2paw

I've moved!!!!!!

2007-01-06T21:45:00.000+11:00

You can find me here now!!

http://cindy2paw.typepad.com/2paw/

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye!!!!!

2005-07-07T15:22:00.000+10:00

Yes, I have moved permanently!!

I have even imported this blog!!

I know, and me a Luddite too.

The Typepad people just have very clear instructions.

What do you think???

2005-06-08T22:37:00.000+10:00

I am thinking of moving house to here:

http://cindy2paw.typepad.com/2paw

What do you think?

Let me know!!!!

The end is nigh...

2005-06-07T20:17:00.000+10:00

The main body and sleeves of the Fibonacci Jumper are totally finished and I have managed to buy 2 bodkins at the wool shop and so tonight will consist mainly of Stargate:Atlantis, Boston Legal and ends: the sewing in of.
The main excitement is the purchase of a new peeler. You would think ( sorry Gertrude) a peeler is a peeler is a peeler, but it is not so. So many peelers are duds, the slide over the peelee, they dig in, they give you blisters. My new peeler is a jewel amongst peelers. I have peeled apples, zucchini, potatoes and carrots and it has not put a blade wrong. The only drawback is that it is off white, always a good throwing out with the peel colour!!!
Now I have whiled away 1 hour and 55 minutes cooking tea, watching the ABC News and answering emails. I must away to sew in ends… How I hate that, but it is a necessary evil.

Bookscapade on ice!!!

2005-06-06T19:24:00.000+10:00

First of all the good news!! I bought a knitting book : Creative Knitting, and it has a crossover cardigan on the front. It will need Tweaking. I prefer a longer band and I like the sewn on front bands to be ribbed in the other direction but apart from that it is good and it had a bonus book from Winter last year. I also snapped up the Christmas in July Handmade and 4 books from Fullers for $5 : so $20 instead of $95, what a bargain.
I can’t sew in any ends as I can’t find a bodkin or buy one. I went to Spotlight to buy some and a few other things and waited with my number in the queue and I had #15, the number they called was #1 and the lady who came after me was #14. They began a McCarthy like investigation but I can’t be standing up for more than 10 minutes or so. I left in quiet disgust and wrote a letter and posted it straight away on the way home.
Then I found Peri ( it couldn’t be Harki?) had stolen the new packet of Hobnobs off the dresser and eaten then all up.
I am consoling myself about all my trials and tribulations by cooking an easy recipe I have just made up!! I looked at what I had and made these:
Easy Italian Meatballs
750 g mince ( pork and lamb for me)
chilli to taste, fresh or dried
2 tbspn tomato paste
1 red onion chopped finely
parsley, chopped
I small egg
Fresh breadcrumbs, if needed
1 bottle of Passada ( bottle crushed tomatoes)
Mix all the ingredients except the Passada. Use your hands and try to do it for at least 5 minutes. Shape into walnut sized meatballs ad brown in small batches. Pour Passada into the drained pan and ass the meatballs and poach for about 20-30 minutes till cooked.
You can add any flavours you like, sun dried tomatoes, olives, some grated parmesan cheese etc. Serve with steamed vegetables, salad and/or pasta.

And sew it begins...

2005-06-05T11:44:00.000+10:00

No, it is not Babylon 5 again, it is almost the onset of the war on Ends. I will finish the blue sleeve today and then I will be forced to sew in myriad ends. This will be soul destroying and boring, but there is nothing for it, unless I decided to add more and make a fringe!!! I find it hard to believe that I am actually ahead of schedule, usually I am finishing things I want to wear as I am going out the door. This is unlike me.
Yesterday was a day of sleeping, knitting and catching up on things I needed to watch. I have cleared up 9 tapes, yes 9 tapes of 8 hours each. From this you can deduce that I didn’t have to watch everything, and remember that a 60 minute show without ads is only 40 minutes. Wherever do they get the idea that there are 13 minutes of ads an hour? I watched 2 or 3 episodes of The Last Detective , and I watched the last 2 episodes of North and South again and had a tiny cry at the end. It was all P&P. It had such a lovely ending and Henry deserved more of a spurning, the smarmy git.
Today we have been for a walk and the Labradors have scoffed their boiled celery and cabbage as if it were caviar. I am throwing the squeaky toy for Harki and Peri is all Monarch of the Glennish, lying on her green plaid picnic rug on the decking.
I am off to Aunty Captain Mrs Archer’s to sew the gathering tape onto the top of the curtains. She is helping as this is the awkward stage. Then all the curtains are finished and done. It has only taken a year!!! This time last year we all helped ACMA renovate her lounge and dining rooms after the new carpet was laid. I chose the colours to go with the new couch which is bright (but not electric) blue : milk chocolate for the trims and an almond creamy colour as the main. The curtains have all these colours in them. I do love colours.
The week of easy recipes continue with this…..
Crispy Bacon and Cheese Potatoes
4 medium potatoes, like Dutch Cream
oil and salt
3 rashers of bacon
1 onion
½ a red capsicum,
3 spring onions
250 g grated cheese
¼ cup grated parmesan cheesePierce the potatoes all over with a fork and rub with oil and sprinkle with salt. Microwave them as you would usually, don’t forget to let them rest for a few minutes.. Mine does 1 potato in about 6 minutes on High. Meanwhile, chop the onion and bacon and fry till crisp, add the other ingredients and cook for another minute. Cut potatoes in half and top with the bacon and cheese mixture. A dollop of sour cream sprinkled with some chopped parsley finished this off nicely.

Oh for the Duracell Bunny!!!

2005-06-03T18:42:00.000+10:00

1-30 pm yesterday: There I was all dressed up with a place to go… I started the car… and NOTHING happened !!! I went back down the stairs inside and thought it couldn’t be right so I went back up and tried again : nothing. There was no time to ring anyone except a taxi and I made it with 5 minutes to spare ( but not $7-50!) Afternoon tea was lovely but seeing my friends lovelier. Doing Girls’ Automotive Repair Theory 101 we decided it was the battery. I did think that that was not possibly expensive enough, but sure enough, after ringing the RACT, spending 30 very cold minutes reading my Dr Who episode guide book by the dim glow of the streetlight, their diagnosis was confirmed. $83 later the car was up and running.
Today the ice was so thick as it was –2 C. The Labradors just don’t care. They had an energetic walk that consisted mostly of running and they saw two older Labradors, which made their day.
I went to Aunty Captain Mrs Archer’s to watch Stargate Atlantis. Two excellent episodes, except one is to-be-continued and I have to wait till Monday. I am impatient. One episode was all complicated with 3 different stories running 3 different POVs of the same events. This one was great and I figured it out, but it was clever writing.
We had a small shop at A&R and bought 3 Fairy books to get 3 rainbow see through watches. I bought a green top to match my jeans so I am extremely happy.
I have felt quite dizzy a few times in the last 2 days and not 100% so I have eaten meat and vegetables and had 2 Berocca. That should vitamin me up!!!
I have Ark Angel by Anthony Horowitz to read. He writes all the Alex Rider books. I highly recommend them and his Diamond Brothers books too. He also wrote Crime Traveller, universally pooh-poohed but I loved it, Boon, Poirot, Midsomer Murders, Foyle’s War and Robin of Sherwood among other things.
On the knitting front I have finished the first sleeve and I have bought the wool to knit the second. It is a slightly different shade, but I will do the cuff in the darker one and it should be OK.
Easy-Peasy Tiramisu
125 ml espresso coffee
125 ml coffee liqueur
16 savoiardi ( sponge finger) biscuits
300 g marscapone cheese
375 ml pouring cream
3 or 4 tablespoons of icing sugar
Place marscapone, cream and sugar in a bowl and stir till well combined. Mix coffee and liqueur together in a shallow bowl. Quickly dip both sides of half the biscuits in the coffee mixture and place in 4 little glass bowls. Top with half the filling. Dip the last 8 biscuits and repeat. Dust with cocoa and icing sugar, cover and refrigerate till needed.

It's a long way to the top if you wanna knit a sleeve....

2005-06-02T10:25:00.000+10:00

Sleeves are not to bad in retrospect. I finished one ball of wool and I am almost through another !! I am knitting 120 stitches and I have reached 39 cm, so only 3 to go. I must go and buy 2 more balls of dark blue for the other sleeve. I have managed to lose a ball of black. I took the label out as I was walking around and now it has disappeared. I must check the garage in case Peri has taken it. I went to bed after The Glass House, but I had the most interrupted sleep. I woke up about 5 times. I am trying to sleep but I can’t seem too get into the swing of it. I’m not cold, I feel tired, I want to sleep…. I hate not sleeping. It was worse when I as at school. I would lie there thinking of all the things I had to do the next day, I would make lists, I would need to sleep desperately because I knew I had to go to work the next day….and I would fall asleep in the early hours of the morning., a deep and satisfying sleep, only to be woken by the alarm at 5-45 am. It is the very thought of not sleeping that is terrifying not the actual not sleeping.
One day I am going to post my blog with the first suggestions the Spellchecker makes. Sometimes I have a little giggle to myself. If I was a more competent typist it would not be a problem. I love spelling, oh and I love maths even more. Soon I get to help my niece with her Grade 8 maths!! She is going to scan her book and we are going to do long distance tutoring over the phone. I miss maths. I am glad that there is lots of maths in knitting : it fills a need.
I have read my Vogue Knitting from cover to cover twice and I want to visit the websites now. There are one of two from Australia. I have been drooling over this :
http://thewoolshack.com.au/yarns.htm?PHPSESSID=13e781d5e3916e87dd03bed586b2bea1
You click on the wool and then the colour range pops up and then you can view things made in the wool. I sighed and desired so many things I can’t afford, I could just about afford a bootie!!! Nevertheless when my tax return comes I’m giving myself a present of some expensive wool and a nice new pattern book. I want to knit a wrap around cross over cardigan of some description.
There are puddles of sun in the lounge room and Peri is lying in one all warm and snoozy. Harki is energetic : I have to throw her toy up the backyard. I have done it about 50 times already. She cries if I stop. I know I shouldn’t listen but she is so cute and so well behaved that spoiling is warranted at times, like now.
I am off to knit in the sun, wearing my Labrador throw as a shawl, with the real Labradors at my feet.
Easy Pastries
Puff pastry frozen block, thawed
Fruit : fresh, frozen or tinned and well drained
Almond meal
Caster sugar for sprinkling or sweetening
Egg and milk wash
Cut pastry sheets
Preheat oven to 200 C (180 ff) and grease and line trays. Roll out pastry to a thickness of ½ a cm . Cut out 15 cm squares and sprinkle on some almond meal. Top with the fruit and sweeten if necessary. Brush edges of pastry with water and seal. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for about 20 minutes.
You can add chocolate, nuts, spices : whatever you fancy. Great for breakfast, brunch or desserts. Serve with cream, ice-cream or yoghurt and dust with icing sugar.

Black, black, my sleeve is black....

2005-06-01T14:36:00.000+10:00

How exciting!! Hoping to buy a new cooking magazine at Birchalls I serendpitously found the old issue of Vogue Knitting!! There are 2 or three things I would like to knit, although as it is a Spring/Summer issue they will need severe lengthening!!! I have actual hard , well soft and papery, copy of the patterns I have seen on other blogs, as finished items. I feel so happy that no doubt a god of some description will smite me!! Oh and they had no cooking magazine and the little man was most unhelpful. As usual, I was able to find a copy at the newsagency up the road, AND they care and know my name too.
It was -1 C this morning so I was scraping the ice off the car at 8-35 am with my green gloves on inorder to take the Labradors for a walk. They especially love an icy walk. I don't know whether the ice crystalises the scents or they like the prickly icy grass? They ran Hell for leather!!!
On another knitting front ( in the war against ????) I have knitted the cuff and the Fibonacci stripes on the sleeve and I am up to plain black which is extremely hard to knit of a night which is why I should be watching Medium and the last ( sob, sob) episode of Enterprise ( Why,why???) instead of typing this. Apparently today is the day of ? and I don’t know why, do you?
I am slightly worried about the sleeves , because after the cast off for the under arm there seem to be hardly enough rows. No doubt it will all become clear at the sewing up stage, but I shall knit with this thought in my mind the whole time. I will have to be creative if it doesn’t sit correctly. Must knit, must finish jumper, must knit……
Other knitters seem to knit much faster than me – they finish lots of things, and it’s not as if I go to work all day and just knit at night . I do knit tightly and have more rows to the inch or cm than average which means I have to knit more rows to reach a target : in this case 42 cm. I have knitted 32 rows this morning, increasing from 80 to 98 stitches as the sleeve grows. I have knitted 24 cm in all so only 18 to go, about 100 more rows. At least there are no colour changes, it is all black, unrelenting and easy.
And so, another easy recipe in what has rapidly become easy week, and that didn’t come out the way I meant it too, but I’m too lazy to delete it, and I must knit, so :
Easy Berry and Chocolate Mini Cakes
50 g plain flour
110 g caster sugar
100 g almond or hazelnut meal
3 eggs
100 g butter
200 g dark chocolate ( or white or milk)
berries of your choice, a punnet or a frozen packet
Preheat oven to 150 C ( 130 ff) Melt the butter and chocolate together and cool slightly, then fold in the eggs, and then the dry ingredients. Mix till well combined. Grease and line 6 muffin tins, or papers or moulds, whatever you usually use. Fill each half way, the pop in a few berries, and then cover with the rest of the mixture. Bake for about 25 minutes or until cooked. You can serve with extra berries and the Rich Fudge Sauce I have mentioned before : Heat 300ml thickened cream, 100 g white marshmallows, and 200 g dark chocolate over a low heat till smooth. Add 60 ml of a coffee liqueur or extra coffee/cocoa mixed in I tablespoon of hot water!!!

Fast and not loose

2005-05-31T18:23:00.000+10:00

All prepared for the Labradors to visit Aunty Cathy and we had to cancel as her grandmother died. We went for a compensatory walk to the shop and met a nice lady!!!
Yes, I put the two pairs of stretchy cord jeans on lay-by and I also bought a lovely Labrador throw, it has 2 Labrador puppies and it is all plush and cuddly. I expect it will be commandeered soon!!!
I have therefore been to Aunty Captain Mrs Archer’s and watched Stargate Atlantis with her : two dark and very American POV episodes.
I bought wool for the Fibonacci sleeves and I am about to start one now!!.
That, alas, is all there is to tell.

Easy Peasy Lemon Sleevey!!!!

2005-05-30T18:22:00.000+10:00

Having to change Insurance companies meant I had to ‘assess’ the value of things in my house. Mainly my house is full of ….books. I have books everywhere and I walked in every room and counted them. I have too many!! But I need them all. As well as books I have magazines like Handmade and Delicious and Stitches and Burda. Happily the insurance people are glad to cover any number of books!!! I took spreadsheets and my Boob Book to show them !! Books are my downfall, and as a vice they are pretty harmless. Books call to me as I walk past, I peer into shady windows ands sneak longing looks at hardcovers, the soft covers are easy, and the magazines? They hop off the stand into my hand!!!
Today I went to Aunty Captain Mrs Archers after walking the Labradors and changing insurers. We picked up her table and bought Star Wars drink containers and watched Blake’s 7. Peri ate a shoe. I am trying to be glad about the fact that the pair wasn’t my favourite green. It is hard. Farewell shoes……
I have 30 rows to go and the body of the Fibonacci Jumper is finished!! I will finish it tonight and begin the cuffs and then the sleeves in as much stripe pattern as possible. Tomorrow I can buy more wool and sleeves are easy!!!
In fact, we are , it appears, having an easy recipe week!!!
Easy Vanilla Slice
Lattice biscuits
300 ml thickened cream
1 cup milk
85 g packet of vanilla instant pudding
1 tspn vanilla extract
Optional fruit : berries, drained fruit salad, etc
Place half the biscuits in a lined square tin, best side down. Combine milk and cream in a bowl and beat in pudding. Add extra vanilla extract. Beat for 1 minute or until thick and smooth. At this stage add any fruit if you so desire. Pour mixture over the biscuits and top with the other half, best side up!!! Refrigerate till set. You may ice with a simple lemon or passionfruit icing too. This is so simple and very yummy.

Truly a day of rest here....

2005-05-29T11:23:00.000+10:00

Today is a day of total rest, even the offer of Blake’s 7 watching was not enough to tempt me from the bounds of the house. I am not in my pyjamas, despite previous threats, so all can rest easy!!! It is the school holidays and all my friends will be available in the day time so I want to save myself as much as possible. The Labradors finally made me get out of bed just before The Insiders at 9 am, and I have cooked them their breakfast.
Cathy commented about pears and elimination diets and it will be no surprise to any one that, yes, I have had a dog on an elimination diet hat involved pears and rice and all those things. You slowly add new foods to their diet to see which they are allergic too. I am the person whose dog had their tonsils out!! Who knew dogs had tonsils???
I am on the home run of the Fibonacci Jumper body and almost crashed. I thought I was out of the plum coloured wool and of course the wool shop isn’t open today. But lo, in the East, a star…. Well, in the hall, ½ a ball I had rescued from Peri’s playfulness. So I can finish the pattern : feather and fan, and then maybe make it all the way the armhole cast off and the underarm which is itself only 6 cm.
I have decided to do the sleeves with Fibonacci stripes at the cuff and up the sleeve for one repeat 1,1,2,3,5,8 and then knit one sleeve black and one dark blue. I think all over stripes will be too confronting. I feel that I am going to be able to finish this, but it will be a race against time!!! I have 2 almost finished dinosaurs, so when I do run out of wool I have ends to weave in and dinosaurs to finish…..
So, my exciting life today will consist of throwing a ball up the backyard for Harki, patting Peri, knitting and catching up on TV. Oh and talking on the phone which really cuts into my knitting time.

Easy Chocolate and Coconut Cake for a Sunday
250 g melted butter
60 g sifted cocoa powder
300 g caster sugar
3 eggs
150 g shredded or desiccated coconut
225 g plain flour
1 ½ tspn baking powder
180 ml milk ( or coconut milk)
Preheat oven to 180 C ( 160 ff) and grease and line a 24 cm tin. Place all ingredients in a bowl and whisk or beat till combined. That’s it!!! Bake for about 50 minutes. Cool on a rack.

A pear of lovely ayes.....

2005-05-28T18:26:00.000+10:00

Who could resist the pun : a line from a song and an accolade for the pears though strictly speaking there were three people eating them. Peri and Harki were confused as I gave them a pear each. When I asked Peri where her pear was she looked at me as if to say “Here I am!!” and when I asked Harki, she raced over to Peri!!!.
Hence, on the knitting front I have done zilch, none, nada, nol, nil : I must knit tonight all night to catch up. I have Dr Who to watch and I am taping Monk on the digital station. I have also not been wasting my wishes, I wished to win Tattslotto!!!
On the very up side I saw about 8 pairs of green trousers and jeans and I intend to lay-by them on Tuesday – ‘pension’ day!!! There is little else to tell : it was snowing in Hobart but sunny and clear here. I need a hat for walking the Labradors, it was very chilly this morning. I am feeling the after effects of the euphoria of being slightly better so I am staying home ALL DAY tomorrow and I may not even get out of my pyjamas!!! It will be a good day for knitting…..

Reasons to be very cross - Part 1 ( No Ian Drury though)

2005-05-27T10:14:00.000+10:00

I expect people expected a diatribe today, in fact over the last few weeks, but here are things I am too cross to discuss :
The Industrial Reform announced yesterday
The new Tasmanian Forestry Agreement
Mandatory Detention
DIMIA
Re the whole Corby affair, I heard a similar story on Radio National, except the woman was Japanese and the country prosecuting and gaoling was Australia :
Chika
Chika is the story of a Japanese tourist who lost ten years of her life in Australian prisons for a crime many people believe she never committed. What started out as the holiday of a lifetime nearly became a death sentence, after Chika was accused of involvement in one of Australia's biggest heroin smuggling cases.The documentary explores the deep cultural misunderstandings and mistranslations responsible for Chika’s imprisonment, and the friendships in jail that kept her going after she tried to kill herself. Chika’s story is narrated by Mayu Kanamori, a Sydney-based Japanese-born documentary maker, and features original music recorded in a collaboration between Australian composer Tom Fitzgerald and Japanese-born koto virtuoso Satsuki Odamura.

This is exactly the same situation as Corby’s. I don’t know where you can hear it now, but it was repeated this year.

I am doing weird sleeping again. Yesterday I slept in the afternoon from 4 – 6pm ( Dr Who!!) then I slept again from just after 6 till 7-30. I woke up this morning at about 7 am and gave up trying to sleep. I watched Stargate: Atlantis and then cooked the Labradors’ breakfast and knitted. I did 40 rows of the Fibonacci Jumper last night, all with the correct colours too. Quelle surprise ! I feel I am on the homeward run now, half way across the front, with only one more section of patterning to think of. I shall have to think long and hard as I don’t want to have to undo anything again. I have two sleeves to knit and a bazillion ends to sew in. The sleeves should be OK. I knitted 1/3 of my cardigan sleeve quite quickly. I am jumpering in earnest now though…..
I have a tiny paper cut on my thumb at the base and it really hurts. If I was being snarky I would say that I thought Bush was refining paper cuts as a new torture instrument.
Oh there is another thing I am too cross to talk about. He said this ( more or less) : The trouble with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur. I shake my head in dismay. This is the man who – NO I am too cross to talk about it.
Today is the last day of school. Hurray. Lots of my friends will be available for brunch, lunch or afternoon tea on a weekday!! I will have to do a lot of sleeping and napping so I have some stamina and not collapse in a social heap.
Today I am making poached pears to take to Di’s for tea, so here is the recipe.
Poached Pears
Beurre bosc pears ( 6 for this amount) peeled but leave the stalk on
500 ml red wine
l water
180 g sugar
1 cinnamon stick
orange or lemon rind – ¼ of the orange or ½ of the lemon
Place all ingredients except the pears into a medium to large pan and stir over a low heat until the sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the pears ( you might need to slice the bottoms off to make them sit flat) and cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Turn the pears if needed. Cool in the pan and then refrigerate the pears. Boil the syrup for as long as it takes to thicken. BE CAREFUL as it turns to toffee really quickly!!!

Walking back to knittingness, oh oh oh oh oh......

2005-05-26T16:31:00.000+10:00

Today I arose at a most ungodly hour. The alarm went off and I woke up suddenly, and realised I had to be dressed and out in 15 minutes. There was ice all over the car, but I managed to be at the Kmart as the doors opened at 8 am. There were 2 treadmills and only 2 and I managed to lay-by one for Aunty Captain Mrs Archer!!! Then the Labradors had to be walked as they missed out yesterday. They like the ice!!
Then after a rest I went to visit a friend while she had her chemo in the Hospital. We chatted for about 2 hours until she fell asleep.
On the knitting front I have finished the body of another dinosaur and I have taken up the set aside cardigan. I am on my last sleeve, and I know that sounds like I have myriad arms, but I have the requisite two. No Chrysalids here!!! I have knitted a ball of wool and I am over a third of the way to the underarm. It is all increasing and an uphill slog, but once I start the decreasing I will be cruising. Then there is only one more front to go, and the back of the neckband. I should start searching for buttons right now. It is so hard to find good matching buttons. I despair sometimes.
We are preparing for 150 km an hour winds as the evening draws in. I hope the power doesn’t go out. I miss electricity! I must get candles and matches ready. We may miss Stargate Atlantis. The sky is already darkening and the wind is strengthening. It’s colder too. Winter might actually have arrived in one fell swoop.
The Star Wars recipes are at an end, and so today a cake recipe.
Orange Poppy seed Cake
Cake
200 g butter
1 tbspn grated orange rind
180 g light brown sugar
3 eggs
300 g plain flour
1 ½ tspn baking powder
125 ml orange juice
80 g poppy seeds
180 ml milk
Syrup
110 g caster sugar
125 ml orange juice
orange rind – grated or thinly sliced
Cake - Preheat oven to 160 C ( 140 ff) and grease and line a 20 cm tin. Soak poppy seeds in the milk. Cream butter, sugar and rind and then add the eggs one at a time. Fold in the dry ingredients, the juice and milk and seed mixture. Bake for 50-60 minutes, cool in tine for 10 minutes and then on a rack. Pour syrup over the cake once it is on the rack. Serve warm or cold.
Syrup – Place all ingredients in a pan and stir over a low heat until all the sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 5 minutes or until it thickens. Take care not to let it turn into toffee!!!

