that way there would be no harm done. but today hurt.

that is all.

banana man...

do you remember banana man. (or boy) ate a banana became a superhero.
my cat has banana flavoured prozac on his dinner - he's not a super hero. we're trying something new. the cat has been on prozac for about 3 yrs (he's almost 4) and has never really enjoyed it but still eaten his dinner coz it's all he gets. last month i took the script to a new pharmacy. the cat HATED the drugs. every night we had to stand and keep him company whilst convincing him that if he ate just a little bit more we would give him some unadulterated crunchies. he has lost weight. he's a large cat - but he's skinny as a rake currently.
so i called the pharmacist and had an indepth discussion about the nature of mixing drugs for cats and the relative strength yada yada yada. eventually they said they could mix it as a syrup rather than a formula - apparently just a different ingredient, but it is sweeter. it smells like benadryl. they also asked if we wanted a flavour in it. i asked for banana. the cat had some antibiotics recently that were banana flavoured and he loved them. so far - on day two of the meds he seems to like the banana prozac better than he liked the chicken prozac - who'd a thunk it, a cat that like banana....

that is all

the book is better.

inkheart. movie vs book. book wins.

that is all

i'm a fairy....

ok - that line is from a show i'm in, it's really cute, and said by a young boy... the piece was written many many many many many yrs ago. b4 it was "politically incorrect" to call someone a fairy. or a queen. b4 it was illegal to officially change ur name to a title - as i was informed by my friend King.

As it is my second last day at work i am sitting at the marketing computer - editing photo's for the website - who's gonna do that when i'm gone hey??? - and having a discussion with my most wonderful workmate about fairies and elves in fiction. i've had this thought bashing around in my head for a few days now. i'm reading Inkspell - part two of the Inkheart trilogy - and the characters are all in the book (which makes sense if you've read it - if you haven't, my grammar is correct) and there are fairy's and elves, and glass men and night-mares and river pixies and all sorts of things like that - things that come from medieval times...

hang on - who says they come from medieval times? fiction does... why is it always the case that if there are fairies in the book, the countryside/architecture/culture/technological advancement/family structure/likelihood that the good guys will win out whilst being poor and marginalised, is very medieval, or what history tells of us those times.

why haven't i ever read a story book that was set in the modern day, and had a fairy that helps with fire, or a glass man that stops you from smudging your ink??? is it because it's cruel to call people a fairy, or is it because we are all so "enlightened" now that we know fairy's don't really exist? i don't care if they exist or not - i am reading fiction... or the movie last year - the golden compass. that was largley fantasy and they lived in a castle, had a poorer class of street urchins running around - what i associate with "not quite modern history", there was technology of a type in there, but the architecture and cultural structure were still quite medieval.

do i have an answer to my rambling almost question...
no.
do you?

that is all.

Pina Colada Cupcakes

that can't be how you spell it, but i can't think how else it might go. I made these yesterday, and they remind me if an upside down cake my nan used to make

125g butter
1 cup castor sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup oil
3 cups SR flour
270ml tin coconut milk
3/4 cup milk (you can use all coconut milk for a stronger flavour)
1t vanilla
1/2 cup desecrated coconut
1 cup tined pinapple, well drained.

beat the butter and sugar. add the egg and oil. alternate the flour and milks, mixing. add designated coconut and pinapple.
makes about 48 small or 24 large, or 24 small and 12 large... stragne ut true that. 180C oven, 15mins then rotate, another 10-15, till toothpick comes out clean. cool for 5 then on to a wire rack

Icing

Icicng sugar
butter
pinapple jiuce (from tin)
coconut.

start with as much icing sugar as you want. i used about a cup and a bit, and iced all my 36 cakes with plenty to spare. add a bit of butter, a bit of pinapple jiuce, beat till light and fluffy. remember - it's easier to add more liquid than try to take it out...add the desicated coconut at the end, then sread on to completely cooled cakes

No pics, coz the camera lans is not here, and i don't feel like using my 80 zoom to photograph cupcakes, which don't look exciting, but taste like childhood memories.

that is all.

epic fail...

my first attempt at suger free cupcakes... epic fail. brain - please sign in B4 i need you next time... standard choc cupcake - 1/2 cup cocoa and about 3 cups suger (or near enough) sugar free - needs less cocoa, that stuff is bitter as, it's like the girl who came second for prom queen.

even the cat didn't like these ones.. so i will try again next week or so...

that is all

cranberry white chocloate cupcakes

didn't turn out the way i wanted, cozi couldn't get the ingredients i was after. there were no fresh or frozen cranberries at my local, and i forgot to looked for tinned ones, but i think i will be able to get some tinned as cranberry sauce, so that will be my next attempt. This lot just had cranberry juice instead of milk in a standard (womens weekly) patty cake recipe... the white chocolate was milky bar frozen and snapped up, then mixed in. some big chunks, some crumbs. they tast fine,. but not really like cranberry. i made icing using icing sugar, a packet of white drinking chocolate (with milk poweder in it) and cranberry juice. it tastes good. over all the cupcakes are good, the choclate gives chocolatey goodness in chunks, but they are not what i was after. next time i will buy a tin of cranberry sauce and see how that goes

i am going to mow the lawn soon, then go to lunch in cabra, then do some ironng. i have every intention of making sugar free chocolate cupcakes this evening, but they may get bumped to tomorrow.

that is all.