Travelling to Idaho

Ok we made it to Idaho, H was great on the flight he only slept for about three hours but was really good thought impatient for the plane to touchdown. The drive from Seattle to Idaho was ok, we mostly slept through it while my dad drove, H woke enough to have a few bites to eat then when to sleep as soon as he was back in the car, before he had a chance to eat the chocolate chip cookie he bought from a Starbucks on the way.

When we finally got to my parents place it was with a great sigh of relief to not be travelling anymore. We met the two new pugs, Niko and his mummy Sissy (the name she came with honest) which we nice though a bit to happy to meet H and there jumping made him cry. H is now one of the pack happily playing with the dogs and cats.

We have been awake since 3 am, well H has been awake I on the other hand have been stumbling around seeking coffee and wishing there was an espresso machine and barista in the house! Its 5am now, how do I know this well there are about a thousand clocks ticking and chiming in the house that my dad has restored and fixed. Strangely you would think it would be an awful racket but its not you get used to the noise rather quickly and I think its rather calming. Well Except for maybe the bird song clocks, oh and there is one that sounds a bit like pots and pans banging when it chimes the hour.

Its Sunday today and I don’t know what we will be doing later, I hope to go out for a bit, as caffeine and consumerism calls to me. If I put a dollar to my ear would I hear a list of stores? Old Navy, JC Penny’s, Cinnabun, Starbucks, Hot Topic, Jack in the Box, Gap, Macy’s, Borders, Barnes and Nobel… as they say money talks, or perhaps its just that living in England deprives me of certain favourite things.. Although Derby now has its own proper Mall, it only opened Tuesday and we were there for it, though it was lovely and shinny and new, with a Thomas Kincaid gallery of light, and a Colony Candle shop it just teased at being a real mall, there is no mall like an American Mall, they just don’t have that same mall smell.

Right I’m off to fight the effects of jet lag with another instant coffee! Not as good as a Starbucks but it’ll do.

Unbirthday Party

Yesterday was H's unbirthday party, his actual birthday isn't until the end of the month but as we are going to visit his grandparents he won't get to see all his little friends until we get back mid november. M took H out of the house for a few hours so i could bake and decorate the cake (pictured above) and decorate with a few baloons and frantically tidy and clean the house so that nobody thinks its the pigsty it really is most of the time. THe cake is a basic yellow cake recipe, I used the same recipe for the raspberry cream cake recipe listed on the right. The frosting is a chocolate cream cheese frosting and dont forget the malteasers!

I only got the tinyiest sliver of cake so I assume that means it was good, there was no arguing or fighting amongst the kids and H was very happy to get to play with all of his friends, he hugged everyone and sent them all on their way home.


Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing

1/4 cup butter
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup baking cocoa
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Beat butter, and cream cheese in medium bowl on medium speed until fluffy.
Gradually beat in cocoa, and powdered sugar on low speed until smooth. I used slightly less butter and icing sugar, due to the fact that I had run out of both but it still ended up very nice.

Dark Chocolate Mascarpone Cheesecake

Dark Chocolate Mascarpone Cheesecake

ingredients:

for the cheese mixture:
2 pkg. (250g each) mascarpone cheese
2 tablespoons caster (white) sugar
3 150g bars of dark chocolate 55% cocoa
1 tablespoon butter (i used slightly salted but you can use unsalted)

for the base:
12 biscuits (makes roughly 1½ cups crumbs)
2 tablespoons melted butter

Crush the biscuits and add the melted butter. Mix well and press firmly into a 8-inch pie pan. Pat down using the base of a glass. Place in fridge for 30mins to set.



While base is setting. Mix together the mascarpone and sugar using a wooden spoon or electric mixer. Break the chocolate into squares and microwave with the tablespoon butter until the chocolate is smooth and melted. Pour the chocolate into the mascarpone mixture and mix thoroughly. Pour the cheese mixture over the base and spread evenly . Put cheesecake in the for at least a half an hour. The cheesecake is a very firm texture but very lovely and decadent. I served it with a dollop of whipped cream.


cooks notes: The cheesecake turned out lovely I was very happy with the taste of it, the texture is firm and next time I make it I shall try a higher percentage of cocoa in the chocolate but use less of it. The recipe is my own I searched in vain for a dark chocolate cheesecake recipe that was no bake and had no eggs, there was not one to be had so I experimented and the result turned out great, I think that I inherited a cooking gene from my dad.

I shall write up a recipe for the peach cheesecake when I figure out exactly what I did.