Kingdom of Hell-ven

2005-05-25T11:21:00.000+10:00

Unbelievable!! I have turned into Victor Meldrew AGAIN. I cannot believe it. Last night we went to see Kingdom of heaven, and the theatre was peopled with MORONS, impolite, inconsiderate, rude people:
“Hey, the tickets are half-price, let’s go to the cinema and talk all the way through a film. And in the quiet reflective parts, lets talk more because we can hear each other better. Oh, and lets read all the writing on the screen out loud, and exclaim loudly when a plot point is explained or we see a character we recognise, which is often. If our phone is turned on, which it is of course, we will let it beep a lot, and then answer it noisily and then as a token of respect go down the stairs a bit and talk really, really loudly. We will crinkle cellophane type papers frequently and loudly and we will shuffle the popcorn too. We will be quiet if the usher remonstrates with us, but only till the usher leaves. We will hoot loudly in the romantic parts and generally make the theatre our playground.”
We are never, ever going to the cinema on a Tuesday night ever, ever again.
Despite the hardships, I really liked the film. It was a bit gory and I watched the battles from behind my hands, but apart from that it was great and Orlando was good to look at!! Liam Neeson hasn’t been out of a beard for what seems like years, he has a beard in Batman Begins too. Other actors included David ( Professor Lupin)Thewlis, Alexander ( Bashir)Siddig, Jon ( MacBeth) Finch, Phillip ( State of Play) Glenister, Kevin ( North Square) McKidd, Jeremy ( Brideshead Revisted) Irons and many many more!!!
Right, I have morning tea with the GardyGardeners, a visit to Janette re Jessie’s going away present, and then Jessie’s afternoon tea. Then I will need a nap!!!

Luke, I have felt your presents...

2005-05-24T16:00:00.000+10:00

What Darth Vader said to Luke Skywalker at Christmas time.
Oh wow, it rained today for the first time in months, and I mean that literally, not figuratively!! It rained hard and long and the Labradors camped inside, confused at the wetness.
All went well at the Hospital. I am once again making some of my own red blood cells!! Huzzah!!! Of course my marrow is still half way to being shot, but nevertheless, no horrid drugs or injections or other pokey things. We are all of the opinion that the virus I had over Christmas affected my so severely that I had one of those immunity crises I am prone to. Hopefully I am out of the acute mode and into long term chronic again. Who would ever have thought this a prescription for happiness and celebration?
I was so tired , and no doubt reading today, that I slept for about 3 hours from Dr Who onwards. I watched Jordans ( makes me ) Cross-ing and then I watched Atlantis, plagued as it was by drop outs and loss of sound. Greta episode. This morning the Babylon 5 movie DVD set arrived and Season 7 Stargate-SG1 as well . This is cause for joy as we missed the first episode of this season. In the UK the movie set only had 3 of the movies instead of 5. Also out soon is Atlantis, Enterprise and Blakes 7. A veritable feast.
The Labradors are full of love today. Every time I sit down to type they both want to be patted and cuddled. You cant type with two Labradors wiggling about next to you.
On the knitting front I have sewn up Brontys legs and I took another dinosaur to knit in the waiting room. I only did about 10 rows and it was my turn. They have turned out really well and I might knit some more for BE. Tonight I am going to see Kingdom of Heaven. We were going to see Sahara, but it is only on at 9-20 pm and I cant be out that late!!! I will nap now till 6, and then away to the cinema.
I have traced and embroidered a back stitch outline of Tasmania onto calico to sew onto the bag. I will also cut out some red felt apples and appliqueé them as well. Then the Tasmanian goodies can go in it : special glasses, a stubby holder, leatherwood honey, lavender soap, Tasmanian playing cards, some special chocolate, a bookmark and bush peppercorns. All reminders of Tasmania, and I will write a song too.
I have emailed the Fresh TV show with another song, requesting the details of the gingerbread 3D house cutters. I dont think anyone ever reads the questions, the same one has been on the website since it was updated. I send them a poem or a song every week in the hope they will weaken and give me some information. They say they read their mail but I have my doubts.
Here is the last Star Wars Recipe:

Han-burgers
500 g of mince
1 onion, chopped
1 tbspn tomato paste
1 tspn Worcestershire sauce
sliced tomatoes
lettuce
mustard and tomato sauce
4 wholemeal hamburger buns
Other fillings: capsicum, pickles, onions, chillies etc
Cut the buns in half and toast them as desired.
Combine the mince, paste, sauce and onion and mix with your clean hands for about 5 minutes. Divide into 8 thin patties to fit your buns. Fry or grill the burgers till they are cooked to your liking. I like well done.
Squirt sauce/ mustard on the bottom bun, top with one patty, then tomato, lettuce and any other fillings you choose, then another patty and mustard/sauce. Put the top half of the bun on as a lid and serve immediately. I have a (bad good feeling about this!!!

And then, and then , and then.......

2005-05-23T15:53:00.000+10:00

Today is an ‘and then’ grade 3 story.
I walked the Labradors and we met Dr Tim with Nellie and Saskia,
And then Peri and Harki were well behaved,
And then I went to have a blood test,
And then I went to school to get 2 books about Morocco,
And then I went to Spotlight to swap 2 lime green balls of wool for grey, Bronty took 1 and a tiny bit of a ball left over from the previously mentioned knitted nativity, I only have to sew Bronty and stuff him/her,
And then I went to ACMA’s and sewed her curtains to the adding the header tape stage,
And then I cooked muffins with Rolos inside,
And then I went to the supermarket,
And then I came home and found the bag of potatoes Peri is in lurve with empty of potatoes!! She had taken the potatoes out and just wanted the bag,
And then I came inside!!!!!

Bronty had the ‘three needle cast-off’ I have read about it in various places. I was a bit worried, could I do a 3 needle cast-off? I looked in the Readers’ Digest Needlecraft book and found that Yes!! I could. It was so easy, just like real casting off, except you knit through the two stitches on each parallel needle, and then cast off on the right needle as usual. It makes a nice even join at the front of Bronty’s head. I plan on finishing Bronty and making a start on Trice or Mr Stegs. We are all still having a rest from the Fibonacci Jumper. I can recommend the dinosaurs, they seem to work very well and be very cute!!!
There is a wrap knitting pattern in the Australian Stitches magazine that has just arrived – actually there are two, a knitted and a sewn. I wish I liked and could wear wraps. They suit me in the same way a shrug or a bolero doesn’t. Is a shrug the new bolero? What is the difference???
I have kilos of Dutch cream so I fancy potatoes with onion and bacon for tea tonight. I am doing that weird eating-only-two-meals-a-day thing again. Tomorrow I have to go and see the specialist about the whole being ill thing again. I hate being in the waiting room : waiting, waiting, waiting to go in and hear that my numbers are good/bad/confusing. I do feel a bit better, though my spleen is still boogelly , but I am not too pale. Doing the whole Pollyanna Glad Game here….

Only 2 Star Wars Recipes to go now…..
Greedo’s Burritos
425 g tin blackest beans ( kidney will do, but choose your favourite)
1 cup grated cheese
½ head lettuce sliced thinly
1 tomato diced
1 tbspn olive oil
700 g mince of your choice
4 flour tortillas
other items like chopped capsicum, spring onion, black olives , chopped chillies etc

Preheat oven to 180 C ( 160 ff)
Drain beans. Brown mince in oil for about 15 minutes, heat tortillas in the oven or microwave. Add drained beans to mince, along with any other ingredients you want to cook. Place each tortilla on a plate and divide the mince evenly between them, top with the cheese, lettuce, tomato and any other of the topping you choose. Roll up and then serve with salsa or a sauce you like!!!

Doctor Who? The Doctor is in !!!!

2005-05-22T15:08:00.000+10:00

Those Labradors are rascals!! Harki has taken, just every now and then, to dropping a toy out of the front window. It then bounces down all the stairs to the bottom of the garden. Then she runs and sits at the front door and yips until I come and climb down the stairs and fetch her toys!!! This morning Peri was taking Harki’s kong and running away with it. She hovers about it till Harki comes then grabs it and runs away – a good game!!
Last night I went to Aunty Captain Mrs Archers and Pauline was there and we watched Doctor Who “Rose”. It was like H2G2 : Time is an illusion : Lunchtime doubly so. The 50 minutes went so fast I couldn’t believe it was over. It had all the right elements: the Tardis, an excellent quirky Doctor referring to his recent regeneration, the sonic screwdriver, Autons, doppelgangers, a surprisingly good companion, humour, death… I could go on and on obviously. I shall try and restrain myself. I now have 12 more episodes of this season to see and then another season to come – guaranteed!! Oh bliss and joy. I need to make something more Doctor Who-y. I have a hanging Tardis. It is like the door side of the TARDIS with a handle and the windows are pockets and there is writing and everything. I think I need a green K9 handbag. Now there is something every girl needs. I shall have to make a pattern.
We went to see Star Wars again this morning. There were too many children with crinkly paper , but the queue for the next session at a godly hour was out the door.
I am also knitting some dinosaurs for ACMA. I found them here :
http://www.xtreme-knitting.com/Dinosaurspattern.pdf
I am making Bronty in Panda Disco Lime green. It was the best colour and even though I don’t know how many metres or yards in a ball I bought 3 x 20 g balls. I hope to finished it today. I am having a rest from the Fibonacci Jumper.

Star Wars Recipe of the Day:
Tatooine Twin Sun Toast
For 1 serve you need –
1 large slice of sourdough bread
1 tspn butter
2 small eggs
Using a 5 cm scone cutter, make 2 holes in the bread, discarding the circles. Melt butter in a pan or on a grill. Place bread in pan . Break each egg into a cup and gently pour one into each hole. Fry 1 or 2 minutes until the whites are no longer clear, then flip over to complete cooking – about 1 minute more.
Serve at once with crispy bacon, ( Bacona Fett!!) and grilled tomatoes ( Tusken Raider Tomatoes!!!)

The Answer my Friend is NOT TO KNIT IN DIM LIGHT

2005-05-21T16:30:00.000+10:00

How many rows can a woman undo before you can call it all quits?
Well I can undo at least twice, possibly three times. Do not knit with plummy-purple coloured wool and brown wool while watching TV and with dull light. Twice, thrice, not once, I can’t even learn from my mistakes, I knitted the wrong coloured stripe and then blithely kept on knitting way past it. THEN I pulled it undone, corrected the colour and missed an entire stripe. I have no excuse. I should have paid more attention. It’s not as if Lord Lynley is riveting, good, or even half way to being interesting. I was taping it for Aunty Captain Mrs Archer.
In the end I pulled it all undone back to the first stripe and went to bed. I went all Scarlett O’Hara : Remember, tomorrow is another day…
Hello Rosie - you know who you are. Lovely bullion stitches. I am so envious!!!
Now I am typing with a Labrador on my arm. Harki wants a pat and so it trying to insert her head on, or preferably, under, my typing hand. She then wiggles and wags her tail and the whole thing transfers through like an earthquake. I gave them the end of the mixed pepper cheese . It is actually mixed capsicum, but it must be from America. Peri ate the foil.
Dr Who is on tonight. Words are not enough to express my joy and happiness. It is almost as good as a Labrador!!!!! Almost, but not quite. Now Peri is eating an apple I threw outside for the birds. She is a gannet!!!
Everywhere there are wool ( yarn) sales. I always say wool as in the olden days there was only wool. I am so old.. Now we should say yarn as it is more fibre politically correct. I can’t.. I will always say wool, in the same way I say The Hydro for Aurora, Jimmy’s for Coles in Charles St, Roelf Vos for Woolworths everywhere etc. At least I don’t say the PMG for the GPO, now known as Australia Post!!! I don’t do this deliberately, it is just like the Dark Side of the Force, I am being taken over by my mother. Mum does that all the time. Help me. I don’t want to be my mother and be blonde instead of grey at 68. I don’t want to own more shoes than Imelda, shoes I never wear as they don’t fit me. I don’t want to wear pantyhose with a parachute suit.
I expect there is no turning back from the Dark Side of the Moth(er) It is an inexorable fate.
Today I picked up Princess Leia, the last Star Wars pin. Huzzah!! And today’s Star Wars recipe is :
Jedi Juice Pops
1 cup fresh or frozen berries ( or soft fruit of your choice)
300 –350 ml of fruit juice ( you can add lemonade or other flavours too)
paddle pop sticks
Place a piece of fruit into each little cube spot of an ice cube tray, Almost fill with juice and freeze for about 2 hours. Push a stick firmly into the centre and freeze till set. Pop out and eat!! I think you could use yoghurt too, to make a healthy “pop”.
I spotted a typo and then had to edit twice as I fixed the time to am instead of pm. Now there are probably 3 more things I should have fixed!!!

Tell me Miss Kitten, what are you knittin'? A kerchief, a kite and a polka dot mitten

2005-05-20T15:44:00.000+10:00

See how childhood TV rhymes inculcate themselves into your brain. Was this Sesame Street? I think it was. Play Schhol has the egg-shaped TV and the round window.It has not been a miserable day, but overcast. I have put Dr Who onto MT DVD so I can watch it. I am watching/listening to the first 8 episodes. I have made delicious soup full of legumes and macaroni and yummy vegetables. I have knitted all day and I have finished the pattern and I have decreased for the neck and I have 90 rows across the front to do ( sideways). I have also realised I will have to have mitred corners on the neck so I will be reading the knitting section of the Readers’ Digest tonight reacquainting myself with the procedure. See how certain I am that I will finished this before June 20 th??? I have 2 sleeves to knit and a bazillion ends to sew in. I will need more wool. I am thinking of doing the bands of the sleeves in stripes and then one sleeve black and one dark blue. It does mean I won’t have wool left over. When am I going to knit anything for me that isn’t green?????
The Labradors have played all day. I did distract them momentarily with a bone. Now they are napping on the couch. Peri is on the Labrador cushion. Harki is looking at me sadly as she wants more food. Not until you lose another 3 kilos. I am Jenny Craig and Lisa Curry-Kenny rolled into one. Now there’s an image!!!
Oh, the site is having conniptions and I can't make this writing green. Oh I am very sad.

Star Wars - Use the Fork Luke!!!

2005-05-20T09:26:00.000+10:00

Been, seen, it’s a dream!! We waited in line last night for an hour. Actually we sat on the comfy seats until the line reached the stairs then we sat on them. We read SFX magazines and Aunty Captain Mrs Archer gave me a present – The Revenge of the Sith book!!!!!!! I gave her Bassett’s Liquorice Allsorts from the special shop. No comparison really!!! I took precautionary drugs as I felt slightly off : perhaps too much excitement, perhaps a cold?
Then in we all went. And by all I mean mostly spotty anoraks, and then us!!! They made us sit through 15 minutes of promos and then it started.
Believe you me, ( and isn’t that very Yoda?) this film deserves an M rating. But it is, indeed, the best of the 3 recent films. You MUST MUST MUST see it, even if you hates TPM and AOTC. This is iconic and it segues effortlessly into the next trilogy.
I laughed, I cried, I was scared, cross, the whole gamut of emotions. There was love, hate, betrayal, stupidity, violence, death, bravery….we will see it again on Sunday.
Of course now I must gird my loins for the new Dr Who. So many things, so little time… and the power has been going on and off but thankfully Stargate Atlantis taped and I watched it this morning before collecting the Colonel Grievous pin from the newsagency. There is only one left to collect: Princess Leia. See how my priorities are deep and meaningful???
Knitting? I am knitting as I speak ( well, I am doing rows in between internetting).

Death Star Popcorn Balls
75 g butter
100 g marshmallows ¼ cup light brown sugar
100 g popcorn ( already popped natural not coloured)
jubes for decoration
Melt butter in a pan over low heat and slowly stir to melt the added sugar and marshmallows. When combined, pour over the popcorn and mix very thoroughly. Use dampened hands to form a ball and add jubes to the exteriors to mimic lights etc. You can use other lollies too. Place on baking paper to cool and set. Makes 8 to 10 depending on the size.

Tonight's the night!!

2005-05-19T11:41:00.000+10:00

Fear not : there is no Rod Stewart with gravelly tones, no slinky Brit Ekland, no song with, as the man on Shearers said – sexual connotations. I must digress, on the Shearers on the ABC this week ( reality shearing school set in Tasmania) the head shearer’s offsider said there should be no ‘sexual connotations’ !! We think he meant harassment as the entire show then proceeded to be full of single, double, even triple entendre and innuendo!! Most amusing.
No! Tonight is the night for Star Wars. I am very excited. I am napping this afternoon. I gave up sewing. I gave up watching Enterprise and Tru Calling. I have gone all Oklahoma now : All or nuthin’-

I go and sow my last wild oat! I cut out all shenanigans.
I save my money, don't gamble or drink In the back room down at Flannigans!
I give up lotsa other things A gentleman never mentions,
But before I give up anymore, I wanta know your intentions!

My intentions are to go to the Library and return the Handmade magazines. I have spent a desultory hour looking for them and they were already found and sitting on the top of the couch. I have another in the car. The actual Handmade people assured me it was a missing Christmas issue. It was, in fact, an Easter issue and I already have it. The man at the newsagency has ordered Interweave Knitting, Vogue Knitting and Rowan. I think Rowan 37 is gone, but I will be all ready for Rowan 38. It is about $50 but there are over 40 patterns. I have found a 37 on the internet at a yarn shop. I may buy it. I can’t buy it until my tax return comes though. I am exceedingly poor until then. I look at my health insurance 30% refund as a kind of unChristmas club!!! I will buy a simple digital camera so I can put pictures on my blogs!!! Especially of the Labradors. They could be there every day, in triplicate!!!
I have undone my knitting AGAIN. The cables pulled the work in far too much. How did I not know this? I know that cables and rib both contract, yet I blithely went ahead regardless. I have done a travelling moss stitch. It is a diagonal pattern made by a purl . It is very nice and NOT PULLY INNY.
I enjoy words. Words are great. I like words that are not real in spite of my pedantry : see boogelly, accribitz, pully inny, percentagise, orphanry etc.
Obligatory Star Wars Recipe.
R2-D2 Treats
100 g white chocolate
¼ cup finely chopped nuts
1 or 2 bananas
1 KitKat ( 4 fingers)
Line a tray . place in the freezer. Melt and cool chocolate, peel the banana and cut into KitKat lengths. Dip banana into chocolate and then just the top portion into the nuts. Press a KitKat finger on each side. Repeat with as many bananas and KitKats as you have. Lay on the cold tray and place in the freezer till set. Serve from the freezer.
It does look cute if you round the top part to look like R2’s head!!!

Wookie Cookies!!!

2005-05-18T15:31:00.000+10:00

No knitting or sewing or any craft in any way, shape or from. I went to Di’s for tea and then came home and went to sleep. This morning I went to the Museum to help with the dinosaur excursion. I talked for about 90 minutes and then had sandwiches and then watched orienteering and came home. No, I lie, I went to the supermarket and I had 4 things and the queues on the TWO, that’s right, TWO checkouts were so long I left the cheese and milk and juice and water cracker biscuits and went home shoppingless. I found I had left the door to the hall open but the Labradors have not created any fuss, mess or bother so that is all OK. I am not going to sewing tonight as I want to walk the Labradors tomorrow and then go to Star Wars tomorrow night. I am really excited now. I barely know what will happen – though in truth we all know as this is film 3 out of 6 – but nevertheless I have avoided spoilers if I can.
I am quite tired and think I need more than a nap. I have found my very excellent timer so I can sleep happily in the knowledge that I won’t miss Dr Who at 6pm. I must put last night’s episode on the tape of things to be watched as it is almost the end of the Segments of Time miniseries.
OK now the Celebratory Star Wars Recipe!!!
Wookie Cookies
375 g plain flour
1 tspn baking powder
1 tspn cinnamon
250 g butter
220 g brown sugar
110 g caster sugar
3 eggs
1 ½ tspn vanilla extract
2 cups of chopped chocolate of your choice!!!
Preheat oven to 180 C ( 160 ff) Grease AND LINE TRAYS
Sift dry ingredients together. Cream butter and sugars with essence. Add eggs one at a time. Stir in dry ingredients and chocolate. Place rounded tablespoonfuls onto the tray. Bake for 10-12 minutes ( may take a bit longer??) Cool on a rack.

I am undone AND the start of a whole week of Star Wars recipes!!!

2005-05-17T16:40:00.000+10:00

I am uncool. I do not subscribe to the newfangled 'frogging' of knitting, which apparently is related to the 'read it' library book and frog joke. In other countries frogs say 'rip-it' and knitters UNDO their work. I have undone the cables. I am resigned now to at least one purl between them. One purl will make them stand out and not show up too much. I will knit a bigger cable, I will have to do maths to make sure it is all even. I think I like knitting as it is mostly about maths. Thus, I am undone.
The Bendigo Mills sent me a shade card. I had one of these when I still lived at home. There are 2 or 3 wools that will match my new jeans so I am going to order this week. There is a 10% discount and no postage for orders over $30. I just need a pattern to have an idea of the amount of wool. I also want to knit up the Feathers wool. I have the green/teal/peacock shade and I think it needs proper wool cuffs and bands. I can make a good cardigan I think. I have decided I am a cardigan person. It has the benefits of a jumper and then you can also wear it open or undone!! I am undone in many ways then.
This morning the Labradors went to the Vet to find their mass ( I know we all say to be weighed, but weight and mass are two different things. You always have the same mass , the amount of water you would displace from a bath eg, but your weight changes. It is only 1/6 of Earth weight on the Moon approximately. I am a Maths pedant and I make no excuses) Harki has lost 3.1 kg , she is now 39.1,and Peri has lost 2.4 kg, she is now 36.2. Harki has to lose about 3 or 4 more kilos and Peri only 1. I am very happy that all the boiled cabbage and celery has paid off.!!!
I have 3 new NEW Dr Who books put aside at Petrachs to be on lay-by and I must pay some more off my shoes. I want to see if there is material to match my jeans to make a skirt too, oh and material to make a skirt to match my chartreuse-khaki kind of coloured cardigan.
Well, I have 'accidentally' bought another pair of lovely suede green shoes. Well, they are on lay-by and I bought a green top from the Red Cross shop for $10. It is a tad form fitting but it is very nice.
The nice man at the Kmart newsagency has ordered for me three knitting magazines. He will put them in my drawer with the SFX - which have a lot of Dr Who and Ben Browder ( ex-Farscape, new to Stargate) I didn't go to Spotlight to look at material or the wool shop. Shoes and a top were enough. Aunty Captain Mrs Archer wanted a Light Saber and a Star Wars lanyard too.
In honour of Star Wars we will now have a week of recipes from my Star Wars cook Book. Yes, you are reading that correctly : a Star Wars Cook Book. I wanted to do 'Hoth Chocolate' or 'Yoda Soda' but that's too easy.
TIE Fighter Ties
4 chorizo sausages ( or any yummy good sausage cooked and cooled -skinned too??)
sheets of puff pastry
beaten egg
mustard and/or sauces of your choice
Preheat oven to 200 C (180 ff)
Place one sheet of pastry down. Cut in half. Lay sausages down the middle of each ½. Brush egg close to the sausage and place another sheet of halved pastry on top. Press firmly to seal close to the sausage. Cut slices of about 2 or 3 cm. Lay them on a lined and greased tray so the cut side is facing up. Separate the 2 free sides of pastry and form an 'X' shape!!! Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden. Serve with dipping mustards and sauces!!! Makes a fleet of food. May the Force be with you!!!!

