Lost in translation

I realise I had done my 'new recipe of the week' with the Rocky Road but I woke this morning in the mood for some serious cooking. I've been craving some of the old recipes my mum used to cook when I was growing up so yesterday bought the ingredients for Lancashire Hot Pot. It's cooking at the moment and I can almost taste the succulent lamb, the texture of the pearl barley, the softness of the carrots and those gorgeous crisp slices of potato. I digress! So as that takes 2 hours to cook, I decided to use the top oven for some baking. I had seen Robyn's son Andrew making something that looked delicious here in the post 'One thing I miss' and we all know how great the Americans are at cookies don't we? Us Brits can't compare, so I thought I would give Robyn's recipe a whirl and have a go making a few minor adjustments along the way.

Firstly I had the problem of translation. How can two countries who speak the same language have so many differences?! Over here we are brainwashed into exact measurements and those of an advanced age such as myself (ahem, you don't HAVE to agree with that!) not only had to learn one set of imperial measurements when we were growing up, when we got into our teenage years we had to learn again with metric. (Hands up if you remember 'Granny gets the point' on TV? A public information advert to help learn decimal currency. No one? Just me? Oh my goodness I'm older than I thought) So anyway, the Americans use cups. How easy must that be? No need for scales. Good old Google, directed me to a 'convert.com' programme and I had my translation. And of course America still uses the imperial scale of liquid - no litres in sight! Then of course there are some ingredients that I don't think I've ever seen in Tesco or Sainsburys or Waitrose: Canola oil? Is a Canola anything like a Sunflower? I had to hope for the best! The temperature seemed awfully high at 375 degrees, until I realised that in the US they use Fahrenheit not Centigrade.

Now at this point I have to say that when it comes to a tidy kitchen, young Andrew could teach me a thing or two. I am officially messier than a four year old. Chocolate mixture over me, the work top, and the kitchen towel. I decided to go for a larger, flatter cookie shape as in our family that seems to be most popular. Plus my daughter prefers a less dark chocolate so I was probably more frugal on the chocolate front. But you know what, these are some pretty tasty cookies. Don't take my word for it, pop over to Robyn's and have a look!

Happy Days

wow! An award! For little ol' me! Thanks Sian. This has made me smile on a day which was so frustrating at work and had made me come home with those little frown lines on my forehead slightly deeper than when I left home this morning. So now with the world of school firmly behind me and the weekend peeking round the corner I am proud to announce the things that make me happy

• When both 'kids' are home in the holidays and I go to bed knowing all four of us are safely tucked up in bed in the same house
• Alexander the Meerkat's 'compare the market.com' advert - always makes me smile
• A chilled glass of prosecco or champagne
• Snuggling under a fleece blanket on the sofa watching Grey's Anatomy. Especially enjoyable if I know I really ought to be doing the ironing
• Going to my sister's holiday home in Portugal, the minute you open those patio doors and feel the warm Portuguese sun on your face you know that relaxation time has begun
• Reading just before I go to sleep at night. Even if my eyelids can barely stay open, I love a good book
• Seeing my son's name as 'online' on Facebook while he is at uni. Sometimes that's as close as I get to having a 'conversation' with him all week
• Doing something creative and if it causes a mess throughout the study or dining room, so much the better.
• Trying out a new recipe. Especially if the first ingredient is chocolate
• Having friends round for dinner, eat, drink and be merry, that's my philosophy!

And now to pass this award on, with the instructions to follow my lead and list those things that make you happy too. There are a couple of people I would have included but someone else got there first so I will choose people previously un-nominated:

Denise for being a brilliant friend over the last 32 years and for introducing me to scrapbooking

Robyn whose blog has such great variety, I only know her through cyberspace but she's the kind of person I'd like to be friends with

Abi who I 'met' through Shimelle's blogging class. I relate to her stories as she's not far off the age of my son and when I read them I can almost hear the way she is writing them (does that make sense?)

Rachel B she has a gorgeous little boy and I love the pictures she takes of him and the little snippets of info of the funny things he does.

And as for Sian and Mel ; I would have included you guys but you've already been nominated and there's only so much room on your mantlepiece for awards!