Experiments in Cheesecake

ok have been expirimenting with cheesecake today one a dark chocolate and marscapone cheesecake, the other a smaller cinnamon peach cheesecake, I haven't sorted out a recipe yet because we havent eaten them yet. The Dark Chocolate Cheesecake is for a dinner party tommorow night, and the peach one is for M for pudding later, although I'm sure he would rather have the chocolate one all to himself. The mixtures tasted nice if thats any help but I'm not sure yet how the chocolate one will set hopefully it will be ok and not turn hard as a rock but I won't really know till tommorow night. fingers crossed.

Antisocial Butterfly

Last week I got in contact with somone that I went to high school with, through the lovely myspace, and I realize that I didn't really know her then and I'm glad that we found each other now. Yes boys and girls I am that tragic, not only do have have myspace but facebook as well, admittedly they are mostly blank because I haven't the time to be mucking about on them all day, I'd say I have a life but that's a lie, I have housework and I have baking too and bloging on here obviously!

Back to the story, for the purposes of anonymity and unless she wishes otherwise we will call my friend J. I met J my senior year of high school though I think we may have had had a few classes together before that. I was always a bit of a misfit, to be honest with myself I was just a shy flower on the wall, antisocial buttery, that wasn't cool enough to be really outcast from teenage society. Goth I am not, I'm just not that cool, although my hair is currently nearly black, but that's a story for another day.

J and I have found each other on my space and we have something in common now that we wouldn't have before. We both have sons, and they both have the same H name. Small world I guess, but it proves that the Internet is good for something. It connected me with M and now it has reconnected me with another survivor from the Montgomery High Hell! J and I are e-mail now, or rather e-mailing through myspace, would that be myspace-ing? And it would be great if we could meet up in person if M and I ever sort out flying back to San Fran for a few days next spring before flying up to my parents in Idaho. Catch up on the gossip and all. Its nice to make new friends from old acquaintances, and J was always nice to me in high school and I think there are probably only about a handful of people I can say the same about. If she can remeber me that maybe I wasn't as much of a reject as I thought I was.. I still had glasses though so I was definatly still a geek!

I Has a Bubble Wrap

Poor little Alys has been to the vets this week to be spayed and has been ever so miserable about having to wear her plastic collar. Its a bit big and heavy on her and she keeps getting stuck in places. Especially when she is trying to eat her food. Its funny and tragic at the same time. It breaks your heart, bless her. If you haven't been I highly recommend visiting http://icanhascheezburger.com/ its highly amusing, at least to me!

Fugly Cookies

Slight disaster in my plan to keep H from the depths of boredom by baking cookies. The recipe was one of my favorite oatmeal cookie recipes, I had oats and I had chocolate but very little else and although this one looks quite nice I burned a batch and there were recipe alterations that i didn't plan due to not haveing some cookie baking essential ingrediants. Basically we blundered our way through and luckily they taste ok but they are oddly brittle cookies.

They were Chocolate Chip Sunflower Seed Oatmeal Cookies which was a bit diffrent from the plain oatmeal cookie recipe I just wish I had had the brown sugar, baking powder and so on at least it wasn't a full on disaster.

The Deepest Greys are Grey

Ok I have not been on my laptop for pretty much a week and to be honest I haven't really done very much craftwise, knitting wise or even painting wise, but I did go on a one day novel writing course with frizbe last saturday. It was the first time in a very long time that I have devoted a day to me and myself and I. A day to really look at the process of writing a novel and It was a very good day for me with much praise to Daniel Blythe for presenting such a great 1 day writing course. And I actually talked and participated in group discussion. I didn't just hide behind more gregarious and entertaining people. I would have thought that by age 30 I would be able to speak a bit more freely and not be so shy about things but its still such hard work to speak out and make eye contact. Maybe one day I will be a bright and outgowing person, but for now I'm happy to have gone along on the course and spoke a little bit.

Obviously I haven't had a chance to be on the computer, no mumsnet either thank you very much, but I have managed to make some brownies in a haphazard fashion. Meaning I had only two eggs and every recipe I had called for 4, so i used some melted chocolate and cream and they eventually came out great to eat but rather fugly.

We have had a few family days out to the zoo on tuesday, and to York thursday, had a lovely time both days except for the excruiating hour spent at the National Railway Museum in York, H loved it M took aome video of H running around like a maniac from train to train, It was quite horrifyingly, mind numbingly boring but it was cute to watch H looking at all the train engines, its definitly one of those places for granddads to take grandsons and leave mums at home with a nice cup of coffee and a few magazines.