Cabled and unenabled

2005-05-16T11:57:00.000+10:00

Someone else in the world apart from Aunty Captain Mrs Archer and Pauline and me likes Star Wars and Dr Who. I am in as much of a frenzy as it is possible for me to be!!! I had road to hell intentions of walking the Labradors and it is a lovely day but I am not feeling well . I am , however, multi-tasking, nonetheless:
· I am transferring a friend’s wedding video onto a DVD for her.
· I am knitting ACMA’s birthday jumper.
· I am trying to read a book – the new Artemis Fowl.
· I am playing with Harki and trying to encourage her to nap after an hour of throwing the squeaky toy.
· I am doing washing.
· I am listening to the radio.
· I am checking blogs, email etc on the internet
· I have rearranged my house & contents insurance.
· I have rung the GardyGardeners re no morning tea on Wednesday as there is the dinosaur excursion!!!
I ended up deleting all of the above and making into dot points as it looks much more impressive. I can’t imagine what I would do if I felt well. This is mostly passive stuff, all able to be completed with a slight headache etc. I think I will resort to drugs soon if it doesn’t go away.
John Howard just commented on the news about the ‘hunchback’ whales being killed by the Japanese!! I’ll bet they were all called Quasimodo!!!
I have 14 rows to go before I start the cabled portion of the Fibonacci jumper. In my house, even as a child, all cable needles are made from broken real knitting needles. Did you know that you can buy proper cable needles, which have an indentation, a dippy ‘V’ shape in the middle to hold your stitches and stop them from slipping off? Ah the wonders of new technology. I don’t have one of these. I have found a braided cable. I wonder if I can do it over 140 stitches? No, I think I will do one with no purls, and a cable Right, then Left on alternating rows. It makes a good pattern with no purls to affect the colour changes.
I have managed to wedge my book between the slightly open draw and the top of the desk so I can knit and read at the same time!!!.

Would you like to wish on a star or a doctor? Carry moonbeams home in a jar or a Tardis?

2005-05-15T10:39:00.000+10:00

I had a wish and I wasted it. Once, many years ago in the ‘Lounge’ of the Savage River pub I wished that the band would play the ‘Jeremiah was a bullfrog’ song, and lo and behold they did!! What a waste of a wish. I should have wished for world peace, or a Tattslotto win. Yesterday , on the phone to Aunty Captain Mrs Archer I wished that the Star Wars pins would have both Alec Guinness as ‘Old Ben Kenobi” AND Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi. And blow me down this morning if they aren’t both on the changey pin!! I have wasted a wish again!!! This week is a good week : dinosaur excursion on Wednesday, Star Wars film on Thursday and then Dr Who on Saturday. I hope I am well. I should wish it really!!! I am spending happy minutes humming the approprate songs, including Da daa, da da da daaaa daa, da da da daaaa daa , da da da daa, and Dr Who –o, Dr Who from Doctorin’ The Tardis. (See how I am truly a sad person?)
I am knitting away very well. I have completed the underarm part and now I am onto the front. I have to think of a pattern for the patterned section (obviously!!) I think I will do cables, but with no purls behind them. The colour changes look boogelly with purl rows. I know I have already done it with the basket stitch, but no more!! I knitted my way through the doco about the Minotaur and then North and South.
Peri is eating an apple and Harki has pulled the head of TeddyBunny teddy. He is all unstuffed now. The Labradors want to be fed. they are going to have the bones and skin of the salmon. They will love it. It will flavour the celery and cabbage!!
Italian Ricotta Slice
250 g ricotta
50 g dark chocolate
100 g mixed glace fruit ( I like some dried as well)
100 g icing sugar
frozen puff pastry
1 egg
flaked almonds

Preheat oven to 180 C ( 160 ff) and grease and line a tray. In a processor or blender make the cheese smooth then add the chocolate, fruit and icing sugar. Pulse till just combined. If using pastry sheets, roll them thinner then line tray with pastry, spread ricotta mixture down the centre, leaving a 10 cm line the tray. Otherwise roll out the block of pastry to fit. Fold in the sides till they just touch the filling, press down, glaze with the beaten egg and sprinkle with almonds. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool slightly then dust with icing sugar.

Lying, not knitting

2005-05-14T12:57:00.000+10:00

You can’t knit whilst reclining on a couch, lying longways, surrounded by cushions!!!
Stargate:Atlantis was excellent. I love it. It is one of the best spin-offs in Sci-Fi and Fantasy TV. When will the DVDs be released?? Then we watched The Phantom Menace in preparation for Thursday’s epic trip to the pictures!!!
I slept from around midnight till after 8 am and I felt relatively well so I took the Labradors for a walk!! An extra one. I tried to buy free range eggs at Coles but there were none. I should have gone to the Fruit and Veggie shop but the Labradors were in the car and they were waiting so I gave up. I have been knitting as I have been checking things on the internet: blogs I read every day, newspapers, recipes etc. I have completed 200 rows and I am on my next lot of the Fibonacci stripe pattern. I must take my new jeans to the wool shop and look for some matching wool. I have seen a few ballet style wrap around cardigans. It is what I want to knit. Not so tight ( obviously ) but a looser and longer one. I hope there might be a pattern. There is one in SnB Nation. I feel the need to knit all the time. It has overwhelmed my need to finish my quilt, embroidery and patchwork!!! And sewing?? What is that? I must look for a pattern for some shirts though. I will have to look in my culled collection of Burda books and find a few.
Definitely need a recipe today… it was chilly again today – glove weather though there was no frost.

Olive Oil Cake ( don’t turn away, be brave!!)
5 eggs ( free range, remember the cages)
150 g golden caster sugar ( I can never get this, use ½ and ½ caster and brown sugars)
50 ml light olive oil
150 g plain flour
Preheat oven to 150 C ( 130 ff) Grease and line a 23 cm springform tin
Beat eggs for about 5 minutes until pale and thick, add sugar and beat until it triples in size. Keep mixer running and add the oil in a thin stream. Then by hand, sift and fold in the flour. Bake for 45-450 minutes. It will shrink away from the side of the tin. Cool in tin for 10 minutes and then on a rack. Serve dusted with icing sugar with poached fruit.

RDA rules, OK?

2005-05-13T14:55:00.000+10:00

Brendan Nelson is at it again, interfering with the States’ education policies and practice without an excuse me or anything. He is also mooting paying teachers by their results. How would this work? Some children will not learn very much by virtue of their abilities. No-one will want to have these specific learning disability children in their class, or disruptive children, or autistic children and so on. You can’t do this. A far better policy would be to raise the score for Uni entrance above idiot level. In some Scandinavian countries you have to have the highest qualifications and it is at least a 5 year course.
Also on the education front, two ‘ex-convicts’ are saying they are being discriminated against by the Education Department as they have been refused permission to work at schools, painting. After all the hooha there has been about keeping children safe, and duty of care, how can they expect their past to be ignored. I know that they have paid their debt to society, but children are too precious to risk for someone’s hurt feelings.
On the knitting front, although I am actually doing the back, I have only 16 rows to go and I am up to the big cast off of 54 stitches for the underarm. 6 cm more and I am onto the actual front. It is very warm knitting and keeps the legs toasty in the evenings!!!
I might take the socks with me tonight if I can find where I have put the pattern safely away!!! I bought the teeny tiny needles and I have to do 12 cm of rib so I don’t actually need the pattern as yet. I must go and look for some wool to match my new light green jeans. I have mostly lime and olive and khaki so I need a soft green colour to make a cardigan or jumper. I am undecided as to what I should knit. I should finish my other cardigan first and then I can make a shirt to match.
Today is the first real nippy morning. I wore my gloves, there was ice on the car and a big frost at the dam : there was a white frost on all the grass and moss. The Labradors didn’t care and romped happily. I saw on the S&B site that someone had put a link to the Kath and Kim bonnet, and they noted a mistake. There are a couple of doozies and I emailed the ABC but the haven’t fixed them. I think it has you decreasing all one row, making the bonnet tiny. It is very cute., I have one pompom to make and it is finished too.
I am off to ACMA’s and we are going to watch Stargate:Atlantis ( It is weird that we are seeing RDA and Daniel Jackson with their start of the last season haircuts!!!) and then we have The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones to watch before Thursday when we go to see Revenge of the Sith. What a long commitment this has been on my part : from start to finish I have been following these movies. The pins of the characters from the Mercury are so excellent. I have 7 now, with 8 to go!!! They are the sort of badge from your childhood where if you tilt it you see another image and they alternate.
Right, since ACMA will be going straight home after school and I must have a nap if I am going to be able to go out, I must away!!

A proper cup of coffee in a proper coffee cup.

2005-05-12T11:34:00.000+10:00

Last night at Sewing I knitted one of these:
http://www.magknits.com/warm04/patterns/java.htm
Mine is like the third one, the smallest white cup on the right. It is burgundy plain wool with a fluffy Faux Fur border at the top and bottom. I have to block it and sew on the handle but it is so easy, so cute and so quick. I could knit lots of them. Mind you, Aunty Captain Mrs Archer will only need one, though I will be forced to knit two as or three as I believe in surpluses!!! She sometimes buys coffee or hot chocolate on the way to school. I have knitted only a little more of the Fibonacci jumper. I am using it as a reward : I must do some house work for 10-15 minutes ( or until I am puffed, whichever comes first) and then I may knit!!!
I noticed in the comments on another blog an ‘interesting’ comment about spelling and homophones. I try to type up my post in Word and then spell check and copy and paste into the blog. It is so easy to overlook things. When I was at school I taught the children to look for spelling errors in their writing by reading their work backwards. The same with LSCCWC and editing spelling – check each letter in reverse order against the correct spelling. This makes it much easier as the brain has the tendency to cloze : we see what we think is there, not what actually is. I am nothing if not a pedant . I collect books about language, spelling and words, but I am not perfect. You can’t expect everyone to be an excellent writer, in the same way you can’t expect everyone to be an Olympic gold medal winner. This is part of the problem with education : those away from the coal face expect that every single child will achieve 100% ,or close to, in every Learning Area. This is not possible. Every one has differing abilities and some people will NEVER be good spellers, or mathematicians. It is illogical to assume everyone will be good at everything. We don’t expect everyone will run a sub 4 minute mile ( sorry, there isn’t a metric paradigm), do we? If you could see the state of this before I have spell checked !! I am such a poor typist that some words are unintelligible. We didn’t learn typing at school. I took French, German and Advanced Maths!!!
Ok, there endeth the lesson for today. I have one shark’s tooth, two elephant eyes and a surfboard fin to do and the cushions just need sewing together on the machine!!Huzzah!!!
Lemon Sour Cream Cake
250 g butter
2 tspn grated lemon rind
440 g caster sugar
6 eggs
300 g plain flour
35 g self raising flour
200 g carton sour cream
Grease and line a 27 cm round tin and preheat oven to 170 C ( 150 ff).
Cream butter, rind and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Stir in half the cream and half the sifted flours, then the rest. Stir till smooth. Bake for about 90 minutes. Stand for 5 minutes in tin the cool on a rack. Dust with icing sugar, and serve with a dollop of cream and lemon curd!!!

If I was a rich man..........

2005-05-11T12:40:00.000+10:00

Ok, I have been tagged and I must paste this below and do the thing it says. I don’t know three other people to tag so I will be sad Luddite Tagged Person!!!! I could tag the Labradors but they just want to own a Butcher's shop.

Pick five and fill in the blank :
If I could be a scientist…
If I could be a farmer…
If I could be a musician…
If I could be a doctor…
If I could be a painter…
If I could be a gardener…
If I could be a missionary…
If I could be a chef…
If I could be an architect…
If I could be a linguist…
If I could be a psychologist…
If I could be a librarian…
If I could be an athlete…
If I could be a lawyer…
If I could be an inn-keeper…
If I could be a professor…
If I could be a writer…
If I could be a llama-rider…
If I could be a bonnie pirate…
If I could be an astronaut…
If I could be a world famous blogger…
If I could be a justice on any one court in the world…
If I could be married to any current famous political figure…

I have to choose 3 ( or 5?)
Well, If I could be a Librarian, I would wear a label that said ‘Liberian’ as that’s how most children pronounce it, and I could read all the new books as soon as they came to the Library!
If I could be a gardener, my backyard would not resemble deepest, darkest Africa and I would grow more than just Egyptian broad beans, which is the only crop I grew last year!!
If I could be married to any current famous political figure it would be a toss up between Edward Gough and Paul Keating. They are so cool in a statesman-like way. I get all quivery when I think of their political reforms and innovations!!! I’m not like the ‘miwyonair’ man, the non-erudite Eddie who, apparently, thought Aung San Suu Kyi was a man. He is an idiot!!!
OK I am going for 5…
If I could be a professor I could have Jerry O’Connell as my student!! How cool would that be? Having the
Q-Ball as a student. I love Sliders, such a good show and I have the first season boxed DVD set now too.
If I could be a writer it would be an excellent career as it involves a lot of sitting down and reading: two things I am quite experienced in!! I would also have enormous fun choosing pseudonyms!!!

Pecan Fudge Squares
Frozen (or home made ) short crust pastry
1 tspn mixed spice
300g brown sugar
55 g caster sugar
250 g butter
375 g chopped pecans
60 ml thickened cream

Roll out thawed pastry and line a slice tin ( 19 x 29 cm) making sure the pastry extends up the sides. ( oh, grease and line the tin) Sprinkle the base with the mixed spice.
Make the filling by placing the sugars in a pan over a low heat with the butter. Stir till the sugar is dissolved, bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes without stirring. Add cream and nuts. Pour filling into pastry and bake in a hot oven for about 25 minutes. Cool in tin and refrigerate overnight.

Playing Tag

2005-05-10T11:18:00.000+10:00

Someone has ‘tagged’ me. What does this mean? Is there some kind of thing I must do? What is the etiquette for this? I hope someone knows as I have absolutely no idea!!!!! ‘Revelations’ was on last night, and let me tell you that nuns don’t have long hair : ever. It is vain to have long hair. Even though most nuns in Australia no longer wear wimples or habits, and effect ‘nundom’ through a small cross affixed to their clothes ( not like in The Chrysalids – I love that book so much, I read it again just last week) The Americans obviously had to distil the very essence of ‘nunnery’ and make the Sister like the Loch Ness Monster in the X-Files ie don’t tell, make us feel or imagine…..

Say custard - your pants are busted (childhood taunt)

2005-05-09T16:45:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I went to Karen’s and we did write reading comprehensions questions and then watch Stargate and discuss theories of time!! I made really nice apple muffins. I made them up and they were yummy ( recipe follows)Last night I rang my mum for Mothers’ Day and we had a long chat and then I had to wait till after 10-30 to tape Navy NCIS with the yummy Mark Harmon, Michael Weatherly and David McCallum ( OK he is fairly old but Illya Kuryakin was divine!!!) I was forced to watch the end of Big Brother and let me tell you, all of the women appeared nubile, young and gorgeous while the men were not even third rate. If I wanted to watch BB for the male eye candy I would have more fun poking myself in the eye with a stick. And Southern Cross has just decided to start NCIS with episode 11 of season 2. They have casually discarded the first 10 episodes. No wonder we all buy our TV shows in boxed DVD sets now. You can’t rely on TV anymore.I diligently knitted away and I have cast on for the shoulder and I am doing butterfly stitch instead of basket stitch. Butterfly made using yfwds and pssos and you make 2 holes one row and then 2 on the next straight on top and it looks like a little butterfly. The butterflies are off set every time so the are evenly spaced.Today so far we have walked to the shop to buy C3PO Star Wars pins and then I went to the PO in town and bought Karen ‘Creatures from the Slime” fossil stamps, activity pack and UV fossil finder. I went to the new Suzanne Grae shop and bought a new pair of light green stretch cord jeans for $30 instead of $40!! They are too long but a hem is all that is needed. Oh and I bought new size 13 tiny tiny needles for the knitting of the socks. Strangely, I have bought 2 lots of needles and I didn’t receive 15% discount either time. Ah the vagaries of Spotlight.Now I feel quite dizzy and tired. The Labradors have been fed, so I am off for a nap. What colour am I up to? Have no idea!!!!! We're going the blue.
Apple Custard Muffins.
CUSTARD
3 tbspn custard powder
1 tbspn caster sugar
250 ml milk
20 g butter
1 tspn vanilla extract
MUFFINS
150 g butter
150 g brown sugar
125 ml sour cream
2 eggs
300 g plain flour
4 tspn baking powder
1 tspn mixed spice
2 or 3 Gala coarsely grated ( I like the skin left on, it looks cheery)
Custard: Mix powder and sugar with a little of the milk. Continue to stir and place pan over low heat. Gradually add the rest of the milk. Bring slowly to the boil. Stir briskly as it boils and thickens. Remove from heat. Stir in butter and vanilla. Cool slightly.
Muffins: Preheat oven to 200 C ( 180 ff) and pout out 12 muffin papers in the tin. Melt butter and add sugar, eggs and cream. Stir in apples and sift in flour, baking powder and spice. Mix till just combines. Put enough mixture into the paper case to cover he base, top with a spoonful of custard and then cover with more muffin mixture. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool 5 minutes in pan and then on a rack. Be careful as they are lovely warm, but the custard can be very hot!!!! These freeze really well too.

Jam, but not the traffic kind.

2005-05-07T18:05:00.000+10:00

All I did yesterday was undo the ½ a sock I have knitted. I watched Stargate – and what a Schrodinger’s cat of an episode it is. I think there were three teams , as I like to call them : ‘our’ SG 1, clone SG 1 and ‘daggy’ SG 1. Karen and I have talked long and hard about this time travel conundrum and have come to no real conclusion. We are, however, going to watch it again tomorrow. We are also writing reading comprehension questions for some books for her class at school. Today she took possession of her new blue car. It is all lovely and shiny and clean. The only problem is every time she indicates she actually activates the windscreen wipers!!!.
Harki and Peri had a walk today, read their adventures at the 2dogblog. ( http://2dogblog.blogspot.com/)
The girls were at home alone from 11 till almost now, 5-45 pm. They have hardly ever been left alone this long. I haven’t even been to work since I had Peri and only for 3 terms when Harki came.
Vundy and Tori were home with each other when I still went to work. The Labradors are very happy to see me. Aunty Captain Mrs Archer sent them vegetable salad and half a pumpkin. They will have lovely breakfast tomorrow. I made coconut and jam slice. It is very old fashioned but the smell from the freshly baked slice was redolent of happy childhood years!!!
Tonight I am knitting more of the Fibonacci Jumper as it is now known. I am knitting the back. I have decided to do 4 separate pattern for the patterned parts. Have I said this before? I probably have. The Labradors have abandoned me now and are chewing on old fossilised bones as they are desperate for food!!
Coconut and Jam Slice
BASE
150 g cubed butter
225 g plain flour
110 g icing sugar
TOPPING
2 eggs
110 g caster sugar
2 cups shredded coconut
Jam of your choice
Base: Process or use a strong mixer to combine the ingredients until they come together. Knead into a ball, chill, then press into a lined slice tin. Bake for 15 minutes at !80 C ( 160 ff) Cool slightly and spread generously with jam.
Topping: Beat eggs and sugar till creamy and then mix in coconut. Spread firmly over base and then bake again for 20-25 minutes. Cool in tin. It is very nice warm. BE WARNED, the jam stays piping hot for a while, so don’t burn your mouth. Raspberry or blackberry jam are tradition at our house.

Prize Knitter so to speak....

2005-05-06T15:40:00.000+10:00

I managed to do more than 20 cm of my knitting, I knitted all the way through till the end of the first episode of Stargate. The other two episoeds are burning a hole in my pocket , so to speak, but this morning I read for a while and cooked the Labradors their cabbage and celery and played with them. I went to Spotlight, but I was too tired and there was too long a queue ( as usual) but I bought a new needle gauge as my lovely old metal Beehive one has gone astray at the moment. I noticed opn another knitting blog that Yarnivorous (sic?0 had liked the knitting in H2G2 as well. I wonder who knitted all the things for the film? I am recommending it to people. The film, not the knitting.
Oh I just won a prize on the ABC radio : I knew Emma Thompson and Mia Farrow’s mums – Phyllida Law and Maureen O’Sullivan respectively. I knew both of these already and I have apparently won a few magazines and a CD. Very good. I only ring up once a month when they have competitions. I don’t want to win lots.
I have so many needles I had a big cull late last year. I need a needle holder though. I might have to sew a new one as the one I have isn’t big enough. I want a green one of course. I think I will spend a happy hour tonight sticking all my needles into the gauge. I thought at first it was only metric and US but there on the back is the old Imperial scale and 2 rulers.
The Labradors are asleep on the couch, and I am off for a nap I think.
Rich Fudge Sauce
300 ml thickened cream
200 g good dark chocolate
100 g marshmallows
¼ cup coffee liqueur or strong coffee.
Melt cream, chocolate and marshmallows in a heavy based pan over a low heat. Stir frequently. Remove from heat when smooth and then stir in the alcohol or coffee. This will keep, sealed, in the fridge for about 3 weeks. It is lovely with ice-cream, steamed puddings or warm cake. Use your imagination…..

Purl-gatory

2005-05-05T16:48:00.000+10:00

I was not feeling well at all yesterday afternoon. I went to bed and when I woke up about 4 pm my heart was racing and I was hot and cold and I felt awful. Then I was worried I had an infection in my port, and I spent a good ten minutes poking it, which I am sure only made it feel worse. I was meant to go to Pierre’s last night but I had to cancel. I still felt unwell last night, but I am , as Monk would say, 65 –70% recovered!!!! Today we went to the dam and the Labradors swam and then I went to the supermarket as I am making an unbaked cheesecake for school tomorrow. Then I came home and I have been knitting ever since. I love the Fibonacci stripes : the colours are black, dark brown, plum, dark blue and caramel. It is obviously not for me as there is not a green in sight!!! I am doing the pattern of stripes : 8,1,5,1,3,2,2,3,1,5,1,8. That is the sequence 1,1,2,3,5,8 reversed on itself. There will be endless ends to sew in, but the pattern is excellent.
I have requested Debbie Stoller’s second book “Stitch’n Bitch Nation” from the Library. I sent them a long and detailed email apart form the automatically generated one. II have a 100% strike rate, so I have my fingers crossed. Oh the stripe pattern is great, I have done 13 cm with 140 stitches on, and now I am continuing but with a basket stitch K2 P2 over just 2 rows. I hope to do 20 cm of knitting today. I also have the Opal socks I am making for Suzanne and MY green cardigan. I really want some variegated mohair in olive and khaki and lime and I want to knit another cardi or jumper with cables I think. They are especially good in mohair.
Today I met two other knitters from Launceston : I was browsing knitting blogs and found Launceston has her own S’nB knitting ‘club’. They met this week. I wonder if I am brave enough to go along? I will grid my loins and keep an eye on their site.
Cheesecake Not Baked!!!
BASE
2 cups toasted muesli
60 g brown sugar
1 tbspn golden syrup
1 tspn mixed spice
125 g melted butter
FILLING
3 tspn powdered gelatine
80 ml water
250 g cream cheese
140 g caster sugar
grated rind and juice of one orange ( or 2 lemons)
300 ml sour cream
OPTIONAL TOPPING
1 cup berries
80 ml water
55 g sugar
juice of ½ a lemon
1 tspn gelatine

Base: Combine all ingredients and press firmly into a lined 24 cm springform tin. Refrigerate till set
Filling: Sprinkle gelatine over water and either sit in a bowl of hot water till it melts ot nuke it for bursts of 10 seconds. Cool. Beat other ingredients until smooth and then add dissolved gelatine. Pour over base and chill till set.
Optional Topping: Bring all ingredients EXCEPT for the gelatine to the boil in a small saucepan for 2-3 minutes until the berries collapse. Add gelatine and stir well. Pour over base and chill.

Knit wit

2005-05-04T14:28:00.000+10:00

I am becoming obsessed with knitting blogs. I have bookmarked about 10 and they each have links to 20 or more etc. I am, I think, an obsessive person : not for drugs or alcohol or gambling, thank heavens, but for other less harmful things. Well I think they are less harmful. All I want to think about and do now, mostly, is knit. Well knit and read, and sew. I have too many obsessions. I can’t help it. Does this make me a seriously mentally challenged person??
If I was really retired for any other reason than being ill, I would play tennis and learn to tap dance. I was thinking of this yesterday as I drove past the tennis club. I used to play tennis for my school and I enjoy the game, but now I could only play if I stood still and Alicia Molik sent the balls to the correct spot right in front of me so I could return it without moving!!!
We are about to have morning tea with the GardyGardeners and I made Mars Bar slice, recipe will follow, and then later on I am having my hair cut. After my disastrous run in with the policeman from hell last time, I am hoping for a much less exciting time.
There I was sitting on the couch with Peri idly knitting away and I thought I should just check when my hair appointment was. It was at 12 o’clock and it was already 11-40!!!!! I had the quickest get ready and drive into town, which despite my green and tree filled old house suburb, is only 3 minutes away!! ( You would never know!!) I was able to park and be there on time. I bought a new pale green blouse with small olive, forest and khaki vine leaves on it for $9 at the Red Cross Shop. I shall be supporting them regularly as they give me blood for free to keep me alive!!!
Mars Bars Slice
1 Mars Bar
30 g butter
1 cup of puffed rice ( Rice Bubbles?)
Melt Mars Bar and butter in a pan over a low heat, mix in puffed rice and then press firmly into a pan. Refrigerate and then drizzle with extra chocolate.
You just multiply the recipe so:
2 Mars Bars
60 g butter
2 cups of puffed rice etc.

