glory day

Oh look, he’s flying ON MY FABRIC

Today was a surprisingly successful day in the fast-paced high-octane world of feline-oriented charity retail. 

So, cat photo:

Can I just say for the umpteenth time CLAWS DO NOT GO IN FABRIC AARGH!!

I really don’t know how he does it – he can be sound asleep in the attic, I quietly – quietly! – lay out my fabric and then BAM there he is.  And it’s really rather difficult to cut around a cat.

I don’t mind having cat hair on my clothes (actually I do but I’ve learnt to deal with it) but little tears in the fabric before I’ve even made the sodding garment really annoys me.

Baking *day

Baking Sunday was actually Baking Monday this week, due to Sunday being a bit of a write off productivity-wise.

Baking Monday produced Ginger Puffs with Orange Cream:

It was hard to get a decent picture of these because they are tiny.  Like, open your mouth to speak and all of a sudden you’ve eaten one tiny.  This goes some way to explaining why there are only three (ha! WERE only three! now there ARE only two!) left.

They were easy to make, and basically you end up with 24 very small, puffy, almost insubstantial little rounded biscuits.  Then you sandwich them together with a layer of orange cream (which in itself is almost too yummy to be true) and sprinkle with icing sugar.

I’ve made something similar in the past but these were an easier process with a more consistent baking time.  They’re quite simple, but I think they could be a good go-to tea cake.

Less ‘Gloomy Sunday’, more blah Sunday

Yesterday was grey and rainy, the kind of day where getting out of your pyjamas seems unnecessary.  The kind of day for reading the paper, and reading the internet, and eating potato chips – hey, all of which I achieved! – but little else.

So after flopping about on the sofa for most of the day I made the mistake of eating a handful of chocolate-covered coffee beans.  Big.  Mistake.  Insomniac + night owl + coffee beans = one tiny little brain-voice shouting oh my god this is so great hey i know lets tidy the bookshelf its only 2am wheeeee so much fun while the rest of my brain watched reruns of The Unit and tried to pretend nothing was happening.

When I finally went to bed the brain-voice still wouldn’t shut up so I lay there thinking omg what is the name of that girls cat is it sapphire no i think its mitzi no wait wait wait its muffin no its sapphire, so obviously that wasn’t such a relaxing thing to do.  And then I dreamed that I was at a rally with some buffoonish clown the leader of the opposition, whereas in reality SIGNIFICANT sums of money would have to change hands for that to happen.

Today was a little more productive (although hard not to be, really) and tomorrow hopefully I’ll get some more sewing done.  I’ve been sewing quite a bit lately, including this baby blanket:

It’s for a baby girl who is due to appear some time this week, and I hope she likes it.

It takes a village to bake a cheesecake

Baking Sunday this week featured a Chocolate Cheesecake.  I was quite excited about making it as I’ve recently become quite appreciative of the goodness that is a great cheesecake, plus I could pretty much eat chocolate anything.

After De crushed up the biscuits for the base and David separated the eggs (two things not in my skill set, it seems), after three hours in the oven, after 12 hours in the fridge, we had this:

You will note that the “chocolate curls” are less curl-y and more blob-y. 

And it was nice enough, but it wasn’t anything special.  It was a bit gluggy, a bit bland and the texture felt a bit off.  Eating it feels like I’m doing something that I have to do, rather than what I want to do – how appropriate seeing as it’s Lent.  Yes, I’ve taken up eating sweet gloop for Lent.

I’ve got another baked cheesecake recipe which I prefer to this one, so that was the last time I’ll make the Chocolate Cheesecake.  But it was interesting to try something new even if it wasn’t perfect.

Charity retail: the gateway cat-photo drug

It’s charity retail day, so I feel justified in posting a cat picture:

My mum sent me this … thing – a sort of quilted flat bag?  After some judicious googling we discovered it was a balloon cover – basically you put the [uninflated] balloon inside the cover then blow it up.  Then hey presto, a large, light ball for cats to play with which won’t pop suddenly [because the quilting stops their claws from piercing the balloon].

All very well in theory, but Mr Puss HATES it.  He’s TERRIFIED of it.  This is the only picture I have with him and the balloon cover in the same shot (and I’ve been at this for three months now!) and as you can see he’s cowering behind it, unable to make eye contact.

He’s so funny – he tries to represent himself as a tough, staunch warrior, but in reality he’s a big old softie sook who’s afraid of balloons.

Baking Sunday

Baking Sunday was all about the Portuguese Custard Tarts.

I made (what turned out to be) a bit of a mistake with these.  Last week I needed four egg-whites for the Pavlova, so I decided to freeze the corresponding four yolks needed for the tarts.  Google told me that freezing egg-yolks was fine, no worries.  However they never really thawed properly, and there were some quite large lumps of yolk in the custard.

If you bit into a lumpy-yolk bit the tarts tasted quite egg-y but overall they were pretty good.  David liked them very much (although you could probably smear baked custard over old socks and David would enjoy them).

Here they are pre-icing sugar covering, so you can still see the little lumpy-yolk bits:

And once I’d heaped on the icing sugar they were just lovely.