I started a new scarf type thing last week but it only has a few rows to it but I like the wool and seem to have a grey thing going on recently. I guess grey is the new black. I'm off to go paint I think.. or make a cup of coffee, its a very fine line. meh.

Pumpkins, Pancakes, and Peach Cake Oh My!

Today nothing much has happened I had good intentions to finish off winterising the garden but that didn't happen, I planned to make a Lemon Drizzle Cake for MNWI ( mumsnet womens institute) and take a picture of it in a lovely outdoorsy setting of natural and historical significance, but we didn't really go anywhere except Asda and that is neither historical or natural, or even remotely pretty in anyway.

So what did I do aside from the usual round of dishes, laundry, and scrubbing? Well for breakfast I made chocolate chip pancakes, they were going to be fruit pancakes but as I had no fruit aside from some canned pineapple rings rusting quietly at the back of a shelf, they became chocolate chip ones. Because if you haven't got fruit you should at least have chocolate!





Later armed with some nearly over ripe, but not quite, nectarines I made an peach upside-down cake to go along with dinner. It turned out gorgeous and M says its much better than the apple version, Which I'm not quite sure about but it did turn out lovely. And for once I turned an upside-down cake over before the bottom/top stuck to the pan. The recipe I used was the same as the apple one but slightly modified, I'll write it all down tomorrow when I have more time. http://meridianariel.blogspot.com/2007/06/apple-upside-down-cake.html


Oh and the pumpkins are what H and I grew in the garden now residing on the mantle. Its nearly October after all..

Unfinished

I was busy last night painting the little paintings above. Sorry for the rough qualitly of the pictures as they were taken with my little camera phone. The first painting is my favourite so far but I also like the second one although it dosent show up very well in the image. I'm not happy with the tree one yet, they are all alittle rough and unfinished but thats sort of my style so I'll not worry too much about that, the tree painting might get completly re-painted though because once again my imagination outstrips my talent.

I can see how it should be in my mind, how I want it, but it just never turns out that way, I'll blame being left handed for now rather than admiting that i have such little talent.

off to bake cakes now.

Nutella Cupcakes

Very Vanilla Cupcakes with Nutella Iceing


Ingredients:
2 cups self raising flour
1 ¼ cups caster sugar
½ cup butter or margarine (softened)
¾ cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 jar of nutella spread

Preheat the oven to 375 F

Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add half of the flour to the butter beating well. Add half the milk and beat well then add the eggs one at a time. Add the rest of the flour then the remaining milk and the vanilla mixing till smooth, Fill paper cup liners, or greaded and floured muffin tins half full. bake for 15 minutes or until the top of the cupcakes are golden and spring back when pressed. Remove from onve and let cool on wire rack. Ice the cupcakes with the nutella spread. easy delicious. gone.

cooks notes:

The cup cake recipe is my basic yellow cake recipe, althoug in this instance i had only plain cake flour and had to add baking powder (1 teaspoon)and salt (about a 1/4 teaspoon) that I would normally omit from my recipes as I'm lasy and prefer self raising flour.

M loves nutella and has been looking for an excuse to buy some so I thought why not use it as icing and I think the result is great. So easy and yummy too. Move over Nigella.

Into the Sun

The above images are a bit crap due to it being only my little camera phone, I might plead with M at a later date to take some proper pictures of the paintings i just did tonight. The paint is in fact still wet but I was very happy to have sat down and felt like painting not one but three little pictures. They are loosely inspired by some glass art work in a glass working workshop in Caldwell's Mill that was all Burgundy and gold that frizbe loved, it just so happened that i had a bit of gold paint in the bottom of my paint box and earlier I just felt like painting. M says its like something just snapped in me or a switch was flicked because the canvases sat blank in the closet for the last two months and tonight I painted all three.

I'll see if I still like them when they have dried overnight. Of course I haven't a clue what to do with them as there really isn't any space on the wall that doesn't already have framed photographs from M or a few oil paintings that I did about ten years ago. anyway I'm happy and on a little creative buzz but that might just be all the coffee I had earlier.

Marie Claire Magazine

I just drew this on a freebie handbag given away with my marie claire magazine. I'm pretty happy with it and especially as it was just a free give away from a magazine I'm very happy.

right more later as I have to go wake the boy up from his nap so we can go have a nice ride out.