A little something extra

2005-05-01T17:52:00.000+10:00

I am extra excited as I have found that the googlemail has a 'bing' alert. I downloaded a little programme and now there is a little envelope on the taskbar at the bottom!!! I don't know what will happen but I have sent myself an email to see what does!!!
I have quizzed to see what kind of knitter I am :
You appear to be a Knitting Purist. You are an accomplished knitter producing beautiful pieces with a classic feel. You sometimes lament losing half of your local yarn shop to garish novelty yarns. Perhaps you consider fun fur scarves the bane of knitting society and prefer to steer new knitters towards the wool and cotton blends. Some might call you a bit of an elitist but you know that you've been doing this craft long enough to respect the history behind it and honor it with beautiful piece that can last a lifetime.

This is almost me, I quite like some of the new novelty yarns but I do prefer harder patterns and real wool, or I should say natural fibres. That is why I am making up a pattern of my own for a sideways jumper!! I am reading a knitting book too, I am becoming obsessed with knitting as it my wont with obsessions!!!

http://quizilla.com/users/sdamot/quizzes/What%20Kind%20of%20Knitter%20Are%20You?/

Here is the address for the quiz too!! Above, I am not sure if it clicky or not.
I have started to reknit Karen's jumper. I have adapted a pattern from here:

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall03/PATTsonnet.html

I have also finished 1 sleeve, 1 front and the back of my cardigan. Other projects I must finish include:

Cushions for Karen's school
My Christmas Quilt , and I only have the backing, binding and superficial quilting to go!!
Karen's 'sloppy joe' needs extra length and new cuffs and neck
Oh that might be all I don't feel so overwhelmed now!!!

Sadly there has been no binging of the googlemail. I must away to see why. Oh I have seen Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and it was far better than I thought. I enjoyed it a lot, apart from the 5 small children, alone, unsupervised by an adult, all under 10 and they spent most of the film running up and down the aisle. Bah humbug again.

Green, green my world is green!!!

2005-05-01T13:12:00.000+10:00

Not being well is very good for the wardrobe. I should have done some washing, but didn't so I was looking at the clothing available and found a crinkle cotton tunic type top, with long trumpet sleeves with a slit and a bound v neck and lo and behold it fitted really well again. It had been too tight, but now, I can wear it really comfortably!!!
Yesterday the Labradors had an extra walk on the lead and then I met Karen for brunch. I had crispy bacon, avocado and Brie toasted finger, yum, and then we had a long look for a present for Mary's birthday. She is 60. We wanted a mug or cup with a quilting or sewing theme, or a little white fluffy dog but there were none to be had. In the end we bought some particularly shiny embroidery scissors. We are having cake and coffee (tea) on Wednesday night at Pierre's.
I am cross now Karen rang up to say let's go to see H2G2 and I was all 'oh I have some free tickets' and then I saw they ran out YESTERDAY. I wish I had never known as now I am all sad about it. That will teach me not to avoid using them on Tuesday when the prices are slightly cheaper. Bah humbug.
Peri is still in a heightened state of excitement as she can make the Elephant TeddyBunny trumpet three times when she squeezes him!! Harki has just eaten two tigers!!!
Well despite having nothing to wear I have managed to iron a green shirt and an almost matching exactly green top and green cord jeans and I have green shoes, socks, earrings bracelet and watch!!! Not bad going really.

Plum Tart
Plums are in season here now.
1 sweet puff pastry
1 egg yolk
1 tbspn milk
8 small plums ( 600 g) thinly sliced
1 /1/2 tspn cinnamon sugar

Preheat oven to Hot 220 C ( 200 ff) and grease and line a tray. Cut pastry into square ish quarters and place on tray. Here, I like to score a line 1 cm in from all the edges, it makes a nice puffed up border. Brush with mixed yolk and milk. Arrange ¼ of the slices on each piece of pastry, overlapping slightly and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar evenly over them.
Bake on lower oven shelf for about 15 minutes. To serve ( hot or warm) sprinkle with icing sugar and add ice-cream and/or cream!!!

Winken, Blinken and Nod.

2005-04-29T14:30:00.000+10:00

Thank heavens Karen rang on the dot of 6 pm last night as I was deep in the Land of Nod and would have missed Dr Who ( again!!!). I managed to spill green peppermint tea on the phone and in my drawer but everything survived. I knitted away last night only to find this morning that I should have been decreasing for the V of the V neck!! I had to undo and then reknit. I have almost caught up. It dictates a lot of notation as I am decreasing at the neck and armhole edges and doing the pattern as well. I like it to be symmetrical so I have to note down how much of each pattern I do, when I do 1/2 and when I just abandon it altogether.
This morning we have been for a walk and then I have been doing my knitting. It is sunny but crisp and I should have done a load or two of washing but I didn't and now it is too late for any drying to happen today. I have made an appointment to have my hair cut and I have also watched Stargate and it was a set of two very good episodes, Parts 1 and 2 and then we have 3 episodes next week and then Stargate : Atlantis starts. I wonder if we will ever get the missing episode with the crossover from this season???

Easy Lemon Curd

Whisk the grated rind and juice of 2 lemons with 2 eggs, 30 g butter and 110 g caster sugar in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. The water must not touch the bowl, this is all steam!!! Whisk for 5 minutes or until curd thickens. That is it. Keep it covered in the fridge, it makes about 180 ml.

Google-eyed!!!

2005-04-28T15:57:00.000+10:00

I forgot to say that I invited myself to have a Google mail account. I like having email accounts for different purposes, some I never sully with anyone other than friends, some are just for signing up for things and others for newsletters and discussions. I googled and found a link someone had made so they could 'invite' you to join!! Now I have 5 email addresses. I am very happy!!! It is very hard to think of names though. I settled on my Dad's middle name with the 'i' from Harki, who is named after him, on the end!! Very cool!!!

Knit knit knit wit turn it into a jumper ( Rip Rip woodchip by John Williamson)

2005-04-28T15:51:00.000+10:00

There were only 3 of us at sewing last night - and we had a glass of wine and a lovely chat. I have knitted over a ball of wool and the pattern on my cardigan is not quite right : it looks a bit wonky, but there you go, as long as it is consistent it will be fine. I have been to the Library and I am making some comfort food - basic pasta with bolognaise sauce. I am using pork mince as beef is a bit strong. I have been watching Jamie's School Dinners and feeling all teary again as Nora, the dinner lady, is so nice and caring and so dedicated. Jamie is learning to deal with children more effectively too. I am amazed and appalled that British people can't cook. They couldn't cook pasta, rice, a stew : anything at all, at Dinner lady camp. Jamie also saw that the women wouldn't eat the salad and vegetables - the root of all the problems really, families reheat too!!!
The Labradors are happy, I am a bit tired but reasonably OK if I keep drinking peppermint tea!!! I have just not recovered form that ultrasound. I am going to cook Karen an apple and berry custard cake. I won't be having any, but she will like it. I am eating very little really, yesterday I had rice and vegetables for tea and an apple. Today I have had some bread and meat and an apple. I must eat more food. When I was sick before I faded away to a mere shadow - no mean feat!!!
Toffee Oranges
4 oranges
2 limes
2 tbspn brandy
220 g caster sugar
65 ml water
Peel oranges with a knife, following the curve and cutting off all the pith. Slice the base so they sit straight.
Slice some lime rind incredibly thinly and place on top or oranges and then pour over the lime juice and brandy. Meanwhile, put water and sugar into a pan over a medium heat and stir till the sugar is dissolved. Then boil without stirring for about 5 minutes until it is golden. Pour over the oranges, and serve with thick yoghurt - though I would like cream or ice-cream and a dusting of icing sugar. I am allergic to oranges but I do cook orange things for other people. They like orange syrup cake too. Oh and orange poppy seed cake.

Sick and tired? NO NO NO !!!! ( well a bit tired!!)

2005-04-27T15:14:00.000+10:00

On Tuesday morning, Bronwyn rang early and said she was going into the hospital too, and so we would meet there for coffee/tea/hot chocolate at 11 am. I arrived at 10-45 and she was already having an X-ray. Her Lymphoma is back, twisted around her heart and lungs – and she is having trouble eating and breathing so after my blood test and a shake-up of the ward we went to the cafeteria as neither of us felt up to the 50 m walk up the hill to Aroma’s, and had a lovely chat and a hot chocolate. Bronwyn gave me a bag of green things to cheer me up: a tiny green light torch, marble, nail polish, socks and other miscellany too. We played with them!!! We went back to the clinic and waited for our appointments. Bronwyn has to go to Hobart today so the Thoracic surgeon can take a biopsy and put in a temporary line. I saw the doctor , finally, at 1 pm ( waiting, waiting, waiting) and lo and behold , my Hb had gone up. Huzzah!! No drugs or transfusions for a month at least. I had to go to the bowels of the hospital to give more blood for more tests and finally arrived home after 1-30 pm. I had a nap and missed the first half of Dr Who. Rats. I watched TV and then slept all night as well. This morning we went for a walk and I made choc-chip pikelets for the GardyGardeners. I am starting to knit the front of my cardigan. I have decided on the patter, a crossed stitch one that looks like a cable. I hope to finished the rib this afternoon and then do the pattern tonight at sewing.
Chocolate Choc-chip Pikelets
35 g butter, melted
1 egg
150 ml milk
150 g plain flour
2 tspn baking powder
55 g sugar
1 tbspn cocoa
choc chips or chopped chocolate of your choice – as much or little as you like
Mix wet ingredients, sift in dry and mix well with chocolate. Drop a spoonful into a medium pan greased with butter. Cook till bubble form and pop on the surface and then turn. The first batch are often ‘dog pikelets’ and the second lot are better!!!!

I could write a sonnet, a book with eggs upon it!!!!!

2005-04-25T11:54:00.000+10:00

Right, I must be more diligent : I went to Karen’s for tea and we watched Underworld. What a waste of space that film is, and there is a sequel/prequel being filmed. I shan’t bother with that. Then on Friday I went to Karen’s school and gave an ANZAC day talk to the children. Saturday I went to brunch with Karen and Pauline. I had found a pattern for a Davy Crockett hat for James, who is 4, and Pauline is knitting it for him in lieu of a poncho, which she knitted for the three girls. Yesterday I stayed in my pyjamas all day and watched 5 or 6 episodes of Century City. It was neither one thing nor the other : not sci-fi enough and too run-of-the-mill lawyery. WIN TV did their usual thing again last night and we saw an episode of CSI-Miami out of order. It explained a whole lot of things that had been happening for no apparent reason in recent episodes. They TV stations are absolutely hopeless and have no consideration at all for their viewers.
That is all really, I am off to hospital again on Tuesday for more tests and appointments and then on Wednesday or Thursday for transfusions. Then I will be taking more Cyclosporin again and I hope to get a little better. At least this time I won’t have to stick a needle into the skin of my stomach for 8 hours every day and pump in drugs to counteract the excess iron from blood transfusions. See, there, is a silver lining to every cloud.
I have spent a few happy hours winding new embroidery cottons Pauline bought me onto the bobbins and then reorganising the spreadsheet with all of the colours in order. Such happiness. I am up to the front of the cardigan now, I just have to decide on the pattern I will use : not yarn forward lacy ones, or cables – I think I will use a nice diamond or diagonal one. I want to be up to that for when I spend the 6 to 8 hours in hospital.
Oh, and great excitement as I bought a magazine on Ebay that I really needed. I lost the handmade issue with the calico eggs decorated with felt appliqué. There is an oval of black felt and then 12 different appliqués : a dove, a hen, a chick, a sun, stars, bunnies, iris etc. I lent the magazine to someone and they never returned it. I must stop doing that. I made a dozen for Karen, and then everyone else was getting an egg a year until this year when I had no pattern at all. I am very happy and the seller even emailed me a scan of the page!!!!!
Now, a recipe for the day ( or the week, I have been so slack)
Raspberry Tiramisu for those who don’t like coffee ( sacrilege, I know)
230 ml single ( unthickened) cream
500 g marscapone
1 cup dessert wine
26 savoiardi biscuits
600 g frozen raspberries
Whisk cream till soft peaks form and fold through marscapone. Dip both sides of half of the biscuits into the wine and layer the bade of a dish to fit. Spoon half of the cream mixture over and then the raspberries. Dip remaining biscuits, layer onto the berries, cover with the rest of the cream, cover and place in the fridge. This is best made the night before. Dust with Lust Dust ( freeze dried berries!!!!!!) or icing sugar before serving.
Where to buy the Lust Dust : http://www.discovertasmania.com/home/product.cfm?productid=9000555&from=All%20Tasmanian%20Attractions

A week is a long time in politics.....

2005-04-21T12:07:00.000+10:00

I hadn't realised I had been so remiss as to ignore my blog for almost a week. I have been in a semi decline: on Tuesday I went and had bone marrow taken again, and they didn't quite give me enough sedation so it really hurt. I slept on and off with the help of a gin and tonic and tablets that night. OK I know it is wrong, but there were extenuating circumstances, I had a big hole in my hip bone. Then I went to the doctor last night to have my flu vaccination and a general health chat. The blood doctor had sent a letter to my GP and it appears I will most likely have a transfusion of 3 or 4 bags of blood on Wednesday. I have to see the specialist on Tuesday to hear the expected bad news that my bone marrow has stopped making red blood cells again. Then I will be taking Cyclosporin again. Hello pethadine injections!! They are the only thing that will take away the headaches. I am not looking forward to this whole process again, but I have little or no choice in the matter. The Labradors are mostly better, Peri totally, and Harki had gyp in her hip - arthritis - and so is having a course of injections over four weeks. The Labradors are both perky and happy and bright. They ate apple cores last night as they are so hungry. Tonight I am going to Karen's for tea and tomorrow I am going to her school to give an ANZAC Day talk to her class.
Pineapple macadamia loaf
450 g tin crushed pineapple
1 egg
150 g toasted macadamias finely chopped
1150 g self raising flour
110 g brown sugar
90 g coconut ( I like shredded)
125 ml milk
Grease and line tin and preheat oven to 180 C ( 160 ff) Drain pineapple, discard syrup and then add to a bowl with all other ingredients. Mix well and spread into tin. Bake for about 50 minutes. Cool in tin 10 minutes then turn onto a rack to cool.

Brave.

2005-04-15T17:00:00.000+10:00

Poor, poor Harki : she has a kneecap that pops in and out whenever it feels like it in her left back leg, and arthritis in her left leg. Harki is so brave and good, she has never really complained at all. She has tablets to take too and I must say they are both happier today. They both have to be 35 kg, Harki has 7 kg to lose and Peri about 2 or 3. They like cabbage and celery though , today’s had the end of the salmon, skin and bones, and a bit of rice. They had a little walk to the shop on the lead. They have to be on the lead till next Wednesday. Harki is a happy little blossom today, full of bouncing and playfulness and love!!!! Peri is back to normal with no trace of a limp or soreness!!!!!
I, on the other hand, am getting paler. I can hear my heart beating and am eating less, wanting to eat less and sleeping more: all definite signs of my haemoglobin falling below 8 again. I am having tiny depressions where I envision horrid treatment and transfusions again, but after a sleep things do always seem better , even if they aren’t.
On the ‘up’ side there were two good episodes of Stargate SG1 last night, even when the TV station didn’t play the episode where Daniel and Hammond went to Atlantis . This is because we haven’t seen Atlantis yet, and goodness knows if we will ever see this missing episode now. Apparently Jack is not a regular in Season 9. He will be a guest star occasionally. Very sad about this as Ben Browder is no Jack.
The Howard Government had broken ( yet another, they are too many to count now) election ‘rock solid’ promise and raised the thresholds for the Medicare Safety net. As a single person I will never make it to $1000 as my most expensive bills are paid by Medicare, but I do pay $40 now for pathology and it is $30 for drugs, and $25 when I go to the Doctor and $32 at least for a single prescription, which means that I pay out, for one of each, $127. I don’t do all of them every month, so I always almost reach but never cross the boundary.
Simple Rhubarb Tart
Bunch of rhubarb
2 tbspn caster sugar
1 sheet puff pastry
1 cup ricotta cheese
2 tbspn icing sugar
1 tspn vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 200 C ( 180 ff) Sprinkle trimmed rhubarb with caster sugar and bake for 20 minutes or until soft. Cool. Place pastry on lined tray . Mix cheese, icing sugar and vanilla and spread on pastry leaving a 2 cm border. Place rhubarb on top, turn edges of pastry over to enclose the filling and bake for 12-15 minutes, when the pastry will be browned and the filling set. Served hot, warm or cold with cream and/or ice-cream and a dusting of icing sugar. You can substitute and fruit in season really and change the flavouring of the cheese, adding, eg, rose water, peel, spices, nuts, dried fruit etc.

The house of Iller

2005-04-13T14:35:00.000+10:00

This is the house of ill people. Harki is still hoppy but when I came home last night Peri was limping badly on her back left leg. I thought it was her cruchet ligament, so she went to the Vet instead of harki. Dr Tim said, yes, it was her cruchet ligament. She has either sprained ( hoping, hoping) or torn ( most likely with our luck) her ligament. She had some anti-inflammatory tablets and has to go back in a week. She can go for a walk on a lead, but if she is still limping it is cortisone injections and then the big operation. She has to be 35 kg and Harki needs to lose weight too, so they are on a boiled cabbage and celery diet, with 3/8 of a cup of cooked rice and 1/2 a cup of dried dog food. They ate it all up as they are hungry. Now Harki has an appointment tomorrow to see about her legs. It is almost all too much. I was upset last night and found it very hard to sleep, I am more worried about them than me!!! At least it gives me something else to focus on.
I have finished reviewing all but one of the 21 books I have read for the book competition. I have to go and post them before 6 pm, so they will arrive at the judges on time. I have to make something for the Vet as well. I always take them something. Today I took them truffles and tomorrow I think I will take them caramel slice.
Caramel Slice
24 icecream wafers, the flat kind
185 g dark chocolate
15 g butter
3/4 tin condensed milk
1 1/2 tbspn golden syrup
15 g butter
3 tspn smooth peanut butter
Line a lamington tin ( 28 x 18 cm) with foil. Cover base with wafers to ascertain fit, and cut 12 more for the top. Combine butter and chocolate and melt, spreading 1/2 on base of tin, keeping the other 1/2 war. Place wafers on top and refrigerate. Meanwhile make caramel by placing milk , butter and syrup in a bowl and microwaving on High for a minute at a time until thick and caramel coloured. Stir after each minute and finally stir in the peanut butter. Spread over wafers, top with remaining wafers, spread on chocolate and refrigerate for 30 minutes, leaving at room temperature before cutting for 20 minutes. Cut into squares, then triangles. Makes 16-24 depending on size.

Round, like a circle in a swiral !!!!!!

2005-04-12T15:11:00.000+10:00

I am endlessly checking my gums like some strange deranged person. Gums and fingernails: the telltale signs of having not enough red blood cells!!! I feel slightly better in the enlarged spleen department today though. We woke up early and the Labradors were so excited we went for an early walk and then I went back home to rest. I have tidied for 210 minutes in the yard again. Peri is petrified of the spade and runs into the garage and hides until the noise of the spade stops. It is very amusing, she has the same reaction to the vacuum cleaner. Harki likes the paving with no leaves and cavorts, though she has sore back legs/hips today. She may have arthritis a. It is not unexpected. I have checked thoroughly for tick but can find none. I can only do one thing a day really now as I have to save my strength. Today I shouldn’t be doing another thing but I am going to Di’s for tea and then home early. I have knitted the band of the back of my cardigan and I am about to start the knitting proper.
Here is a recipe Karen really recommends. I made them for her at the weekend and she has eaten them already!!!
Swirly Biscuits
180 g butter
220 g caster sugar
1 tspn vanilla extract ( or grated rind of choice)
1 egg
300 g plain flour
½ tspn baking powder
¼ -1/2 cup jam – or anything really, lemon spread, marmalade, choc/nut spread..etc
Cream butter, sugar and vanilla, add egg and then sifted dry ingredients. Refrigerate for 15 minutes, then roll out between 2 pieces of non-stick baking paper. Roll into a rectangle about 40-50 cm long. Spread with jam, leaving a 5 cm border along one long edge. Roll up, using the paper to help and refrigerate till really firm. Cut of 1 cm slices, place on a lined tray. These spread a lot so leave space. Bake for 15 minutes at 180 C ( 160 ff)

There is a season : return, return, return...

2005-04-11T15:41:00.000+10:00

Although I am up to writing something again, there is no recipe and I feel worse now after the ultrasound man prodded and poked me about. I am tired and pale, unfortunately not interesting!! I am lounging on the couch interminably. I have to go out to the post office and the Labradors need some extra food. Other than that I am not doing anything or going anywhere really.
I have been sleeping and wanting more sleep. I have managed to walk the Labradors and today I threw the toy for 15 minutes in the backyard . Harki as very happy and played in the paddle pool. Yes it is Autumn and we are having warm weather again. Peri has run around a little and is napping. I have finished knitting one sleeve for my cardigan and I am starting the back now.
I have collected the copy of statement of earnings for 2004 that I lost to post to the pension people and sent that off, and I posted Claire a letter and bought fruit. Harki had a big play with the tennis ball on the tidy paving and Peri kept stealing the ball. A nap now I think!!!

Round and round we go......

2005-04-07T15:32:00.000+10:00

And so it begins again... 4 months of haemoglobin being 8.9 (instead of 13.5 in the olden days), and the endless rounds of tests, ultrasound, CAT scans, MRI and bone marrow harvesting. My spleen is very enlarged and I have a solitary gallstone which is apparently a function of my disease , whatever it is. I am is a decline, not a crying decline, but a go to bed, have a nap and contemplate death again decline. I have to wait now to see what exciting experimental treatment I will endure this time around. The remission is obviously over........
I haven't anything much else to write today. I have made an appointment to see my GP for a flu vaccine and whatever else I need to ask her about......

Dream on!!!

2005-04-06T12:42:00.000+10:00

I do like the new link I have pinned to my start menu. It only takes 2 clicks to get to my blog Word document instead of about 4!! I know this is a small thing but over time it halves the number of times I have to click. Yesterday I went to the Library, paid some money of my watch bill, picked up my jeans from lay-by and went to the supermarket for a small shop. ($50!!!) I was dragging myself around I felt so tired. The Labradors had a walk and went swimming in the icy cold dam. It is lucky they have a double coat, just like a Tim tam really!!! I shouldn’t have felt so tired but I did. In fact I slept in this morning till 10-30 am. I woke up for ½ an hour or so and put the garbage out and had a cup of tea. Then it was back to sleep and I dreamed I was dreaming a dream. Very weird and unsettling to be wake up and still be dreaming!!! I made delicious pork chops with apple, red onion and mushroom grainy mustard sauce and broccolini for tea last night. I am on a broccolini push. I have had it 3 days in a row now. It only takes 5 minutes to cook, little more than a long blanch, and you eat the stems too. It is great with a tiny squeeze of lemon juice. I made enough for 2 and I have just eaten the second meal for my lunch. I was going to have grilled bacon and scrambled eggs on toast but I have no bread and I am too lazy to go up to the corner bakery to buy some. I have to go to the bone marrow and blood specialist today so I am having a tiny decline. I feel slightly sick in my stomach.
The weather is very good at the moment : a heavy dew in the cool morning, a sunny and fine day and then a cool night so you can have a hot water bottle and snuggle under the doona without having to stick a leg and arm out as it gets too hot!!!!!
I have almost cut out all of the cushions for school and I can blanket stitch and appliqué (I can’t make a French acute, grave or circumflex but the spell checker can) while I am watching TV or tonight when we have our first sewing night!!!
It is amazing that 1553 people have visited my old blog in the last month. Do they use the recipes? Do they use it to click on the clicky link to this blog? I have no idea if anyone reads this at all as my Luddite side holds me back from looking into adding a counter. I should try really. I might do that next week. Always put off till tomorrow or next week what you can do today. I really need another nap already.
Greek Almond Biscuits
375 g almond meal
220 g caster sugar
3 drops of almond essence
3 egg whites lightly beaten
80 g flaked almonds
Preheat oven to 180 C ( 160 ff) and line a tray. Combine meal and sugar, stir in wet ingredients and make a firm paste. Roll tablespoons of mixture into log shapes and then into flaked almonds, curve into crescent shapes. Bake for 15 minutes and cool on tray.