Recipe of the week - Rocky Road

I have the tattiest, scruffiest old recipe book that I hand write any recipes that other people give me or that I scribble off the Internet. The recipes are given my own title, which usually includes the name of the person who gave it to me. Which explains 'Auntie's Lemon Flan' 'Denise's Cherry Cheesecake' 'Mum's meringues' and 'Debbie Turner's Hawaiian Chicken'. You can tell how often I have cooked something by the amount of splashes and bits of crumb on the pages. Remember my intention to try a new recipe every week? Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to: Lynn the Osteopath's Rocky Road:

250g plain choc
150g milk choc
175g butter/marg
4 tbs syrup
200g broken up biscuits
150g Brazil nuts
150g glace cherries
125g mini marshmallows

Melt chocolates together with butter/marg
Add syrup
Chop up nuts and cherries and add to the mix with the broken biscuits and marshmallows
Pour into 10" square greased tray.
Put in fridge to set and then cut into squares.

(I cheated and melted a bar of milk chocolate with nuts in rather than chop nuts up and add separately!)

End of the weekend

You know, I can't quite get used to working on a Monday. For 8 years I've worked part time but never on a Monday. In September I was asked to increase my hours and to come in for 4 hours on a Monday. And it still takes me by surprise on a Sunday night when I realise I've got to get up early the next day!
We almost booked a holiday yesterday. Even got as far as sitting in Thomas Cook. But we can't quite decide where to go or what to do. We had almost decided to go on a cruise, decided on a route and everything. Then actually priced it up. Blimey they are expensive! To be honest, I quite like having a couple of short breaks in the year as well as a week or so away and if we went for the cruise, that would be it for the year. So that is on the back burner.
Back to the drawing board. We have to go in school holidays as I work in the office of a secondary school. My husband doesn't 'do' extreme heat and I don't 'do' activity holidays. We need somewhere where the sun will be shining, preferabley a nice beach, good food, pretty scenery. Photo opportunities for serious scrapping on my return. Somewhere with a bit of local charm and atmosphere. Anybody any recommendations?!

Sloe-ly does it

I've been very patient.










It's been hard not to touch this.










We HAD to finish the contents of a pretty bottle so I could decant it ;-)
But these little juicy berries have done their business.
They've fermented and matured and given up their juiciness.
And now the time has come
To sit down, relax and enjoy ...

It's complicated!

Last night I went to see this:

It was so funny and if you find yourself with 2 hours to spare and you fancy a relaxing evening, I suggest you find a friend to go with. I don't think it's a man's film so husbands/boyfriends should be left at home!
Whether you like Meryl Streep or not you have to admire her for not worrying about appearing without make up or fancy clothes. It was a good film and I think it had the right ending, it could have gone either way but she made the right choice in the end I think.
Go see it, let me know if you agree!

The Mermaid Story

Are you sitting carefully? Then I'll begin.
Once upon a time there was a novice scrapbooker called Deb who had been encouraged to go to a monthly Scrapbooking Crop day by her friend Denise. She had been a few times and managed to keep up with the work set. Every month the organiser of the crop would send a 'Sneak Peek' of what they would be doing and details of what needed to be taken from home.
On this occasion, they were told that the designer was a very talented lady called Michelle Mogford and that among other things they would need 2 head and shoulders pictures 3cm x 3cm. Pretty small for a 12 x 12 scrapbook layout huh? Denise assured Deb that she would enjoy MJM's work, she was quirky and original and her layouts were very different, modern and fun.
When the crop began, Michelle explained that she was going to teach something that could be incorporated into card making or interactive scrapbook layouts. The class were going to learn how to make the mechanism for moving characters. You know the type of thing, you pull a tab and a lever moves behind the front paper to make something on the page move up and down or side to side. Very clever, very intricate and quite outside of Deb's comfort zone! It was then that the handout was given out and the class realised that the characters that would be moving up and down were a mermaid and a mer-man and this is what the little photographs were for. Now, Deb wasn't sure that her 19 year old son and 23 year old daughter (whose photos she had taken) would be happy to see their little heads bobbing up and down in a sea-scene attached to the bodies of amphibious creatures. Denise was quietly confident that her very macho sons would be equally unhappy.
But none were more unhappy than those ladies who had brought along photos of their cats.

On a brighter note, the other layouts we did with MJM were fab, fun and funky, it's just that the mermaid one always makes us chuckle.