Tree Bag

This is a quick post as I have about a million and one things to do and no time to do them in but I just wanted to get this posted as I'm chuffed with the results. I know its just a little shopping bag well not little, I painted it with a paint pen this morning for a friends birthday present, and think it turned out quite nicely. The sketch has been lurking in my note book for a month or two and i think it just lends itsself to being a carrier bag and the dylon fabric paint pen worked really nicely I am quite pleased with the effect and I might consider going back to the craft shop and getting a few more of the cotton bags to decorate. Artistic and enviromentally friendly that can't be too bad can it?

Firefly

Here it is, two months late for Meg's birthday but I have finally finished Firefly scarf. I'm quite happy with how it has turned out, especially the little pocket detail.

The scarf isn't from a pattern I designed it myself, it was really quite simple and I think the noro wool really speaks for itself. Plus I'm totally hopeless at understanding knitting patterns, I just like to sit down and knit while watching CSI, body counts and knitting needles what could be better. I hope Meg likes it, and will use it when it actually gets chilly in Northern California. It was a good little project and I haven't got a clue what I will do next, probably another scarf or something to that extent as I have quite a stash of wool that could do with shrinking down a bit.

Below is a picture of the sketch I drew for my scarf design, If you didn't read the previous post about this scarf then I'll say again that I took inspiration from the show Firefly (Serenity the movie) and wanted to make something that I thought would fit right into the show. Because both Meg and I watched the show and loved it, and besides some of the other tv shows that we have in common might have ended up with something a bit to goth (supernatural, angel, buffy) or too geeky (star trek(s)) ;o) .. could have always done something from one of the god-awful movies that we used to watch over and over again when we were in high school, though I don't think Earth Girls Are Easy lends well to knitting.

a very sketchy sketch

I'll get around to posting it to you later this week Meg!

That Crafty Feeling

I have been having some creative feelings again, though perhaps i should be a bit more gun shy when it comes to letting my creative demons wreak havoc upon poor innocent canvas bags but the deed is done and the above pictures are the results. One canvas bag mildly injured in the process of being crafty. The medium is Acrylic paints on a 100% cotton tote bag that i got from the craft shop at the garden center. For all you crafting and composting needs I suppose. I have a second larger shopping bag sized.. erm bag but that is as they say a blank canvas tote at the moment.


I'm mostly happy with the result despite thinking I'm pretty much crap at crafts I still keep trying, I like to paint but I'm just never good enough for my self, I have the creativity and inspiration at times but I'm never satisfied with the contol over the paint brush when attempting to do finer details, instead of a more blurry abstract sort of resupt that i normally end up with. As for what I'm going to do with the little bag, well thats a very good question and I don't quite have an ansewer for that just yet, I'll get back to that later.

And I'm still working on knitting Meg's scarf on and off depending on how much free time I have and how much Alys is trying to eat the wool, and steal the needles as I knit. Here are two little pictures of the scarf as it was earlier today in the garden, obviously its rolled up in a ball so if Meg is reading this she dosen't get too much of an idea of what the finished result will be. I'm calling the scarf Firefly after the tvshow (and movie Serenity) as to me it looks like something that would probably fit in quite nicely there.

Black Monday

Although I have been doing a bit more creatively speaking, mostly sketching and knitting a bit, I have been feeling a bit defeated lately. By life mostly, and perhaps a bit of what I feel is jealousy towards thouse who have everything set in life. Not that I'm unhappy with where I am at, I love my husband my son, I love pottering about the house but sometimes I feel as if I missed something somewhere and I'm not sure exactly what that piece is or where I lost it. Maybe i'm jsut feeling sorry for myself or at a loss for not being able to find that one thing in life that I want to be or do and holding on tight to it. M is a photographer and he is very good, owns the studio have camera will travel or something like that.

And I think I'm a bit jealous of that, he always wanted to be a photgrapher, he is good at it and he has made our life out of it. But I have never felt that I have had that one desire and goal. I like writing, but I'm not great at it. I like painting and art but again i'm not great at that either.

A frustrated non-artist? maybe I just wish i could funnel everything that I am into one thing and be great at that. But I guess thats what everyone wants to be remebered to be famous.. I want to write a book but not for the fame of it, I don't want to write the next Harry Fucking Potter, but I want to be able to write it and get something out of the cluttered cobwebby mess that is my brain.