Fibonacci is fine!!!!

2005-04-04T15:40:00.000+10:00

Yesterday it rained!! We can’t have had rain since January. The Labradors had a lovely walk in the rain at the dam, the rain was very soaking and they smelled of wet wool all morning!!! I didn’t do very much at all until I went to Di’s for tea at about 4-30 pm. We had lovely soup and savoury muffins for tea. Di gave me apricot and blueberry jam too, freshly made. I was home by 8-15. I didn’t watch any TV and I was in bed by 10!!! This morning I had to be up bright and early as I had to have my port flushed and blood taken. Then I dawdled and pottered about, posted a gift to an author who sent me a free copy of a book I was looking for, and read a magazine in the car until 10. I figured that was a reasonable hour to go to Karen’s. She was having her eye operated on at lunch time and I was dropping her off.
We watched “In the Shadow of Za’ha’dum” ( not sure if that is spelled correctly!!!) What an excellent episode of Babylon 5. mind you, we fast forwarded through the doctor’s pontificating. It was so exciting and you really felt that the real story was beginning.
Then I came home and had some noodles and I am planning on going for a nap now.
The Pope has died and he has usurped all of the TV schedule. I taped a programme about the Normans on SBS and it was all the Pope when I went to watch it. In the First world, he has forced millions of people, mostly women, away from the church . In the Third world he has caused millions to die from AIDS by banning the used of condoms. He was not a man of his times, he was a man of 500 years ago times. We are likely to get more of the same as he has appointed all but 3 of the over 100 Cardinals who will elect his successor. No wonder there are so many of us well and truly lapsed!!!
My sister emailed me a picture of my niece’s maths homework so I could explain it to them. How cool is that? It was manipulating the Fibonacci sequence : 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21 etc. It is a sequence found in spirals in Nature and in the Golden rectangle. You make the pattern by adding 2 consecutive numbers to make the next : 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5 and so on. I really like Fibonacci numbers!!! But I like all numbers and Maths so it is no surprise.
In honour of my jam I have a recipe for muffins using marmalade, but you could substitute the jam, rind and nuts you like best!!
Marmalade and Almond Muffins
300 g plain flour
4 tspn baking powder
50-100 g nuts
150 g caster sugar
1 tbspn grated rind
125 ml marmalade or jam
2 eggs
125 ml milk
Topping:
65 ml marmalade/jam
40 ml water
Preheat oven to 200 C ( 180 ff) and you’ll need 12 muffin papers in the tin.
Sift flour and baking powder, stir in nuts, sugar and rind. Pour melted butter, milk, marmalade and eggs into a well and mix briefly. Spoon into muffin papers and bake for 20 minutes. Stand in the tin for 5 minutes and then cool on a rack.
Heat topping ingredients till almost boiling and pour over warm muffins. I like to make twice the topping!!!!

The joke's not on me!!!

2005-04-02T16:29:00.000+10:00

It is warm again and I am tired, I slept till after 9 am so there was no walk for the Labradors. I went to Karen’s and we watched 2 episodes of Babylon 5 and she made nachos. While we were picking up her holiday photos I rang her house so she could at least have someone leave a message on her new answering machine. It is all digital now, so there is no little tape for the CSI people to analyse. Answering machines are cheap now, only $35. I could have one, but I don’t think I will. Last night I caught up on 2 episodes of Enterprise. On the sci-fi blog they say it is being picked up by the Sci-Fi channel but I am taking everything with a pinch of salt as it was still yesterday there, and April Fool’s Day. As is the Googlegulp too : www.google.co.nz/googlegulp
I am making another ice-cream dessert today to take to Di and Mark’s for tea.
Choc Mousse Ice-cream with frosted topping
60 g unsalted butter
185 g good dark chocolate
3 eggs, separated
55 g caster sugar
125 ml cream stiffly whipped
Topping
125 ml cream stiffly whipped
55 g icing sugar
4 almond macaroons ( amaretti)
½ tspn vanilla extract
Line a 20 cm round tin or a small loaf tin.
Melt butter and chocolate gently, then stir in yolks one at a time. Beat whites till stiff peaks form then gradually add caster sugar. Beat till sugar is dissolved. Fold cream into egg whites and then this mixture into the chocolate one. Spoon into tin and freeze for 60 minutes.
To make topping, mix cream and icing sugar, crumbled amaretti and vanilla. Spoon over chocolate layer and cover and freeze overnight. Cut with a warm knife and serve with berries and chocolate shavings ( or a Flake!!!)

Chew chew Train!!!

2005-04-01T10:03:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I went to the dentist and had one cusp ponty bit my tooth rebuilt: yes, we have the technology, we can rebuilt it!!! The giant injection didn’t hurt at all, and It took about 30 minutes. It is like a really tooth now, but after the local wore off it hurt so much, even more than it did before it was fixed. I took some extra strong painkillers and had a nap. It did that throbbing thing…..even little tweaks of pain within the tooth. This morning it feels OK, but I have yet to eat something hard. I ate soup, noodles and grapes yesterday. I am having brunch with Karen today and I will have a selection of salads I think : soft again!!! It cost $170 for the visit and my health insurance only pays $50. If I didn’t have insurance I could go more regularly.
I have won a prize from an author!! A signed book and a special carry bag. How exciting is that? It will have to come from the UK, but I will wait patiently.
I bought liquid bandaids yesterday. It is a small bottle of purpley liquid and foam applicators and you paint it onto the wound. Now I want to have a cut or a nick so I can use it. It was reduced from over $10 to about $4.
Two very good episodes of Stargate SG1 last night. We have almost caught up to the USA, we are in season 8!!! I am thinking that they are playing double episodes so that we can see Stargate Atlantis before it is too old. Next week the final episodes of Jeremiah are on. I haven’t watched any at all, so I will be pleased to sort them out. I don’t think there are titles so it will be a big job, one I am not looking forward to!!! It does mean I can tape Enterprise to watch the next day though, as with the new set top box I can’t record with the timer.
Nutty Butter Cups
1 cup icing sugar
¾ cup smooth peanut butter
30 g butter
250 g melted dark chocolate
35-40 small foil cases
Beat butter, peanut butter and sugar for 5 minutes or until fluffy. Coat the inside of the foil cups with chocolate and refrigerate for 10 minutes. Spoon or pipe filling inside and ten spoon remaining chocolate on top to seal. Keep in the fridge or freezer!!!!

Sew and sew!!!!!

2005-03-30T12:51:00.000+10:00

Yesterday the Labradors and I went unexpectedly to Aunty Cathy’s. They behaved so well, much better than last time. Peri played in the watering system. They didn’t cry and sook at the window and they had a good walk too. At the end they both escaped inside for a quick run. It wore them out. I am tired as I have done something for 3 days in a row: visited on Sunday, egg rolling on Monday and then visiting again yesterday. Cathy is making a beautiful embroidered quilt, and it inspired me to come home and finish the quilting on my Christmas quilt. All I have to do now is back it and bind the edges!! I might do a tiny bit of quilting or buttons or something in the squares of the lattices where they intersect, but it is almost finished!!! I have some cushions to make for Karen’s school now. I have a shark, two surfboards and something else I can’t remember. Then I think I will make my dog couch cover. You can see it here:
http://www.taunton.com/threads/pages/t00029.asp
I am going to use a teal green plain slip cover underneath and then piece all my dog material together. I might have enough to make two. I also want to make a green quilt with all of the bazillion kinds of green material I have collected. This can go over all my doona covers and then I can edge plain curtains to match the quilt. As my doona covers are myriad green colours it is impossible to match green curtains to them all. I also want to do some knitting. I am feeling tired now though and I think I will have a nap soon…..
I shall have to venture out later on as I have run out of eggs and I want to make corn fritters for my tea.
Coconut Caramel Logs
200 g chopped Jersey Caramels
100 g butter
½ cup toasted nuts, chopped
1/4 cup glace cherries, chopped
½ cup toasted coconut
Melt butter and caramels. Stir till melted then add nuts and cherries. Refrigerate. When cold, roll into log shapes – 8 cm ( about 3 inches) and roll in coconut. Cut diagonally in half and keep in the fridge!!! Makes about 24. You can add whatever ingredients you like, eg apricots and almonds, or macadamias and chocolate!!!

Roll, roll, roll your egg!!!

2005-03-29T11:33:00.000+10:00

There was egg rolling galore in the Scottish tradition and my egg was too nice to be rolled. It was hard boiled and then as I had no dye I coloured it in with green permanent ( or as I always like to say – pernament) and then I did a lovely design with gold glitter puffy paint : lines, dots, eggs coloured in, outlines, hearts and 2 paw prints. It dried really well and was stunning. I was so tired I slept till 9 am this morning and only got up as the Labradors were very, very, very insistent that I do. Harki is playing with ½ a tennis ball in a little bag and Peri is on her picnic rug surveying her domain!!! Oh, now we are playing with bout 1/8 th of a tennis ball!!
It is sunny and warm this morning, in Hobart it has been positively Autumnal for weeks. They have had 13 C which is about 58 F and is quite nippy. We are having 20 C which is about 72 F. I don’t mind the cooler weather at all. Sun in the morning and then dark nights now we have ended Daylight Saving.
This morning I have been doing sweeping to complement the vacuuming of the weekend. I shall also do washing while the weather is conducive to drying. I don’t have a dryer. The Americans seem to only have dryers and not clothes lines. I like to dry in the fresh air as the Sun and breeze impart a lovely clean smell. It also is better for your clothes as they aren’t buffeted by the action of the dryer. Towels are a bit scratchy, but they dry you better!!!
I have a semi-blocked ear this morning and what feels like the start of a cold. I have only 2 more days to wait until my tooth is fixed in some way, shape or form. I am a bit fragile health wise at the moment and I have an appointment next week to see the specialist and have my port flushed again. Through exercise my knee feels better, which is good. If I was a horse they would have shot me by now!!!
White Chocolate Muffins
150 g good white chocolate
250 g butter
40 g caster sugar
250 ml milk
225 g plain flour
75 g self raising flour
1 tspn vanilla extract
For the muffins : place butter, chocolate, sugar and milk in a pan and melt over gentle heat, stirring. Cool, then add sifted dry ingredients and vanilla. Spoon into muffin papers and bake at 160 C ( 140 F) for 30-35 minutes. Ice when cool if desired with white chocolate ganache. ( 100 g chocolate, 50 ml cream : melt, then cool)

The rocky road to success!!

2005-03-27T11:27:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I watched 3 episodes of Dead Like Me. It is great and I am sorry it has been cancelled. It is only on Austar, our pay TV here, but I really like it. Arrested Development has started on free-to-air, and amazingly, they started with the first episode at an ungodly hour. I have watched the first 5 minutes and it is very good. Not laugh out loud funny, but like The Office : situational, ironic, satirical humour. Of course the rest of TV is poor. This week we get an Enterprise and a Medium and that’s all really. Oh I do like Operatunity, that’s interesting.
The protesters at Baxter Detention Centre have been arrested for invading airspace by flying kites. The whole thing smacks of Big Brother, and not in a reality TV show way. When protesters went to protest in front of Amanda Vanstone’s house they were stopped and she said it was becoming too personal. As if detaining indefinitely, children too, isn’t personal.
Today I am going to visit for Easter and that is all. We have been for a 25 minute walk, and now the Labradors are playing with the extra-squeaky squeaky toy. Daylight Saving ended last night : Spring ahead, Fall back. So the clocks went back an hour. Of course the Labradors woke up at 7-30 am which was 6-30 yesterday, but we all got an extra hour’s sleep. It was so light. It is usually dark at 7 am but it was as light as can be this morning. That does not bode well for tonight when the sunset is at 6-11 pm and so it will be dark by 6-30 pm. This is the worst part of the downhill run to Winter. I like the other aspects of Winter though. You can always get warm and toasty, but I can not always get cool in the hot Summer.
The GardyGardeners gave me a recipe for Rocky Road, so I made some last night. I will put it here now. The Chocettes are tiny balls of Picnic, Turkish Delight, Crunchie etc, covered in chocolate. I don’t know if they are available everywhere, but they are here in Australia. And the squeaky toy is just about de-stuffed and almost dead!!!
Special Rocky Road
200 g dark chocolate
2 x 250 g roast almond chocolate
250 g pink and white marshmallows
1 cp roasted nuts of your choice
1 cup toasted shredded coconut
150 g Turkish Delight Chocettes( or chopped up Turkish Delight)
extra g melted white chocolate for decoration
Grease and line a slice tin ( 30 x 20 cm or 12 x 8 inches) and melt the dark chocolate and spread in the tin as a base. Melt the almond chocolate and then mix in the other ingredients. Spoon over base, flatten slightly and then drizzle white chocolate over the top. Refrigerate till set. Use a hot sharp knife and cut into pieces.
I used caramello chocolate Easter eggs instead of the Turkish delight, but you can tailor the type of chocolate and nuts etc used to suit your taste. It is very rich and though the recipe says to cut 24 pieces, I cut about twice that.

Friday's on my mind!!!

2005-03-26T10:20:00.000+11:00

NB: I am too lazy to go back and make the previous post's recipe orange. The will just BE two red ones!!!!
Good Friday is over. I felt dull and lethargic all day. I had Milk Arrowroot biscuits for breakfast and lunch – 8 in all, and cups of tea. No wonder I was vague: I had eaten no real food. I went to Karen’s at about 3-30 pm and we watched the DVD of Stargate the movie and then the first 2 episodes of Stargate SG1 the series. There was more plot in one episode of SG1 than in the whole film, though they did set up the entire show, all the ideas and science etc. The writers must have had a good show ‘bible’ as they have barely deviated from it. It as weird to see how young Richard Dean Anderson was though, and Michael Shanks has Spader down pat. Carter was much more aggressive as a character and was only a captain. Teal’c has really bulked up too. I didn’t get home till 8-40 pm and then slept a dream filled sleep again. I have been dreaming every night lately. Long and complicated dreams with huge plots. I can remember parts of them, but they were OK. I never have nightmares. I have never woken up with fear pounding through my veins. I wonder if there is something wrong with me? Other people I know have nightmares. Oh the Labradors have just had a huge chasing game in and outside. It was over a TeddyBunny’s head. Now they need a big rest!!!
Bah humbug, the online access to the Library was supposed to be off line tomorrow for updating etc, but it is not there now. I hate that. I wanted to place a hold on a science book about language. I am addicted to books about langue. It fascinates me. I am reading The Storied of English by David Crystal at the moment, having just watched and read The Adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg.
I have apparently invented a very nice truffle. It was an act of desperation as I had no honey or nuts. I like to call them:
White Lemon Truffles.
200 g white chocolate
125 g cream cheese
½ to ¾ cup coconut
extra coconut for rolling
grated rind of a large lemon
Melt chocolate and cream cheese carefully. Add rind and beat with a wooden spoon till smooth. Fold in coconut – I sometimes use the shredded coconut for a change. Refrigerate till cool enough to roll into balls and then roll in extra coconut. I often pour the mixture into a square lined tin. It is easy then to cut the cooled mixture into even squares and then roll into truffles. They are all the same size then!!!

Living in the future : Literally.

2005-03-24T17:00:00.000+11:00

Yesterday I met Karen for a late lunch and we had a tiny shop. I was desperate to buy a book , but I couldn’t find one at all. I wanted the new Australian Women’s Weekly big fat “Home Baking” book. It is bigger than A4 size and very thick and it is $34-95 : but no, they didn’t have one. So I went to look at all the sci-fi and fantasy books: nooooooo, there was not one book there I either didn’t already own, or was not interested in owning. Karen did point out a variety of other books, but I was bereft. Luckily today I have The Stories of English by David Crystal and Pathway to Treason by Ken Harris from the Library. Karen has promised to lend me some new books too.
I made the cutest little bags for Pauline’s children : 3 crazy coloured prints, not too OTT, and then I appliquéd a felt bunny’s head, embroidered, onto the front. They are small and have a drawstring closure. I will fill them with some Binka’s lollies. They are free of everything artificial and there are dinosaurs!!!
Today I took my printer cartridge to be refilled ( $7-50, how cheap is that???) and delivered Easter treats and Henny Pinny pincushions to people’s houses. Then I went to the GardyGardener’s for morning tea, and then home for a rest. Finally I went to the Library, picked up the printer cartridge, went to the fruit and veg and then, though I really needed to go to the supermarket, I was too tired to even consider facing a queue. I will go on Saturday. I only need a tiny few things. I am too tired, going out twice was too much.
I will put a tape in for Dr Who and then go to bed for a long sleep. And I was all weirded out as I was sure I wrote on Tuesday and the date here said Monday, and then I remembered that as well as being light years ahead of other places in the world in most areas, we also live in the future, a day ahead of America. The future is already here, literally!!!! We are living in a time slip. Oh also I have no idea which rainbow colour I am up to. I always miss out green, but otherwise I do the ROY G BIV thing ( Richard Of York Gained Battles In Vain) I chose red anyway. I suppose it should have been orange. If it is wrong I will fix it later on.
Chocolate Candied Orange Peel
2 or 3 oranges
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
100-200 g chocolate, melted
Cut skin from the flesh, and then carefully trim all the pith, leaving just the thin rind. You can cut out fancy shapes but so much is wasted I make 1 cm strips. Pop rind into a pan of boiling water, boil for 5 minutes and drain. Repeat twice more. Then put the sugar and water into the pan, stir as sugar dissolves and then add the rind and boil steadily for 5-10 minutes or until the peel is translucent. Drain and dry on a rack. When dry ( and this may take 24 hours or more), dip into the chocolate and eat when set. You can used any rind really. I can’t eat oranges, but people seem to like this best.

Mental or Dental?????

2005-03-22T14:09:00.000+11:00

Mental or dental? What a dilemma. When the dental receptionist offered me an appointment at the same time as my appointment with the counsellor, I had to make a quick decision. I decided to see to my mental health and then my dental!!!
My tooth still hurts but I hope to just keep eating on the left side and avoiding hot or cold things – air included. I have made all my Easter cards and I just have to write in them and post the ones I need to post. I have made 2 lots of fudge, coffee truffles, lemon and coconut truffles, cherry chocolate things, coconut Easter eggs and I have still to make tiny chocolate lamingtons. I am waiting for the cake to defrost. All in all I have done quite a good job. I have 4 more pincushions to make : you can see what they kind of look like here - http://www.web-goddess.org/archive.php/postID/2529
Oh I lost the cursor for a while. Tomorrow the GardyGardeners came and we are having choc chip hot cross bunnies . They are teeny tiny hot cross buns with choc chips in them. Then I will pop into school at lunch and take them some Easter treats. There is a student free day for ELs on Thursday so they won’t be at school. I have to go to the Vet too, and I may quickly go into the Hospital if I am not too tired. I am quite pleased with my cards, they have 2 big rabbit paw prints on the front and I have ‘coloured in’ with glitter puffy paint. The darn spell check has gone all American again.
I am quite worn out with my mental health day. I shall have to add a recipe later on or tomorrow as I am feeling very tired now. A cup of tea ( universal cure-all) and a nap, I think.

Gnashing and rubbing of gums if this keeps up!!

2005-03-21T11:17:00.000+11:00

My tooth has broken. I was eating a spearmint Lifesaver on my way to Karen’s and it was a bit crunchy. A bit too crunchy for a Lifesaver I thought. Indeed it was, and so part of one of my back teeth has a section missing. I rang the dentist this morning and I am on the emergency waiting list but it will be late April before I see anyone. This is terrible as my tooth hurts but no-one cares. I will spend a lot of time with my tongue on my tooth to keep the air out and I will be eating mushy food to avoid the chewing!!! Imagine people who can’t afford to go to the dentist at all. Dental costs are not covered by Medicare, and even with private health insurance, you get back less than half of the cost.
The stray cat has gone so there is great exultation and tail wagging, especially on Peri’s part. She has her job back : watching the house next door!!!
We watched 2 episodes of Blake’s 7, one was terrible and the other OK. We liked it anyway!!! Started a third, but I lost concentration and came home. I wanted a nap but I stayed awake till after Miss Marple and slept soundly all the way through till 8 am. A very good night’s sleep. The Labradors slept too as it is dark till 7 am now. Daylight Saving ends soon : this weekend I think so there will be an extra hour’s sleep but it will be dark so early in the evening. It will be dark by 7 pm. That means 11 weeks of shorter days , and then we are on our way to Spring!!! Not wishing my life away or anything. I have 4 more Easter things to make and II have a little shopping to do to buy the rest of the cooking ingredients and I have a card to make too. I must do that now as I think of it.
White Chocolate Truffles
200 g white chocolate
125 g Philly cream cheese
1 tspn vanilla extract
1 tbspn honey
¼ cup chopped nuts
¼ cup coconut ( plus extra for coating)
Melt chocolate and honey gently . Beat cream cheese with vanilla until smooth. Combine cream cheese with chocolate mixture and fold in nuts and cocoanut. Refrigerate for several hours. Roll into balls and coat with coconut. You can substitute any nuts/fruit etc as you like.

Da dah da da da daaah dah ( Hum the Star Wars theme with me!!)

2005-03-20T10:37:00.000+11:00

Re the Cat Wars on the dogblog : I think all cats should have to be registered in the same way dogs are. I know dogs are bigger animals in some cases, but cats cause more damage to the wild life, and infinitely more general bother in our neighbourhood. Cats should be kept under supervision too, in one of those lovely runs I have seen on TV so they don't eat the little birds and lizards. I know that when Peri was little and nippy she caught 2 or 3 baby birds and/or lizards, but she has no hope now she is a grown up proper dog. Cat owners need to be responsible for their cats. Speaking of Wars, Star Wars the original movie was on last night. It was the digitally enhanced A New Hope and even though I was in danger of being forced to watch the whole thing, I don't like the enhanced version very much at all. There is a plan to watch 1, 2, then go to the pictures to see 3, then 4,5 and 6 to give a total Star Wars experience in May!!!
Welcome to the wonderful world of Easter TV where for the next fortnight there are wall to wall repeats of almost everything. There are new episodes of Enterprise, Dead Zone, Stargate SG-1 and Jeremiah, all on after the magic 10-30 pm time, but anything else has been given the boot. This does mean Karen cat catch up on her 86 tapes. I am up to tape 77, and I have watched a fair proportion of the TV on the more recent ones so I feel quite in control. Of course now Karen is taping things for me to watch, it is a vicious circle of TV watching. Today there will be 2 more episodes of Blake's 7 to be seen, and I saw season 4 I think, of Due South on the IMDB. I shall search for it as we really need that. You can never have too much Benton.
Coconut Easter Eggs
3 cups icing sugar
395 tin sweetened condensed milk
1 tspn coconut essence or vanilla extract
yellow food colouring
Optional - 200 g chocolate
- 30 g copha
Sift sugar and then combine with milk and coconut. Here you can choose the flavours you like: the mixture will be divided up into 1/2 and 3/4. The 1/4 will be the yolk, coloured yellow and the 3/4 will be the white, flavoured coconut or vanilla. You can colour the yolk green and flavour it peppermint, or red/pink and use rosewater or orange and use orangewater. You choose!!!.
Make the 1/4 yolk part into small 1 1/2 cm balls ( 3/4 inch?) and shape the white mixture around to form egg shapes. Now if you like you can roll them in extra coconut and refrigerate and they are ready, or you can just refrigerate them till set and then dip them in the combined melted chocolate and copha. Either way they are easy and tasty Easter treats. Makes about 30.