They were relatively quick and easy to make (compared to, eg, the Praline Chocolate Fancies) and I’d definitely consider making them again – although with fresh egg-yolks this time!

Jewellery

I love jewellery.  Love it.  I’ve got a few pieces I’ve bought over the years but mainly I make my own.  And every so often I get bored with what I’ve made, break it all down and start again.

The problem with my jewellery collection (which makes it sound way more posher that it is) is that once you have everything sorted into boxes it becomes very difficult to find a particular piece.  I solved that problem with my necklaces by making this:

That still left the problem of the earrings (one of my many pet peeves: when you find one of the earrings you want to wear but can’t find its mate) and I was fairly stumped.  But then David bought me an earring rack!  So cute!

You can see all the earrings!  And twirl the rack around until you find the earrings you want!  Let’s watch the earrings twirl!

[Not pictured: the 20 minutes it took me to find and pick up the twirled earrings.  Turns out that earrings aren’t a fan of twirling, who knew.]

Of course once I’d put all the earrings on the rack there were a few pairs (say, 7 or 8) that were ripe for breaking down and re-making (I know it’s juvenile but I like to play some sort of reality TV show host with the losing pairs, wishing them goodbye “for they are the weakest link”.  Stupid but kinda funny).  I made a trip to Etelage, my local bead shop, for some reinforcements and spent Friday afternoon making earrings and necklaces.

Such fun!  And now I have more jewellery, which is always a good thing.

Baking Sunday: Pavlova

It seems ironic that although I was born and raised in New Zealand (where the pavlova was invented) and now live in Australia (where some misinformed people WRONGLY believe the pavlova was invented) I was extremely nervous about attempting to bake a Pavlova.

My mum used to make fantastic pavs when I was a kid – high, fluffy, chewy on the outside and melt-in-your-mouth inside.  Then something changed (did they buy a new oven? I can’t remember) and all her pavs after that came out flat, crisp and brittle.  And often burnt.  I thought that if pavs had turned on my mum I would certainly never be able to make one successfully.  Also I was a bit wary of the beaten egg-whites, which sounded very time-consuming and complicated.

Despite my trepidations the Pavlova turned out brilliantly:

Here it is fresh from its 3½ hour stint in the oven – and how weird is that, I put it in the oven, watched a game of rugby and it still needed cooking – perhaps a bit flatter than we might like, perhaps a tiny bit cracked but glossy and gorgeous anyway.

After the application of raspberry and chocolate whipped cream we had this:

Seriously so good.  The berry whipped cream added a tiny bit of tartness to cut the sweetness – and my god, it was sweet!  My teeth were aching from the sugar, and considering my teeth are 95% plastic that’s quite an achievement.

So the Pavlova was a roaring success and I’m feeling quite pleased with myself and my rock-on baking prowess right now.

It’s the Thursday kittie post

Today was a rather successful day of charity retail.  We’ve been having a good week this week despite the hideously hot weather (our customers don’t tend to come out shopping when it’s stupidly hot).

And because Thursday is all about the kitties, it’s time for another picture of Mr Puss:

pictured here in his litter tray.

I had scrubbed out his litter trays and put them outside to dry in the sun.  I went to bring them in and found Mr Puss lounging about:

Of course it makes total sense that he sleeps in his litter tray – it’s not like he uses it for anything else!  [No seriously, he uses his litter trays only under sufferance – I think he feels they demean him.]

Christchurch

The Southern Hemisphere has been doing it tough the past couple of months – flooding and bushfires throughout various parts of Australia and the devastating earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Christchurch and I still have friends and family there – all of whom are safe THANK GOD.  I grew up in Dunedin so Christchurch was always our Big Smoke (it’s about 300 km away, or 8 looong hours on the midnight Railway bus).  Fion and I would save up our [meagre] pay for a shopping spree in Christchurch every three months or so, and I still have some of the things we bought back in … 1986? 1987? (doesn’t matter, the point is that we loved shopping in Christchurch).

David and I went to Christchurch in 2006 to watch the Bledisloe Cup (of course!  David and I only travel for rugby and xmas!).  We had an fantastic time – we’d shouted my dad a ticket to the game as well so spent the long weekend with family and rugby and great food, and the shopping was still awesome.  We stayed at a hotel across from the Avon and just a few blocks from the Cathedral.

I took a photo of the gorgeous dolphin fountain at the Botanical Gardens:

I don’t know if this fountain is still standing.

The hotel we stayed at evacuated all guests and staff safely, but will not be considered safe to open for at least three more months.

The pub we went to before the game is closed until further notice.

The stadium where we saw the game won’t be re-opened for at least six months.

The Irish pub where we staged our recovery breakfast has been partially demolished.

The Cathedral is in ruins.

I know that Christchurch will be rebuilt – because Cantabrians are a staunch and bloody-minded bunch, god love ‘em – but right now I’m feeling for the people of Christchurch and hoping and praying that things will get better.

We’ve donated to the Red Cross because in the words of one Cantabrian “we don’t need stuff, we need dosh!”

Kia kaha, Christchurch.