I keep looking at the etsy craft sites, and wishing it could be my stuff up there, exactly what I don't know.. perhaps just another pipedream like the while cupcake thing... I thought by the time I was 30 I would have figured myself out enough to know what i want for a career, now that I am 30 all I really know is that I don't know who I am and what I can do. But hey at least I can make a fab cheesecake even if I have no true belief in myself or my abilities.

on a lighter note we are off to Wales tommrow to visit friends who are caming and happily LARPing, we will not be camping though, M dosen't do camping so we will have a nice little hotel room (best western) for the night, then M will be happy and H will be happy as he is utterly obsessed with staying in hotels. There are a few newposts on my drabble site http://daemara.blogspot.com/ . but as I have been busy doodling i have had much time for writing. But I feel better having witteren on about various things here.

I'm off to pick tomatoes and courgettes (zuchini) and maybe a bit more sketching!

The Taste of America

pop

fizz

soda

bliss....

Ok I admit I have never been that big a fan of Mountain Dew, my dad would probably say it tastes likes piss, but to me its just another thing that reminds me of beign stateside and tastes of home. I'm sure there are better things out there to remind me of america but right now i'm sitting her with an opened can of the vile yellow liquid and its like nectaer from the gods of consumerism.

I purchased it strangely enough from a little market stall in Derby, a little Thai market stall to be precise, I'm not particularly sure why they had MountainDew, and Mug root beer too, but that only stayed in the fridge for a few hours before it was just an empty can to be recycled. Barq's is the best root beer though I think I might cheerfully maim for a cold can of it. And as M thinks its vile stuff its all mine. Though I find it hard to get my head aroudn the fact that he will drink gallons of dadnelion and burdock, which I think was created as part of an internation food dare, right up there with haggis and snails.

Lemon and Mascarpone Cheesecake

Lemon and Mascarpone Cheesecake

2 pkg. (8 oz. each) Cream Cheese, softened
1 pkg. mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. grated lemon zest (3 lemon)
juice of 3 lemons
for the base:
12 biscuits (makes roughly 1½ cups crumbs)2 tablespoons melted butter
Crush the biscuits and add the melted butter. Mix well and press firmly into a 8-inch pie pan. Pat down using the base of a glass. Place in fridge for 30mins to set.
While base is setting. Mix together cream cheese, mascarpone, lemon zest, lemon juice (I normally put the lemon juice in to taste roughly about 2 lemons worth but in this instance i used all three for a very lemony cheesecake) sugar, using a wooden spoon or electric mixer. Pour the cheese mixture over the base and spread evenly. Put cheesecake in the fridge for at least 4 hours to set, preferably overnight.

cooks notes:

as I had a lot of lemons to use up i used three lemons in the recipe which made for a very tangy refreshing cheesecake but if you don't like lemon quite that much you can just use the juice and zest of two unwaxed lemons.

Painted Lady

hello..lo..lo..lo i'm still alive honest, though i'm not sure anyone actually reads this blog besides my dad on a regular basis, i am still here but its been a hectic week or two and i haven't managed to get much writing done on here. THe biggest project had been entertaining H as its summer break and he o nly goes to preschoon for a few hours on monday and friday, so cue me running around the house like a woman possesed trying to clean the house and tidy up whatever messes H, M and the cats have left for me.

Also I have been painting H's room, and I absoloutly hate painting walls, and especially celings its just crap, and i ran out of paint, so there are a few patchy bits that need repainting, and the back wall has fluffy white clouds on it as a quick improv to figure out what to do with one corner of the wall still being bright white when it was supposed to be blue. not just any blue but the dark under-the-sea stuck-at-the-bottom-of-a-trench blue that H picked out all by himself. And now to add to it I have to go back to painting it on friday and add a rocketship to the clouds as per h's request. That i don't mind, I like actual painting, I'm ok at that, I'm no rembrant but I enjoy painting pictures just not walls. Perhaps its a lefthanded thing as i can't really paint a straight line to save mylife. And no matter what i do i just end up completly covered in paint, i have given up using rollers as i'm just so diabolically bad at using them and now just stick to using a little paintpad and away I go.

I hyave been drawing alot lately and may soon be designing a little canvas bag to go along with the two t-shirts I have made in the last few weeks.... so i'm quite happy with that.. oh and there is the possibility of going on a one day writing course in septemeber with frizbe, its a begginers course on novel writing, I would never think to go on one on my own but Frizbe is much more outgoing than me so will let her do the talking to begin with and maybe it will help me to move on with writing a bit more. my poor little teapot blog has been sadly neglected for too long. I must sort out writing some more on it tommrow while h having his nap before swimming lessons.