Stray Cat Ballou, Cat Ballou, She's mean and evil through and through

2005-03-19T18:19:00.000+11:00

Yesterday we didn’t do anything except go for a walk and then lounge on the couch and do some big catching up on TV. I made the most excellent mousse ever – recipe follows, and took it to Di’s. She made tea and we sat and talked.
I have just spent the better part of the afternoon searching for the recipe for coconut Easter eggs. I knew I had seen it this week, so I went through all the magazines and other books for what seemed like hours. In the end I remembered I had bought 2 tins of condensed milk on special and that the recipe must have been in the Roelf Vos catalogue. I had, of course, every catalogue except that one. Thankfully the supermarket still had some so I have 2 now in case.
We are having cat wars. There is a stray cat that keeps coming next door and staying there. The Labradors bark at the cat. They don’t bark at the cat who lives there. I have had to put up the shade cloth barrier, stapling it to the fence. Peri is bereft as she spends quite a lot of the day lying down near the fence, looking through to next door. She is going to have to get used to it, as if they bark, people will complain. She is inside now and I hope by tomorrow she will be happier.
Best Ever Chocolate Mousse
100 g dark chocolate
50 g butter
2 eggs separated
1 tspn caster sugar
Melt butter in a double boiler over a low heat. Whisk in the yolks and then the butter in small pieces. Whip the egg whites till soft peaks form and then sprinkle sugar over the top and beat till silky. Fold in very thoroughly. Refrigerate.
I added 2 tspn coffee to the chocolate and then covered the set mousse with whipped cream also flavoured with coffee, as Di likes the mocha flavour.

Lamingtons very pretty and the lamington is sweet!!!

2005-03-17T17:31:00.000+11:00

2 days in a row!! People will collapse with shock!!! No phone call for Millionaire, but Sale of the Century will be back later in the year, maybe with a Daddo at the helm, and that will suit him more I think. The tailgate gas struts in my car were fine, and Karen went above and beyond the call of friendship by picking me up at 9am!! I was very tired this morning and only took the Labradors for a 10 minute walk along the footpath and back. At Karen’s we watched an episode of Blake’s 7 and they mentioned about 20 times “The Forbidden Zone” which is what I call the area between the first wrought iron gate to the outside world and the second inner wooden gate. I must have unconsciously called it by the name form Blake’s 7. Karen and I really ruined the whole atmosphere of the episode by laughing uproariously ever time TFZ was mentioned. At Spotlight we accidentally met Suzanne and went for a very late lunch. All in all an excellent day though I want to sleep now. I am going to stay awake so I can sleep all through the night.
Tiny Lamingtons
Day old sponge cake
2 cups pure icing sugar
½ cup cocoa
125 ml boiling water
desiccated coconut
Sift icing sugar and cocoa into a bowl and stir in boiling water until it is smooth. Cut sponge into rectangular pieces. Using 2 forks, dip each piece of cake into the warm icing, let the excess drip off, then roll in the coconut and place on a wire rack.
You can make jelly lamingtons, usually red, but using an almost set jelly instead of the icing.

8 hours a week, I lo-o-o-o-ove you!!!!

2005-03-16T11:04:00.000+11:00

Wow, I have missed 2 days and I didn’t even realise at all that so much time has passed. On Monday we went for a walk to the shop at the corner as it was Labour Day the 149th anniversary of the 8 hour day: 8 hours to sleep, 8 hours to work and 8 hours for leisure, though I have been thinking that the travelling time to work cuts into the sleeping and leisure times. That is all we really did. I was still tired and had a long afternoon nap and then , of course, slept badly that night even though I was tired. Yesterday I went to the jewellers to pick up a watch I thought was beyond repair. It is a Guess watch and apparently the are quite expensive so it is worth fixing. I bought it 5 or 6 years ago , but they have gone up in price. I talked to Karen 3 or 4 times and Di too.
Today I am off to be part of a ‘phone-a-friend’ group for someone who is on Who wants to be a millionaire? It is a daunting task, mine is TV and Film but I am exceedingly nervous about the whole thing.
Tomorrow my car has been recalled as the gas lift thingies for the tailgate may be faulty and so they will replace them for free. I have to be there at 9 am. The Labradors will have to miss their walk, they do have to when I am a bit tired too. I am a bit tired as well.
The on Friday I am going to Di’s for tea. It will necessitate long and good napping in order to cope. I will have to walk the Labradors on Friday though.
The Federal Government wants to take away out symphony orchestra, and make it into a chamber group. We are all up in arms and have signed a petition against this. When lots of money has been wasted on a war, it seems a very small thing to ask for a million dollars or less to keep our orchestra afloat. They are quite famous and very skilled. We have been with school to performances and they have played the theme tunes for shows as well.
Mini Chocolate Meringues
3 egg whites
175 g caster sugar
50 g coarsely grated good dark chocolate
Preheat oven to 120 C ( 100 fan forced) and line trays.
Beat eggwhites till soft peaks form and then gradually add sugar, and beat until smooth and glossy. All the sugar should be dissolved. Fold in chocolate.
Spoon or pipe 3 cm ‘kisses’ or ovals . Lower temperature to 90 C ( as low as ff will go) and bake for minutes. Cool in oven overnight. Sandwich together with cream or ganache!!. Makes about 24. You can also just dip half the meringue in melted chocolate. Just as yummy.

Weir-d!!!!

2005-03-13T13:02:00.000+11:00

Yesterday was a day of recovering!! I slept till 11-30 am, if there was a medal for sleeping I would get a gold one!!! I didn’t get out of pyjamas all day either, but I ate the most lovely fresh corn and zucchini fritters, with onion, celery, bacon, cheese, cherry tomatoes, parsley and red capsicum. I squeezed some lemon juice on top and they were just divine. I made them up, so there is no recipe, everything was just fresh from someone’s garden!!! The Senior Sergeant rang to see if I was OK and reassured me and said basically that the officer had no idea I was so upset, but he did give me his private line number to ring if I ever need to. It made me feel happier, but I am still nervous driving. I have only driven to Cathy’s and to the dam, nowhere else yet. I shall have to go out in the car today to check Karen’s Friday mail.
They were nice cold later on too. I watched 4 episodes of Stargate SG1, the last 2 of season 7 and the first 2 of season 8. It was a bit disconcerting to find Dr Weir being played by 2 different people, especially as I watched them back to back. I like Jessica Steen best. It is very hot here today, it is meant to be 28 C about 90 F and it is 1/6 of the way into Autumn. It may be hotter tomorrow. We went for a walk at 8-45 am and now we are hiding inside. I filled the paddle pool with fresh clean water for the Labradors though, and they have had a cooling play.
I am cross that my Better Homes and Garden magazine has not arrived in the mail this month yet. It was out on Wednesday, 9th, and the show was on Friday, and the earliest it could possibly arrive now is Tuesday as it is the Labour Day/8 Hour Day holiday tomorrow. I subscribe mainly as I hope I will get the magazines earlier than the newsagents do, but this time it has failed miserably. I will be at the least 7 days behind. I so want to see the Easter cooking and if there is any craft and I look at the magazine in the shop and yearn for it, but I can’t buy it as one is supposed to be coming. Sigh.
Choc-Chip Slice
150 g butter
110 g caster sugar
110 g brown sugar
2 eggs
120 g plain flour
75 g self-raising flour
250 g choc-chips of your choice
Preheat oven to 180 C ( 160 ff) and grease and line a slice tin ( 16 x 26 cm)Cream butter and sugars, beat in eggs well. Add choc-chips to flour and coat then fold into wet mixture. Spoon into tin and smooth down, bake for about 30 minutes, cool in tin!!!
You can add any kind of nuts or dried fruit or different flavours of chocolate. You can substitute cocoa for some of the plain flour too.

Police, release me let me go.......

2005-03-11T23:03:00.000+11:00

I have been having a trauma avec the police. Yesterday a police officer did a u-turn and gestured for me to follow him and said I had been driving and using my mobile phone. I had not, and my call register showed that, but he made me feel very upset. He didn’t listen to me, he checked my record ( one red light in 1982 and a broken tail light in 2003) and ‘gave me the benefit of the doubt’ . He inferred that if my mobile was in my bag I could be ringing up all the time. I was so upset as I felt intimidated and powerless. I was sick 3 times when I went home and I did that gulping kind of crying and I shook for an hour.. I wasn’t talking on the phone, I am the person least likely to talk on a mobile in the car. I let it ring out and pull up and stop the car and ring back – if at all. I had just had my hair cut, and at every red light I had hitched up my sunnies and tried to get some shards of hair out of my eyes. They don’t brush your face for health reasons now. My friend Di came and picked me up and we went to see the Duty Sergeant, and although he started off defensive and unfriendly, in the end he was quite nice, and said I should always carry my phone as it was a safety issue. He said the police officer is a good one, and I know he probably is, and just doing his job, but the way he made me feel was not a good way. The Duty Sergeant will ring back tomorrow evening, but I have made an appointment to see the counsellor I saw when I got sick and had to leave work. I know now I have stopped being in my irrational reptilian fear mode, that it was the loss of control and the powerlessness I felt that made me feel so bad. I cope well if I can plan things, think them through and be prepared, like when Vundy the German Shepherd had to be put to sleep : I knew it was coming and was prepared, but I was not prepared for this confrontation at all. I expect it meant nothing to the policeman, it was just another stupid woman denying a traffic infringement. He probably went off to have lunch. He may have had a boogelly person before me. I did have the presence of mind to write down his badge number, and I know I should have asked to see some ID and asked for his name but I was too intimidated. I felt that if I did he would come after me. ( See, irrational reptilian response!!) I have some closure at least, but it has made me fretful and worried when I drive, and I have had to wrap my mobile in a zip lock bag and sticky tape it up so if I am ever pulled up again I can prove I have not been talking on the phone.
Then , to top it all off, the Labradors at the almond berry cake with coconut topping I had made for Di and Mark. Di took me to her house and we had fish and chips and cups of tea. I didn’t sleep well, but I am kind of a bit OK now. This morning I went to school and analysed the data from the maths tests last year and this afternoon the Labradors have a play date with Aunty Cathy , Alex and George!!!! OK I am sure there is a spelling error somewhere but I am too tired to read my whole thing and find it, I am not good at editing today.
OK, we have been to visit Cathy and her girls and the Labradors have had a lovely time. You can read about it on their blog : http://2dogblog.blogspot.com/
Almond and Berry Cake
250 g butter
1 tspn vanilla extract
275 g caster sugar
3 eggs
100 g plain flour
150 g self raising flour
60 g almond meal
150 g berries of your choice ( I am generous and use more!!)
and for the topping
50 g plain flour
2 tbspn caster sugar
40 g butter
15 g coarse coconut
Preheat oven to 180 C ( 160 ff) and grease and line a 23 cm square or round tin. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla and then add the eggs one at a time. Mix in the flours and meal and then spoon into the tin. Top with the berries. To make the topping, rub the butter into the flour, add the sugar and coconut. Mix well. To top the cake, take a small handful and squeeze gently and crumble in clumps over the berries. Cook for about 50 minutes, cool in tin for 10 and then finish cooling on a rack. Lovely warm with ice-cream or custard, or cold as a cake!!!

My elbow is a symptom of my internet use

2005-03-09T14:28:00.000+11:00

It is a sign of the times that I have developed a callous on my elbow from leaning on the desk as I use my computer. I couldn't work out where the scaly dry patch had come from and I slathered on moisturiser and a bandaid, and then I was checking my email and realized I was leaning on the elbow in question!!! I shall have to make an effort not to anymore or I shall end up with a deformed elbow!!!! Nothing much exciting today - somehow I managed to lose one of the TV stations on the VCR. I don't know where it went, it was there last night and this morning, late, it was gone. i THOUGHT IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN OFF THE AIR, BUT IT WAS ON DIGITAL TV AND ON THE ACTUAL TV. i HAD TO RETUNE THE vcr AND NOW ALL THE STATIONS ARE IN A DIFFERENT POSITION. i WILL HAVE TO LEARN TO LIVE WITH IT AND BE EXTRA CAREFUL WHEN Oh bah humbug I have been typing with the caps lock on again , I am prone to this and too lazy to bother to type it all again. I will have to be extra careful when I am setting the timer to tape. I was worried at first as I think Jason Carter: Marcus from Babylon 5 will be on She Spies today. 5 or 6 B5 people are on the show which is surprisingly good. Karen thinks the character of Marcus is cryogenically frozen and alive, while I assert he is dead, dead, dead. I am right but I indulge her misguided fantasy. And I am safe saying it here unless she reads it!!!
Right, no time for a recipe today as I am about to use up this lot of 5 hours internet access, I have unlimited hours but I will have to dial up again and I think I will just go to bed for a nap instead. I promise a recipe of huge chocolate proportions tomorrow. I craved some chocolate today and ate some and then felt sick for hours : that will teach me!!!

Cracklin' Chocolate!!!!

2005-03-08T10:18:00.000+11:00

A few rainy days and cooler nights and I need to have winter food. I am having what Karen calls ‘old people’s tea’, ie having it at 5 pm!! I am having carrots, Brussels sprouts, garlic mashed potato, lamb chops, mushrooms and onion!! Yum, considering I ate hardly anything yesterday I am making up for it now!!! I started writing this last night just before I had a bazillion calls from Karen’s mobile where I could hear people talking and noises, and then nothing: Was she kidnapped???. I rang Pauline’s husband and she was grocery shopping with Pauline – not kidnapped but groceries leaning on her phone. So I had disconnected the computer and wrote no more.
Yesterday I cut out 12 Crazy Chicken Pin Cushions!! They make a tetrahedron shape, a triangular pyramid, with a comb, beak and tail, and I made them half in lime green ( of course) and half in glittery pink, green, yellow etc Easter egg material. I stuffed 4 with stuffing and rice and they are so cute!!! I am giving them for Easter. They are quite fiddly and I will have to make some more as I haven’t even thought how many I will need…. But I am very pleased I have started in time!!! I will have to look in my chocolate books and find what I will make for Easter too!!!
Speaking of craft, I had to berate the Craft Fair people. Last year they stole or fair away to Hobart and had the gall to send me a fair friend booklet. The fair is at the other end of the state and it is also on the weekend after the Easter holidays end, hardly anyone from here will go now. But to rub salt into the wound I have free entry and the url of the fair is still Launceston. If I had free entry last year I would have gone very day to the fair, instead of only once on the Saturday. It was open Thursday to Saturday, and closed each day at about 4 pm, so none of my friends at work could go till the Saturday. They deliberately did that so they could say the fair was failing. The year before that, it was open all weekend.
Today in International Women’s Day, the everywoman in Australia is 37, no longer interested in sex, single, has one or two children and is getting fatter!! ¾ of women do little or no exercise, but as a single mother there is no time for exercise as a daily activity, they are juggling too may balls in the air. Rates of domestic violence have hardly changed, and the difference between men’s and women’s wages has blown out from $230 to over $310, due , no doubt, to the increasing casualisation of the workplace. They have made educational gains on men, however. Happy International Women’s Day ( do you hear the irony???)
Chocolate Crackles
60 g coconut
90 g puffed rice cereal
60 g icing sugar
35 g cocoa
125 g melted copha
Toast coconut, cool for 5 minutes then add to dry ingredients and stir. Add copha and combine well. Spoon into paper cases : 25 small or 12 medium, and refrigerate for about 2 hours or until set. You can add other things to taste: glace cherries, choc chips, marshmallows, nuts etc

Oh my darling, Oh my darling, Oh my darling Madeleine!!

2005-03-06T16:55:00.000+11:00

Today I went to see the movie The Incredibles. It was quite good, though I laughed in different places to other people. It is $9-50 for a child to go to the pictures now , that is very expensive. Then I went to Spotlight where there was an altercation of sorts. I met Cathy and her daughters and we had a lovely cup of tea. I am extremely pale today. I shall have to nap soon. The Labradors will have a present of a ball on a rope each soon. Yes, they like them , Peri doesn’t technically play, but she likes it a lot!!! On Friday the Labradors are going for a walk with Cathy and the girls: that should cure them of wanting a puppy!!!
I am going to make little chicken pincushions/decorations for Easter this week. I have glittery Easter Egg decorated material and lime green plain to co-ordinate with lime, pink and green felt for the comb, beak and tail.
Too, too tied, I must do a recipe and then sleep….
Chocolate Madeleines
2 eggs
70 g caster sugar
50 g plain flour
1 tspn baking powder
2 tbspn cocoa
60 g butter, melted
Preheat oven to 180 C (160 ff) Grease Madeleine tins ready to use. Whisk eggs and sugar, sift dry ingredients and fold through with the melted butter. 2/3 fill the Madeleine trays and bake for about 10 minutes. Turn out and cool, dust with cocoa if desired!!

Blondie - Heart of chocolate, and Rhapsody in Blonde

2005-03-05T13:08:00.000+11:00

Oh joy and bliss, it has been raining for about 10 hours and everything is wet and cool. We have walked in the rain and played in the rain. We are all chilly and damp and as Maxwell Smart would say – ‘and loving it!!’ I bought a set of books today: a dictionary, a spelling book with a bazillion words listed and word building too, and a thesaurus for $5. They were on super special as school has gone back. They had exercise books, 96 pages, for 4 cents. I so wanted some, but I couldn’t justify it. I have nothing to write in them and nothing to do with them, but they are such a bargain.
Nurse John , Nurse Georgie and Nurse Olivia from the Holman Clinic were in the paper today. There is a new process so people needing bone marrow harvests can do the first 2 procedures here in the north before having to travel to the south for the third. I shall cut their picture out and put it on my cork board , full of other things I want to remember. I have an excellent Maths joke, photos of things I have made and people I know and other things like little swatches of air from all the girls. I am also happy as the spell checker has decided for some reason to go back to being Australian after aeons of being American. It saves a lot of scrolling. Not a lot else is happening today. I plan to vacuum and do some washing, and then watch TV. I am up to tape 62 in my watching and Tape 79 in the taping, I have watched all of Carnivale and wow!! was it good. I can’t wait till it is on again!!!
Nut Blondie – as opposed to a Brownie!!!
185 g butter
330 g caster sugar
1 tspn vanilla extract
4 eggs
300 g plain flour
½ tspn baking powder
185 g white chocolate, melted
1 cup of nuts- your choice
185 g extra white, milk or dark chocolate, chopped
Cram butter, vanilla and sugar, add eggs one at a time . Mix in sifted dry ingredients and melted chocolate, then add nuts and extra chocolate. Spread into a lined, greased 20 cm square tin and bake for 50-60 minutes at 180 C ( 160 ff). Chill and cut, serve with cream or ice-cream and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Well, well, well - three holes in the ground.

2005-03-04T20:43:00.000+11:00

I have had a day at home and I slept about 11 hours last night : I don’t remember 11 pm and I woke up around 10 am this morning. We all slept in and then had stir fry for brunch. I have knocked over 3 tapes and also watched 2 episodes of Stargate. A day well spent!!! I have not had a nap as I am hoping to sleep tonight.
The bad news is that health insurance is going up by about 15% again this year. Even though the Howard Coalition has promised many times that the cost would stay the same and most likely fall, in the last 3 years it has risen, on average, by over 30% - it could be more. Mine rose by almost 50% last year even though the average was $8. It is ironic that if I didn’t pay so much I could afford to go to the dentist regularly. I haven’t been for 18 months. With the rebate it still costs about $100 for a check up, and I pay $120 a month with a big $800 excess. This means that I hardly ever use the insurance but continue to pay $1440 a year at least. You are forced to be in a fund, as you are penalised a 2% increase for every year of your age you have not been in a fund. So if I left now and rejoined at proper retirement I would be paying 50% more of the price in 25 years.
The Lennon Red-neck “Green” pulp mill bus – and there’s an oxymoron if I ever saw one, is now expected to cost the state’s taxpayers over $2,000,000 and the pulp mill has not even been pronounced as a significant business yet. It is a Kafka-esque existence we lead here. Soon there will be jackbooted Lennon soldiers patrolling and arresting those who speak out against the government : why do I think this? Look at the way the Gunns’ 20 have had writs served against them for speaking against Gunns, which is, apparently, our defacto government.
Choc-Peppermint Fudge
45 g butter
1 cup icing sugar
1 ½ tspn milk
½ - ¾ tspn peppermint essence
300 g dark chocolate
180 ml condensed milk
Beat butter and icing sugar till well creamed and add milk and essence. Refrigerate for 15 minutes. Melt other ingredients till smooth and then cool for 15 minutes. Grease and line a 20 cm square tin and spoon peppermint mixture over base and cover with chocolate mixture and swirl. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Cut into small squares.

The road to hell......

2005-03-03T11:24:00.000+11:00

Last night I went to Di and Mark’s for his 50th birthday tea. We all made jokes at his expense. We had roast, chicken and pork, and all the vegetables, pavlova and I left before the cake. I have been tired, can’t say my words correctly!!, and didn’t wake up till 9 am, and not home from the walk and the Labradors’ swim till 10. I am going to town for lunch with Karen before she goes to Hobart.
The Premier, Lennon, has spent our money on a propaganda bus, that will go to schools and councils extolling the virtues of the proposed pulp mill. I am almost speechless. Imagine if the Wilderness Society sent a bus with information onto state school property: they would be arrested. Instead, red-neck Lennon, who is in the pocket of Gunns, is doing their bidding and dirty work and disseminating propaganda around the state. Oh, they say they present a balanced view, I am yet to hear a balanced view from Lennon. Today on the radio he asserted that conservationists are not stakeholders in any part of the pulp or forestry debates. I foresee that the Labor government will find it difficult to hold onto power at the next election. I certainly won’t be voting for the kind of people who ride roughshod over others, and let big business dictate the decisions they make.
Now it is a long way to ANZAC Day, but I like ANZAC biscuits!!! In our science experiment we stored ANZACs and hard tack to see which lasted longer. The hard tack was the winner by a mile!!!! No wonder there were no ANZAC biscuits at ANZAC Cove!!!!
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup plain flour
2/3 cup sugar
¾ cup coconut
2 tbspn golden syrup
125 g butter
1 tspn bicarb soda
2 tbspn hot waterPreheat oven to 160 F ( 140 ff) and mix oats, flour, sugar and coconut in a bowl. Melt syrup and butter, mix soda with water and add to mixture. Quickly pour onto dry ingredients and mix well. Roll tablespoons of mixture into balls and press onto tray, flattening slightly. They do spread, so space them out. Bake for about 10 minutes and cool on tray for 5 minutes before removing to a rack.

I'm a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad blogger.

2005-02-27T16:01:00.000+11:00

Oh, it is so long since I have added anything. No excuses really, just lazy this week- I shall have to do better. On Friday I went to my friend Cathy’s house and we had tea and watched the Princess Diaries II with her girls. Yesterday Karen was meant to come for tea, but I was too hot, and had a headache and so she offered me afternoon nibblies instead, so we bought the net tulle etc to make her niece two tutus!!! Pink and dark pink and sparkles!!! And watched 2 episodes of Blake’s 7 and the special features. I had to block my ears, close my eyes, and go la la la as I don’t like to see the actors as real people, I just want to maintain the fiction that the characters are real people!! Then I cam home and slept and today I went to Di and Mark’s shack at Bellingham. We walked along the beach and I paddled and we had lunch and came home just now. I am planning a nap now as a trip really takes it out of you. Harki and Peri did get 2 old tennis balls from the Cages though and Harki ferreted them out of the bag while I was locking the gate and had begun the game even before I was ready!!! Now she is crying as Peri has stolen one ball and I am ignoring her.
‘Our Mary’, the woman who married Prince Fred of Denmark is coming for a visit and don’t we know it!! Her photo is plastered across everything. Soon Charles Windsor will be here and I think there is Dutch royalty as well. Too much royalty. I will have to start avoiding the news and current affairs : the Danish couple are even on Denton. Poor show there. Oh and now the spell check has decided to revert to being Australian again. At last!!!
Almond Chocolate Meringue Cake
Cake
125 g butter
110 g caster sugar
3 egg yolks
150 g Self-raising flour
35 g cocoa
125 ml buttermilk
125 ml sour cream
¼ cup flaked almonds
Grease and line 2 20 cm round cake tins, preheat oven to 180 C (160 ff) Beat butter, sugar and yolks till creamy, then fold in flour and cocoa, and milk and cream in 2 batches. Pour half into each tin. Top one with meringue and almonds. Bake meringue layer for 25 minutes, cover loosely with foil and then bake for another 15 – bake the plain layer for 25 minutes only. . Stand 5 minutes then cool on rack. Sandwich layers together with cream flavoured with a little almond essence or liqueur and sugar!!!

Meringue
3 egg whites
140 g caster sugar
Beat egg whites till soft peaks form, gradually add sugar and then beat till it is all dissolved and the mixture is glossy.

I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry - Well it's too late baby, now!!!!

2005-02-24T11:52:00.000+11:00

Thursday, 24 February 2005
I have shut the curtains at the front of the house and am trying to encourage the Labradors to play in the paddle pool as it is hot again today. For the third night in a row we have had Mr Cooly running the whole time, and although there are brief respites from the heat at dawn and dusk, for the rest of the time it is unremittingly hot, sunny and humid. Yesterday it was the Launceston Cup. I have no interest in the Cup and don’t like horse racing at all, or any animal racing really. We went to the Novotel for posh afternoon tea. They know us quite well now and chat to us!!!! I have been for a short walk with the Labradors and a quick shop all alone.
There is a huge full page letter from David Llewellyn, the State Minister in charge ultimately of housing. The government has sold 150 people houses riddled with asbestos and did not tell the buyers. There are also potentially thousands of low income renters as well. And there have been renovations. People have been happily drilling, sawing and sanding the asbestos, with their children , and in some cases grandchildren, playing nearby and no-one wearing any protective clothing or taking any precautions. A spokeswoman last night on national TV said she had sympathy for them, but the local Labor Federal member is taking up the cause and is investigating a class action. The State Government is Labor too. This is a terrible state of affairs and the Government are now playing ‘blame the buyers’ and NOW they are telling people there is asbestos in the houses. Shutting the stable door ……….
Cherry Chocolate Truffles
1 egg white
125 g dark chocolate
½ cup almond meal
1 tbspn Kirsch ( or alcohol of your choice)
2 tbspn icing sugar
25 glace cherries
¼ cup cocoa
¼ cup drinking chocolate
Lightly beat egg white, Grate chocolate, mix with almond meal, Kirsch and icing sugar. Add enough egg white to bind, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Flatten spoonfuls of mixture around a cherry and roll till smooth, then roll in cocoas!! Keep in the fridge!!!

Blake's 7 Rules OK

2005-02-22T10:15:00.000+11:00

On Sunday I had a veeeeeeery long phone conversation with Karen . She was not technically jet lagged as the time difference was only 3 hours, but she has what I like to call ‘sleep debt’, it is the term de jour. Sleep, or lack of it, is all over the news, so she is right up to date. I have watched so much Carnivale, Dead Zone and West Wing that I am TV Happy in a good way. I have moved right up to tape 60, so only 15 to go now. Yesterday it was 28 C and humid and sunny to boot. I went to Karen’s house and she gave me some presents from China, Macau and Hong Kong : jade earrings and beautiful bangle, a lovely incense burner which is a jade trinket box with a good likeness of a dog on top!! ( I am a Tiger, and a Leo so I have an overabundance of the regal cat) a most wonderful faffing about in dressing gown thing in an eye popping lime green, embossed with symbols and patterns – and then we went to the Muffin Kitchen for a fruit and vegetable platter and Ploughman’s for lunch, and finally a shop. I bought new Easter biscuit cutters, 3 bunnies and a lamb and Karen wants Kiss biscuits in a scalloped flower shape. Kiss biscuits are plain sweet biscuits that you cook, and then two are sandwiched together with raspberry jam ( it must be raspberry) and then iced with pink icing and sprinkled with round 100s and 1000s. They are best eaten after a day or two as they soften. They are biscuits of childhood, along with jam drops and ANZACs. Then it was too hot so we went to Karen’s house and watched the first episode of Season 2 of Blake’s 7. It was such a good episode, which we watched with cynicism and total joy!!!
I was so hot that I had to have Mr Cooly cooling all night. The Labradors were sad as this was the longest they had been left alone for ages, almost 6 hours. They were very happy to see me home. Harki has an appointment at the Vet today at 11 am. Peri will be ‘Home Alone’ so we will wait with bated breath to see the effects.
Berry Sorbet
500 ml of fruit juice ( cranberry, raspberry etc)
250 ml of another juice ( pink grapefruit…)
125 g caster sugar
1 egg whitePlace juice and sugar into a pan over low heat and stir till sugar is dissolved, boil without stirring and then cool. Freeze in a metal tray till just frozen and then put in a blender with the egg white and process till smooth. Freeze again. Serve with berries and a splash of champagne.

Pass the Port

2005-02-19T10:52:00.000+11:00

Saturday, 19 February 2005
I had no email all yesterday and when I turned on the computer today a lot arrived. I do think that some emails are missing though as it is VERY unusual for me not to get any emails at all for 33 hours. Can’t complain too much, but I do think IPrimus should send all their customers an email. This should be easy to do!!! Yesterday I almost finished the curtains, I ran out of time as I had to go to hospital to have a blood test – look away now if you are squeamish…………I needed to have my port flushed as well, this is where they sick a very big needle into my port, through my skin, it nestles just under my collarbone on the right. My port is slanty though, so there is more than just a layer of skin to go through – I always have a local. Normally blood doesn’t come back when the draw on the syringe, but the last twice it did, so we gambled and yesterday it did too!!!! This is very exciting for me as I only have one good vein left for access and I don’t want to use it if I don’t have to. Right, you can look back now…….
Today Karen arrives home from Macau, and I have left her a chocolate brownie and a casserole in the fridge. It will be very strange as she has been away for about 10 weeks. The Labradors will have forgotten what she looks like!!! Nothing else exciting has happened : my knee feels better each day by tiny increments ; TV is all or nothing, like Oklahoma ; I put things on lay by, secret lay by things for a friend ; and I have had plenty of sleep. I was going to go to the pictures to see The Incredibles on Thursday but it was not on, despite no “Last Days” notice in the paper. It is on today and tomorrow at 10 am. I have missed it now today and I don’t know about tomorrow yet.
In our State the Premier and the Labor Party are not doing too well. The whole of Australia is Labor in the states and territories, but Liberal/Nation Coalition Federally. No wonder the Premier, Lennon!!!! Is not doing wee, he has ridden roughshod over people, been against the Federal Labor Party and generally handled everything badly. The Royal Hobart Hospital is in a state of turmoil, with some patients being told to move to the mainland to live to qualify for treatment there. He is not conciliatory or inclusive and he comes across as someone who would give you a head butt as soon as look at you. He is also in Gunns’ pocket, he and Gay decide what will happen in all of the forestry and now the pulp mill areas. We don’t want a pulp mill. The last time this was mooted, the Greens surged to power!! There are 6 out of 25 now, about ¼ of the State’s politicians are Green!!! There has been an emergency meeting up at the Casino ( how appropriate as they gamble with our future) and it has been announced that there is an extra $50 million suddenly in the Government’s coffers. If only they would spend the money on health, education, law and order etc. There is an election in a few weeks in WA, and this could indicate what the trend will be. Usually you find that whatever the reigning party is here, we are the opposite to Federal Parliament.
Dirt Bike Cake
So called because I once made a cake in the shape of a dirt bike for a friend’s daughter!!!
125 g butter
220 g brown sugar
1 tbspn instant coffee
2 eggs
1 tspn vanilla extract
50 g self-raising flour
150 g plain flour
1 tspn bicarb soda
½ cup cocoa
180 ml buttermilk
100 g ( or more!!) dark choc chips
Grease and line a 24 cm tin and preheat oven to 180 C ( 160 ff).
Cream butter, sugar and vanilla, add coffee and eggs. Add ½ sifted dry ingredients, then ½ the buttermilk, fold in and repeat. Mix in choc chips. Bake for 50-60 minutes. Cool in tin for 30 minutes then place on a rack.

School's in for Summer ( actually almost Autumn!!)

2005-02-17T17:59:00.000+11:00

Thursday, 17 February 2005
The IPrimus site and email has been down for 6 or so hours now, so no emails and no idea of how long it will be before they are up and running again. I have not let this stop me sending emails, but they have gone off into the ether unsupported!!! My ISP is actually very excellent and I can’t remember the last time they were down, so I’m not complaining, just stating the fact!! I do feel isolated though.
Today is the first day of school for all the children , over 70,000 of them trotted off today. It was not too hot or too cold so they have been lucky. We are all looking forward to hotter weather, because as soon as school goes back the temperature soar!!!
On the subject of education, Brendan Nelson had been at it again, running down teachers – and I want to say literally!!! He said ‘god knows they need some’ of teachers’ professionalism and is instigating another inquiry, this time into teacher education. Having taught for over 20 years I can certainly say that teachers are neither treated, nor paid, as professionals, but have the term used against them all the time. You have no office, nowhere to put your bag, hat or coat away for safety, no lunch hour ( there is always duty or sport training and you always have to supervise the children eating their lunch for 10-15 minutes out of the 50 minutes for lunch) there is no-one to do all the typing, note-taking, photocopying etc, all teachers need a PA, I know this is where non-teachers jump in and say but what about all the holidays. Oh I would have gladly given up the holidays to have been appropriately paid for all the overtime I worked during term time and the holidays, it was easy to work a 60 hour week. I would have also loved to have has a sensible amount of children in the class, 24 instead of 32, and I would have liked the children with special needs of any description to have the specialist education, help, OT ( nappy changing) in the proper environment. I taught in a room that was nearly 100 years old, too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter. I could go on, but I wasn’t too badly off. Others worked harder, in much worse conditions.
There, I have vented my anger at the plethora of inquiries that have ended up going nowhere. If only they had spent the money on education……………
Cherry Ripe Cheesecake
50 g plain sweet biscuits, crushed
50 g coconut
40 g melted butter
500g cream cheese ( Philly) softened
75 g caster sugar
2 eggs
200 g dark chocolate, melted
160-200 g Cherry Ripe, roughly chopped
300g fresh cherries, pitted and chopped in half ( these are in season now!!)Mix coconut, biscuit crumbs and melted butter and press into the base of a lined 24 cm springform tin. Refrigerate for 15 – 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 170 C (150 ff). Beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth, add eggs one at a time, beating only a little – too much air can help the cheesecake crack. Fold in Cherry Ripe, cherries and chocolate, fill tin and then bake for about 50 minutes. Turn oven off and cool in oven. Refrigerate, then eat!!!

Too many chiefs and not enough commonsense!!

2005-02-16T17:43:00.000+11:00

Wednesday, 16 February 2005
How quickly the proud are humbled! All my excitement about my leg feeling better has made me walk a bit more and of course now I am paying for it. In general though my hip and femur have stopped their incessant aching and just my knee and muscles are boogelly.
Last night on Foreign Correspondent ABC, they were reporting from Vanuatu, where the traditional women’s dress is a kind of frilly and madly patterned ‘mammy’ dress, a la Gone with the Wind . Is this non-PC?? I don’t know? Describing people’s ethnicity is a minefield these days. It can become so tense that you simple don’t discuss things. Anyhow, the ‘chiefs’ have decided that any woman who wears trousers or board shorts will be fined a pig and keep on being fined. The male preacher in the highly evangelical church was also preaching for the island dress, and against anything else. This, all, while the men pranced about in cool shorts and T-shirts etc. Luckily one woman there was ignoring them and she was going on her merry but Gandhi-like way, causing no real affront, but wearing her jeans and short sleeved tops.
Today the GardyGardeners came and we all had pikelets, the people with raspberry jam and cream, and the non-people with no toppings at all. I have been to the ABC to pick up my prize – a CD from Landline and I know and like lots of the songs and a Limelight magazine- then to the Library and the Bookshop where I bought a green pen!! And the latest Anne MacCaffrey in paperback, and to the supermarket. I am v v tired now and thinking of a long nap. I am making Karen a rich beef casserole and she wants mashed potato on the top, and a chocolate brownie too, as she arrives home on Saturday afternoon. I will leave it in her fridge and she can whack it in the oven and heat it up whenever she is hungry.
Pikelets
¾ cup milk
1 egg
35 g melted butter
150 ml plain flour
1 tspn baking powder
55 g caster sugar ( optional)
Sift dry ingredients into a bowl, make a well and pour I the wet. Gradually mix in and beat till smooth. Ideally, leave for 30 minutes, but it is fine to use straight away. Heat a heavy based fry pan to low/medium. Melt a little butter and put dessert spoons full carefully into it. Turn when bubble appear on the top and almost pop. Cool. Eat!!!

What I 'kneed' to help me walk!!!

2005-02-15T18:37:00.000+11:00

Tuesday, 15 February 2005
Well I have hobbled of for a walk and then I did my ‘knee’ exercises and my knee felt a tiny bit better – I know this is all in my mind!! They are, otherwise, placebo exercises!!! An interesting concept. Thus far I have rested all day, read a book, then napped all afternoon. It has been warm again, but not too humid. I still feel tired, but I want to stay up to watch ‘Trevor’s World of Sport’ with Neil Pearson, by the “Drop The Dead Donkey” people. It is not laugh out loud funny, but very witty and clever. I have been given lots of fresh new zucchini and tomatoes from gardens so I am making a zucchini, tomato and red onion sauce to have with some pasta for my tea. Then I will gently poach some pears and make a custard. Yum.Nothing much has happened today : there is more hooha about the Spirit 3, and more rumblings about a Frenchman receiving $25,000 compensation for being put in the Baxter Detention Centre for 3 or 4 days when he was a tourist. Even when they finally allowed him access to the French Embassy,, and the staff confirmed he was who he said he was they wanted him to – wait for it – sing the French national anthem, name some French mountains ad the President to show he was French!! The detention people are showing their incompetence in every facet of their work. Well done!! They are showing us to be one of the most right-wing countries around. Howard has the gall to threaten to invade other Asian countries to ‘root out’ possible terrorism threats, while our Customs and Immigration people can’t tell a tourist from a refugee!!!

We are the knights who say "Knee"!!!

2005-02-14T14:11:00.000+11:00

Monday, 14 February 2005
Ah, the magic of Valentine’s Day. In Australia it is basically disappeared!!! Although it is pushed with desperation by commercial outlets. Really it is for teenagers. Real people don’t ‘do’ Valentine’s Day here. Yesterday was a day of sloth, in a good way!! I watched 3 tapes of catching up : I really like The West Wing and The Dead Zone. I forget how much I like these shows.
James Hardie has had a drop in profit of 30% and guess what? It is not their inhumane, greedy, grasping, beyond belief bad treatment of the many people their products killed/are killing/will kill. NO, it is the cost of the ducky little inquiry!! They have spin doctors who are flogging a dead horse.
Nothing exciting happening for me. I am off to the doctor to about my sore knee. I am not looking forward to it as I am expecting bad news of some sort. In Hobart it is Regatta Day and Hobart Cup Day and here it is the first day back at school for teachers. I am feeling maudlin today and will, no doubt, feel this way all week. It is depressing as everyone is doing what I would love to be doing, but am unable to – Teaching.
I know I plod along being all chirpy and relatively positive, but especially now I remember the thrill of the new year, the excitement of a new class, the nervousness as the day arrives… I shall have a little cry later on , probably after the doctor!! And I will feel a bit better. I have been extra tired. Last night I was asleep around 11 and woke up at 9-30pm, and I expect to have a long nap this afternoon. I am whiling my life away.
I intend to sew 8 more seams, albeit long ones, and it will be curtains for the curtains sometime this week. I want to go and see The Incredibles so I hope they are on at least till Wednesday, though I’d prefer to go on Thursday to take my mind off things.
Knee update : Well, I have apparently lost my groove!!! My knee cap has come out of its groove and that is what is causing the pain. I have exercises to do, and the worst possible outcome is day key hole surgery, in and out, and they will scrape any gunk from the groove!! This is exceedingly good news and I don’t have anything terribly bad at all. I am amazed that I originally has a groove at all!!!
Mini Florentines
120 g sultanas
2 cups corn flakes
60 g flaked almonds
110 g red glace cherries
160 ml condensed milk – sweetened
60 g each of white and dark chocolate
Preheat oven to 180 C ( 160 ff) Combine all ingredients and mix well. Drop heaped teaspoons ful, well spaced, onto the trays. Bake 6 minutes. Cool on tray.
Melt chocolate and spread ½ the bases with each type. Squiggle with a fork to give that characteristic look.I often use glace ginger, and other fruit, less cornflakes and more almonds, but you can adapt to your own taste. In our climate they are melty, so refrigerate!!

Our house, in the middle of an expensive street!!

2005-02-11T12:41:00.000+11:00

Friday, 11 February 2005
It is so good the way the date on Word just updates all by itself. It is very hard to type when there is a happy, wiggly Labrador bopping you with her head!! Harki has a plastic bottle, and I have but a crumbled up Goodo in it to keep her amused. Today we went for a swim at the dam with Mark and HollyPolly. Harki sway way out into the dam and Peri was the fastest and most exuberant swimmer!! We went for about 40 minutes so I am quite tired.
The Cylon Head boxed set of the original series of Battlestar Galactica has just been delivered. It is very sliver and shiny!!! The man remembered to deliver it to the bay windows instead of the door!!!
Interest rates are about to rise. This affects me very little in the actual hose mortgage area, but it will be very bad as many people have bought very expensive houses. I hope you are sitting down now, the house over the road is for sale for ½ a million dollars, yes, $500, 000. I paid a little over $60,000 for this house about 17 years ago. My how prices have gone up. My house would not be worth that much, but I could not afford to buy it!!!! Of course the Howard Government reached out to the Mortgage Belt with promises that interest rates would rise less under them than under Labor. This was almost universally interpreted as there being no rate rises. People hear what they ant to hear. The financial pundits expect three or four rises in the near future. Apparently this is better than one large rise.
I am going Jessie’s to talk about school and have afternoon tea later on. Tonight the new Battlestar Galactica will be on digital TV. Cool!!!!!

Fudgy Peanut Butter Ice-cream Tart
1 24 cm tart case or 100 g plain sweet biscuits, crushed, and 50 g melted butter
1 litre vanilla ice-cream, or the special flavour of your choice
375 g crunchy peanut butter

Sauce
200 g dark chocolate
50 g white marshmallows
300 ml thickened cream

For biscuit base, mix crushed biscuits and butter and press into the base of a lined 24 cm springform or flan tin. Soften ice-cream and then beat in peanut butter. Spoon into tin and freeze at least 3 hours: overnight is better. To make sauce, melt ingredients in a small saucepan over a low heat, stirring till combined. Do not boil. Serve a slice of tart with the chocolate sauce!!!!!

I pull my black jeans on, I pull my new black jeans on! ( well, no actually, but it fits the song)

2005-02-11T09:04:00.000+11:00

Thursday, 10 February 2005
Isn’t it always the way? I finally decided my leg was hurting so much I should see the doctor : I made an appointment and of course this morning it feels better, not 100%, but better!!! I spent the better part of the morning fiddling with the Live Update of Norton Anti-Virus. It wouldn’t download the new anti-virus definitions. I had to follow the online help through 3 pages of instructions until I fixed it. It is probably because I downloaded the Microsoft patches. It always happens, the patches make something else malfunction. I had good intentions of walking the Labradors today ( road to hell etc ) but I didn’t wake up till after 9 am. I went to town to pick up a lay by and put a pair of new almost black winter jeans on lay by as they were 25% off!!! I have done some washing up, made lunch, I made salmon cakes last night ready for tea tonight, and I have fetched the mail – only a newsletter.
Oh great, the researchers are at it again, bagging anyone who isn’t married, or has been divorced: we are unhappier and not as healthy. I just love the way they infer it is your fault you are not married. I saw a woman on SBS or the ABC saying she didn’t choose to be a single parent : her husband ran of with a floozy and it was a fait accompli. Then some men have the gall to say they shouldn’t have to pay child support. Amazing!!!
I am knitting a Kath and Kim baby’s bonnet for my friend’s new baby and there are mistakes in the pattern. A knitting novice would be flummoxed! Target has a spelling error in their catalogue : recieve – for heaven’s sake, the spelling check should pick that one up!!! Mine did…..
Citrus Meringue Tarts
20 little pastry tart cases
2 eggs, separated
2 tbspn caster sugar
1 tspn citrus rind – lemon, orange or lime
30 ml matching juice!!!
20 g butter
Place rind, juice, yolks, sugar and butter in bowl over simmering water and whisk till it thickens, cool, then cover and refrigerate.
Beat egg whites till soft peaks form, add extra sugar gradually till it is all dissolved. Preheat oven to 220 C ( 200 ff) Spoon curd into cases and cover completely with meringue, you must seal it so none of the curd is peeking out at all. Bake 5 –7 minutes. Refrigerate till ready to serve!!!!!

I'm leaning on the keyboard and the whole post disappears!!!

2005-02-09T05:53:00.000+11:00

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!! I leaned on the keyboard and the whole post disappeared. Serves me right for not typing it in Word first but I thought it would be OK. Now I am too cross to type the whole thing again.

Saw Karen's dad, gave him chocolate eclairs with real cream , he gave me the 2 different green waterproof mascaras Karen had sent.
Sewed all but the side seams and top of 2 curtains for Karen, lots of straight sewing, not hard but there were voluminous amounts of fabric.
Have been hibernating and sleeping in 4 and 5 hour naps every day.
Labradors had a lovely swim, Harki is playful and Peri is full of beans!!
Off to lunch with Janette.
Brendan Nelson the Federal Minister for Education is mooting a country wide end of year 12 test. This is moronic as there is no common curriculum and so the test would have to be like the American SATs. No-one except him wants it. There are already Commonwealth tests for Literacy and Numeracy in years 1,3,5,7,9 and 11. There is also moderation, so, in a very bad example that has no basis in the real scores!! an 80 score inTasmania is worth 91 in NSW.

Right, a tiny summary of my writing and now the recipe!!!

A White Chocolate Mud Cake

250 g butter
180 g white chocolate
330 g caster sugar
180 ml milk
300 g plain flour
1 tspn baking powder
½ tspn vanilla extract
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 160 C ( 140 ff) and grease and line a 20cm tin. Melt butter, chocolate, sugar and milk, stirring till dissolved and cool. Sift in dry ingredients and mix in eggs and vanilla. Bake for about 90-100 minutes, cool in tin.Ice with white chocolate ganache, 125 ml cream and 360 g white chocolate gently melted and cooled till of spreading consistency.

Lock me up, Buttercup Baby!!!

2005-02-06T13:43:00.000+11:00

Saturday, 5 February 2005
Have been sleeping ginormously. Last night I made the Blueberry and lemon cheesecake and took it to Mark and Di’s. We had asparagus risotto for tea too, and a nice Tasmanian wine. We watched MIT. I had to take them LOST as they missed it. I hope the lovely Labrador in LOST is nice and safe. I also had lunch with Pauline and 2 of the sprogs. We went to the Muffin Kitchen and shared a Fruit and Vegetable Platter and a Ploughman’s Lunch. The food was all excellent and with 2 pots of tea it was only $16. The girls had huge sundaes and iced chocolates and muffins!!! Today I went tot Little Aths and saw some relays and some long jumping – which is why Pauline came up. After standing for 2 hours I had to sleep for 4 ½ hours this afternoon. We have had more thunderstorms today, but there are some poor people who live less than 40 km out of town who still have no power and won’t have power till tomorrow at the earliest. Cows can’t be milked, the seahorse farm had to buy diesel generators to aerate the tanks as the fish were dying, you can’t get petrol as the bowsers run by electricity. It is a joke in this day and age. I am saved from totally ravaging the Hydro as we do have hydro power and that assuages my 21st century guilt!!!
Now how is this for proving what a fascist state Australia is becoming? A woman was found wandering in northern Australia by some aborigines and she was confused and unwell and had a bit of a German accent. The police took her, questioned her and then put her in the Baxter Detention Centre, our camps where we lock up refugees, and yes you read that correctly, we lock them up. Well, as she appeared disturbed and had a bit of an accent they locked her up , and she was in solitary confinement or whatever they call it. The other ‘detainees’ noticed she was eating dirt and behaving strangely, but in over 10 weeks, nothing was done. Someone took a photo of her and her family read about it and identified her and she was freed. Her family had listed her missing 10 months ago and the police had all her details and a photo. Amanda Vanstone, the Minister for Locking up Innocent Refugees said that she gave conflicting information to the police. So she was locked up in a Detention Centre. Let us all be on our guard against this Government, in July the have total control of the House of Review, the Senate and all is lost.
Now, what shall I write about food??
Watermelon CrushySlush
2 kg watermelon, peeled, seeded and chopped
2 tbspn caster sugar
1 cup ice cubes
Place ½ the watermelon in a blender and process till smooth. Add rest of ingredients and blend 30 seconds or ill just well combined. Pour into small decorative glasses, on more crushed ice if you like and serve with Turkish delight. You can use flavoured ice cubed if you like – lemon or gingery might be nice!!!

Don't know why, there's no sun up in the sky : Stormy weather

2005-02-06T12:14:00.000+11:00

What a wild and windy and wet day we had yesterday and last night. Rain, 130 km winds, my tree fell over, roofs were ripped off schools and houses, 30 000 people had no power : not me amazingly!!! And it might not be reconnected for 2 days, floods, and sleet and snow and Melbourne had 150 ml, or 6 inches of rain, and as I type it is all beginning again. In the middle of Summer we are having atypical but not unexpected weather. On our island we have 100 times more weather per square cm than any other place on Earth. Heaps of my time is spent debating exactly what I should be wearing to cater for all the climate changes the day will bring!!! The night was so wild I slept badly and didn't wake up till 10 am. I have not had a nap today in the hope of a good sleep tonight.
Tomorrow I am off to lunch with Pauline at The Muffin Kitchen my all time favourite lunch place and then to Di and Mark's for tea.
The debate about abortion is up and running again, with a few misogynistic male politicians sparking it. 99% of the other politicians, male and female, are throwing cold water on the debate : they say the status quo is fine. Of course all the partriarchal religions are ready to ban women from doing everything as per usual. And the Pope is ill, though I hold out no hope for a progressive successor as he will have anointed a fellow conservative. No wonder the RC church is in such dire straits. It is run by old men who have no idea what it is to live in the 21st century.
Now, a recipe for today.......
Chocolate and Peanut Butter Slice
360 g white chocolate, chopped
400 g dark chocolate, chopped
140 g peanut butter ( or any nut butter you like)
matching toasted nuts!!!
Grease and line a 20 x 30 cm pan. Melt white and dark chocolate separately, cool, then stir peanut butter into the white chocolate. Drop spoonfuls of each mixture into the pan and swirl together. Stand 2 hours at room temperature for 2 house or till set. Here though, I'd refrigerate it!!!

Currying favour!!!

2005-02-03T12:58:00.000+11:00

Wednesday, 2 February 2005
Well, Lincraft – a craft , fabric etc shop – has gone into receivership. Lincraft closed in Tasmania 2 years ago under a cloud of denials of same, and now they will close Australia-wide. We had already been weaned off them, but I had bought via mail so I am very ad about that. It is because places like Spotlight, who offer cheap items, but little quality and less choice, have taken over the market. When they arrives, Lincraft and 3 other local shops closed and 6 months ago our manchester store closed as well. There is so little choice I will have to start a) using the literally $1000s worth of fabric I already have and/or b) find a really good online or mail order shop.
I have has a 2 ¾ hour afternoon tea with mostly chat and little ‘tea’. We took things left over home in our purses!!!
Today it is cool, cold even, rainy and windy. How divine. The Labradors are happy too. They have been most playful in the cool weather.
Curried Zucchini soup ( Cold weather food!!)
500 g zucchini
1 tbspn olive oil
250 ml stock
1 onion, chopped
1 tspn curry powder ( more or less to your taste)
Salt, pepper,
Cream/milk
Peel and slice zucchini thinly add with onion and oil to the pan and fry till lightly browned. Add curry, cook 1 minute. Pour in stock, cover and simmer for 15 – 20 minutes. When soft I push through a metal sieve or you could blend it. Reheat, season to taste. Serve with a swirl of cream!!! It is so yummy with zucchini fresh from the garden.

What, no Who? Why?????

2005-02-01T13:24:00.000+11:00

I don't know how or why but I missed Dr Who on Thursday, and it was part 4 of The Deadly Assassin too. The first 2 seconds taped and then that was it. I hope this didn't happen because I turned the TV off, because that means I have been taping a lot of nothing a lot of the time. Bah humbug. I can't check for another 20 minutes either. Now I am trying to remember what I have taped to watch later: 1066 The Peter and Dan Snow about Battlefield Britain. That might be all. I just did a trial run and everything seemed OK. O course it could be that the digital station went off but it does seem strange as I probably turned the TV off as soon as I saw it had started. I wish I was a Luddite. I am a semi-Luddite. It is much harder being a semi-Luddite, at least when you are a Luddite you can eschew all things technological. I can only eschew those I chose.
I have been pursuing my favourite past time : sleeping. I have slept so much in the last 2 days it is a wonder I can function at all!!! There has been a cool breeze despite the heat but we have had no rain.
We do have a new judge, Tennant, a woman : at last!!! Not because she is a woman, but because she is the best one for the job ( I wanted to be contrary and say she was the best man for the job!!)
I am worn down by the heat, I need smelling salts, a Nubian slave and a fan.
Passionfruit Sauce
110 g sugar
40-50 ml lemon juice
250 ml water
1 cup fresh passionfruit pulp
Stir water, sugar and lemon juice over low heat and stir till dissolved. Bring to the boil and add the passionfruit and simmer for about 10 minutes. Place in a sterilised jar and refrigerate. Yummy over ice-cream, peaches, strawberries, pavlova etc

Cool and the Gang!!!

2005-01-31T17:49:00.000+11:00

Sunday, 30 January 2005
At last, a little bit of cool weather and I have whiled away 5 hours this afternoon catching up on sleep and I feel so much better , well relative to a real person anyway!!!
Well done, congratulations John Howard, I am sure all of Australia supports your lambasting of the UN. What in the world do you think you are doing? DO NOT stick up for Dubya. We are not American, we do not want to be Americans : in the same way that Americans do not want to be Australian. Oh, I forgot, together with Mr Ruddock, Little Johnny is trying to find a way to make life even more of a hell for Mr Habib, the Australian just released from American custody. The poor man has been released, no charges laid, yet our PM had decided he IS guilty, if only they could prove it. He will be under constant supervision, no doubt by ASIO, and he will not be allowed to benefit from his ordeal. Benefit?? If only the internet had sound – I am squealing this like Monica from Friends. How could any monetary compensation ever make up for losing 3 years of his life? For false accusations? For torture? It never can. I hope he sues the pants off everyone he can. Why the Government would not support him is beyond me. Oh, right, he is guilty despite the lack of evidence and his release.
There, I have finished now it is safe to read on if you had your eyes closed. I have read more books, watched more of Carnivale which I absolutely lurve!! An made special dog food, and bought even more special Dr Harry large dog dog food. I have cut out a shirt and fiddle with the pattern to add some gathering and made some more beaded raspberries on my stump work. Tomorrow I have to go out to do bank money transfer things that can’t be doe on the Net, but then , should the weather be cool, I plan to sleep some more!!!
Cherry Chocolate Slice
125 g chopped butter
160 g white chocolate, chopped
160 g sugar
2 eggs
100 g plain flour
40 g self raising flour
150 g dark chocolate chopped
100 g pitted cherries
Nuts – if you like 100g or so.
Grease and line a 20 cm square pan, preheat oven to 160 c ( 140 ff) Melt butter and white chocolate carefully, cool for 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and stir gently but thoroughly. Spoon into pan , smooth top and bake for about 40 minutes. Cool in pan.

Camels, dust, bedouins: look, an oasis!! No, a mirage.....

2005-01-28T11:10:00.000+11:00

Unending, relentless heat, the burning sun, no relief in sight...we had a minor thunderstorm and revelled in it, but it was ephemeral. Tomorrow will be just as hot and Hobart has 15 C today. How envious are we? VERY!
There, the effect of the storm has completely gone, and only the cool memory remains. I have had to put red wine for dinner at Smokey Joe's tonight in the fridge to bring it to anything resembling room temperature!!! The heat has made me feel quite ill, and as it will continue tomorrow I am fast losing hope.....
I read Glenda Larke's 'Havenstar' ( written as Glenda Normaly) today . On the couch, in the hope of catching any breeze that might come in the window, I read the whole thing. It had elements of her trilogy : 'The Aware', 'Gilfeather' and 'The Tainted', but was different enough that I still liked it. Once again there are no red shirts in her stories and everyone is fair game.
Toffee Custard Cream
300ml cream
300 ml custard
Whip together and refrigerate.
50 g butter
50 brown sugar
2 tbspn golden syrup
2 tbspn cream
Melt butter, sugar and syrup in a pan, bring to the boil, stir till sugar is dissolved and then simmer on low for 2-3 minutes. Add cream, bubble for 30 minutes and cool. Spoon cream/custard into dishes and pour sauce over.

The Flying Monkeys missed by THAT much!

2005-01-27T15:23:00.000+11:00

I am like the witch in Wizard of Oz, I am melting, melting, melting. I am Pollyanna Glad Game glad though that I am not in Hobart where is was 36 C . Even sleeping cannot stop the never ending relentless heat. It is Lawrence of Arabia and the Get Smart episode with the pith helmet and the salt buttons : but worse. Peri has the right idea, she keeps playing in the paddle pool and getting wet from head to toe.
Australia Day awards, now I have started there is no going back. Once again there are almost twice as many awards to men than to women and also once again politicians, judges , the military etc are given awards for just doing their jobs. No-one gives a nurse an award for just doing her/his extremely important job. No-one gives the Red Cross volunteers who do all the volunteering after they have finished work an award. The whole awards system is tainted.
Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps. The German people want to do what the Japanese are already doing : not just forgetting their past crimes, but rewriting their history to make them go away. It is the Government not saying sorry all over again. It is very upsetting to see the camps and it makes me cry. How can people be so unkind to other people? It is beyond me.
White Chocolate Ice-cream
6 egg yolks
170 g caster sugar
700 ml pouring cream
1 tspn vanilla extract
100 g good white chocolate
Beat yolks with 50 g of sugar till creamy. Heat cream till almost boiling, pour over yolks, whisk and return to heat. Cook over low heat till thickened. Add chocolate and stir till it is melted and the mixture is smooth. Cool. Add vanilla. Pour into shallow metal tray and freeze for 1-2 hours. Remove and beat until smooth. Return to freezer. Repeat 3 times. Place in airtight container and keep in freezer.

What's new puppy dogs? Woof woof woof woof woof woof.

2005-01-26T07:01:00.000+11:00

Hi Aunty Captain Mrs Archer!!!! and to all the people reading!!! I wish I had music on my blog. What's new? The news!!! - the ABC news is having a big update . They are having the radio news theme - Majestic something or other - 2000 -ed up. There will be at least 2 cameras and a plasma screen TV. The weather will be presented in a different way too. I like the very old news theme, I hope this new on echoes it. I wonder if I am old enough to write a 'Why oh why?" letter about the olden days? Yep, sure am!!! The police have been extra specially busy and have arrested three 15 years old boys with regard to the $2 million arson on the City Mission and they have also caught the three men who escaped from the Hayes Prison Farm. They are morons, as all were up for parole and/or release this year. June Bronhill has died. She was a lovely opera singer : more a singer of the people than Joan Sutherland.
Well it has only taken me 9 years, 6 months and 21 days but I have finally changed the car registration into my name only, and only my name!!!zssxxxxxxxxxswwasdsxzxxzxxzvdd That was me mopping up the Earl Grey tea slopped onto the keyboard. Oops!! No wonder I am having trouble I am throwing the DingleDangle toy, typing, having a cup of tea and listening to the radio!! I also have a book but you can't type and read with my terrible typing style. I have picked up my latest pair of new green shoes and the man in the shop says that there will be MORE green shoes for Winter!!!! I can barely wait.
Now I shall address Australia Day - tomorrow. I didn't realise that we are expected to 'celebrate' this day. The hierarchy demands that we celebrate this day. I don't know why. What is so special about it? Maybe it is because of the parlous amoral state of the ruling party, but I don't feel like celebrating what Australia is.....I reckon we should all make George Dubya's devil sign and freak everyone out!! Have you seen Mr and Mrs Dubya? Very amusing!!
Rosewater Meringues
3 eggwhites
220 g caster sugar
1/2 tspn white vinegar
1/2 tspn vanilla extract
1 tspn rosewater
Preheat oven to 100 C ( as low as you can go in fan-forced) Put muffin papers into muffin tray and spray with light cooking spray. Beat eggwhites till soft peaks form and gradually add sugar till it is all dissolved ( no sugary grit when you rub mixture between fingers) Add vanilla, vinegar and rosewater, stir, and pipe or spoon into papers. Bake for 2 1/2 hours and leave in oven with door closed overnight.
Serve with raspberries steeped in syrup ( 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup water boiled after dissolved for 5 minutes, add 1 tspn rosewater) and lashings of whipped cream!!!

Ready - Set top box - GO!!!!!!!!

2005-01-25T11:11:00.000+11:00

It is 27 C inside but over 40 C outside in the sun and I am encouraging everyone not to go out in the midday sun!! I have attached the set top box to the TV and made it work, and THEN I attached that, in turn, to the VCR. Now I can tape from the set top box - it is for digital TV. Now there are 5 main stations and a few other news ones, and radio too. The picture is so crystal clear, it was a bit pixalated at times but seems to have settled down. The heat in no way enhanced my experience. It makes me cross, bad tempered and impatient. i react very badly to the heat. I have also managed to dig out The West Wing and the last season of DS9. Amazingly I had already done a tape and a bit so I don't feel so daunted.
Happy day today as the Season 2 DVD boxed set of Blake's 7 arrived all the way from sunny Macao/Macau and the Season 6 set of Stargate SG1 came as well!! Two people came to the front door so it was a good dog day all round!!! I have the urge to post cool weather desserts again.
White Chocolate Cheesecake
100g plain sweet biscuits
50 g melted butter
250 g Philly cream cheese, softened
125 g caster sugar
250 ml ordinary pourinf cream
200 g chilled marscapone
500 g chopped good white chocolate
Grease and line springform 20 cm tin. Crush biscuits and mix in butter, press into base of tin and refrigerate for 30 minutes. I do like to substitute some coconut or ground nuts for some of the crumbs.
Beat cream cheese and sugar tillsmooth, add cream, and then merscapone, beating till just combined. Melt white chocolate carefully in a heat proof bowl over simmering water - that doesn't touch the bowl- then add to cream mixture. Pour into tin and smooth down. Refigerate for 3 hours, but overnight is best. make a sauce from cream and melted dark chocolate.

Ol' 55 - no Frankie J Holden though!!

2005-01-24T07:55:00.000+11:00

Last night I watched the Battlefield Britain series, episode 1. It was very good, next week it will be the Battle of Hastings. There are people on the Net pooh-poohing parts of the show, but on the whole it is good. I also finally found episode 1 of the Melvyn Bragg series The Adventure of English. The mystery of its whereabouts was solved when I realised I had two tapes labelled 55!!! Tonight is the last of Carnivale series 1, no part of which I have managed to watch yet!!!Today so far I have been woken up at 9 am by the Labradors, made them an interesting meal of left over pasta sauce, grated zucchini and Stephanie Alexander food. It was very tasty apparently, as they ate it all up, and the end of my porridge too.
Today it is cooler, I have drawn the curtains to preserve the illusion : outside it is sunny and warm. I hope to be able to sleep tonight, and not lie there waiting endlessly to sleep.
The recipe today is Baked Ricotta with Poached Fruit
800g drained ricotta
2 eggs
225 g icing sugar
vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 150 C ( 130 fan-forced) and grease and line a 25 x 5 x 7 cm bar tin ( or whatever you have really) Beat ingredients till smooth, pour into tin and then place in a roasting dish filled with boiling water that comes 1/2 way up the tin. Bake 40 minutes, cool, then refrigerate for at least an hour. Turn out and slice. Serve with poached fruit, drizzled with syrup:
Place 220 g caster sugar, 60 ml port/juice/wine and 250 ml water in a pan and stir over low heat till sugar is dissolved. Add fruit : peaches, rhubarb, tamarillos, etc. Poach 4 minutes, and remove. Boil syrup till reduced by 1/2. Pour over fruit and cool.

2paw: Summers' time, and he's not livin' easy. Mark 2

2005-01-22T15:33:00.000+11:00

Oh, and if you were a bit puzzled as to why 6% of Tasmania being affected by the Devil virus was a bit of a small percentage to be worried about - my typing skills have failed me again - it is 66% or 2/3 of the total State!!!

Summers' time, and he's not livin' easy.

2005-01-22T15:31:00.000+11:00

Well, the academic who gave the speech I mentioned earlier this week has recanted!! There was such an outcry that he has published this - from the SMH.

"The president of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, has released a lengthy written apology, admitting he was wrong to suggest women do not have the same natural ability in maths and sciences as men.

In his third and most repentant statement this week, the former treasury secretary to Bill Clinton sought to make amends to faculty not just at Harvard but across the country who were offended by his remarks at a conference last Friday.

"I deeply regret the impact of my comments and apologise for not having weighed them more carefully," he said in a letter posted on his website. "I was wrong to have spoken in a way that has resulted in an unintended signal of discouragement to talented girls and women."

Dr Summers had told the private conference on the position of women and minorities in science and engineering that women's reluctance to work long hours because of child-care responsibilities was behind them not performing as well in the sciences. He also said boys outperform girls on high school science and maths scores because of genetic difference. As an example, he told the conference about giving his daughter two trucks. She treated them like dolls, and named them mummy and daddy trucks, he said.

In his most recent statement, Dr Summers said the human potential to excel in science is not dictated by gender, as evidenced by the distinguished careers of many women scientists.

He spoke of having learned much in recent days from emails and calls that he said "made vivid the very real barriers faced by women in pursuing scientific and other academic careers"."

It is like the man who rang up and blasted women who use the appellation 'Ms'. He said they should all go back to the 1950s and , basically, be grateful. I wish for him to wake up one day and find himself a young woman in the 1950s with ambitions and goals and see how he would like it. I like being a Ms. I am far too old now to be a Miss, and Mrs is my mother's name. Men don't apparently feel the need to signal their marital status all the time, so why should I? I am quite happy for other women to be a Miss or Mrs, but it's just not for me.

Cold Comfort Cake

2005-01-22T08:28:00.000+11:00

Today on The World Today on Radio National they had part 2 of their story on blogs. 10 years ago you would be lucky to have found 50 blogs, now there are millions. I am very happy TWT is back and I can listen to it twice: once on RN at noon, and then on northtas at 1 pm. When there is cricket or sport, the AM station (northtas) doesn't carry the programme. Soon northtas might change to FM. This would be good as there are ghosty signals and sometimes you can get a strong signal a few numbers apart and get a timeslip between one room and another. Last night the world was put on hold at Southern Cross as Lleyton Hewitt and James Blake played their third round match , I think. His new girlfriend after Kim Clijsters (sic) is Bec Cartwright a wannabe singer from 'Home and Away' a soap set at in a beach side town. Heaven help us it is spinning off into a 20 something show about Uni. I usually see only the end as it is on before Stargate SG1. And I am inordinately happy as I have found 'Timeless' and 'Emotional Chemistry' on the Minotaur website so I can buy them ( Dr Who 8th Dr books) and I can't find my 'Discontinuity Guide' but on the off chance I don't, they have that too!! Last night was the final Sarah Jane Smith and the jolly potplant she was holding changed colour from mauve in the TARDIS to white outside back on Earth. Mind you, there was a Labrador kind of dog!! So I forgave them.
The Labor free for all for the Leadership is on. Steven Smith won't stand, Rudd will and Gillard is likely to. Don't think Australia is ready for a woman leader yet, I am , but we are very conservative and scared of change. The Howard government is talking seriously about bringing in an identity card of some description. It is so hard to prove who you are. When you get your new photo drivers' licence, you can't use your old one as part of your ID requirements. How weird is that? I don't have enough points to get a new Smart Medicare card, so I put the form in the bin. When you don't go to work anymore it can be difficult to be a 'real person' to some forms of bureaucracy.
The Tasmanian Devil tumour disease has spread to more than 50% of the Devil population. The experts seem to think it is transferred through contact. 6% of the state is affected. They don't have a cure yet, though the scientists trying to breed Tasmanian platypusses in captivity hope to find a cure for the disease affecting them.
Now a recipe - the first one !!!

Cold Chocolate Truffle 'Cake'
350 g dark chocolate
400 ml milk
1 tbspn instant coffee
1 tspn vanilla extract ( or a vanilla bean, split)
2 tbspn caster sugar
900 ml thickened cream
Grease and then line 20 cm springform tin with plastic clingwrap. Melt chocolate. Put milk and vanilla bean ( if using ) in a pan and cook 10-15 minutes till reduced by half.Add coffee, vanilla extract ( if using) and sugar. Stir till dissolved ( remove bean) Whip cream till soft peaks form, fold in cooled chocolate and milk. Pour into tin, cover with more clingwrap and refrigerate at leat 4 hours, though overnight is better. Slice and serve with ice-cream and chocolate sauce. ( melt 125 g dark chocolate and 180 ml thickened cream, cool slightly)

Shatner and The Elephant

2005-01-20T11:55:00.000+11:00

2paw
Ok I am pretty au fait with the 'Blog this' button, the only draw backs being that the spell check seems to go all weird and you can't change the colour. It is seasonably warm - well it is the height of Sumner, but I do long for coolness.They have forecast rain , but who knows? Watched 'Stories from the Stone Age' on the ABC last night and there, acting in the doco, was a girl I taught a few years ago. I do know that people went to Hobart to participate in the filming, but there could be more people I know. I will have to scan the cast list. I will have to ask Zarina for her autograph!! The show was all about the changes from a hunter/gatherer society to one of farming, and it was very strange to see our state's log pop up amidst all the overseas ones!!! The apricots this year are truly delicious and I have almost a kilo of blueberries from Di and Mark.They picked them on their way home from Bellingham. I shall experience the joy of Summer in the cold dark days of Winter!!
I am looking forward to 'The Elephant' on SBS tonight and next week Enterprise is back. Oh and William "Captain Kirk' Shatner won a Golden Globe for an actor in a supporting role- as Denny Crane. He is terribly good, it is more about being Shatner I think, than actually about the acting. He has come into his own here though.
There will be almost 8 hours of Dr Who being watched today - all the First Doctor, but I might be tempted to watch the DVD of all the missing episodes tomorrow. I have read the last John Christopher book and await more from the Library. I think I shall have a nap soon, what an exciting life I lead!!!

And so it begins

2005-01-19T08:05:00.000+11:00

I have a new blog here - it is kind of Babylon 6 : the Babylon 4 station blew up, the Babylon 5 station was eventually turned off and so we have Babylon 6!!! Oh an academic asked to make a provocative speech at a conference in America has said that men have a natural affinity and ability at maths and science while women have none . He is a spokesman for USA education. He has been howled down by other academics. They say educators should be creating environments where all students are valued. They admit that there are innate abilities based on individual differences, based on Nature/Nurture. He has backed down, and says he remains committed to the advancement of women in science and maths, blah, blah, blah..... This is a typical attitude and understanding of the ability of males and females. It is a generalisation to say that all boys are good at maths and all girls are good at language based activities. This may seem true, but when given the opportunity, girls will excel at science and mats, and boys at language. This will not be ALL boys and ALL girls. Some girls will not be good at maths and some boys will be abysmal spellers. Personally I love maths in all its varieties and aspects and I used to make children smile through gritted teeth and say "Maths is Fun"!! I also love language : spelling, grammar, reading, writing, speaking etc... I am quite tired today and I have an ever so slight headache. I think I will do some Dr Who-ing and then have a nap.