Mars Bar Cakes

I made these the other day with Seb and Sol, they haven't eaten them yet though, the cakes went straight in the freezer for another day.

Recipe
6 Mars bars
6 ounces margarine (or butter)
2 tablespoons of golden syrup
6 cups of rice krispies
10 ounces of chocolate to melt and pour over krispie mix.
Gently melt all the mars bars, syrup, and margarine in a heavy pan. Once melted pour on the rice krispies and mix. Press the krispie mix into a baking tin. I used a couple foil throw away dishes (not the small size but the next one up).

Simply melt the chocolate and pour over the top. Leave to set (if you can resist) and enjoy!

Cranberry Sauce Recipe

With Christmas looming I have done most of the preparations, including making some proper cranberry sauce. Keeping up with traditions I am going to share some of my recipes as the month goes by. We wont eat Christmas dinner on the day itself but will enjoy it on boxing day.

I cant really take the credit for this recipe as it is actually one Nigella Lawson shared in her Christmas book and also in her Christmas show which seems to be on every year without fail.

Recipe

340g fresh cranberries

200g caster sugar

45ml of proper cherry brandy (this is the best bit LOL)

75ml of water

Method

Put all of the above ingredients in your favourite pan and give them a good stir.

Heat the pan over a medium heat for about ten minutes, when the berries are popping then they are done. Stir the mix now and again to make sure they all pop and none get stuck to the bottom. Give the berries another good stir and leave to cool. That's about all there is too it - so easy, quick, and why would you bother ever eating supermarket cranberry sauce ever again?

I transferred all my sauce into tubs (I made double) and put them in the freezer. Take the sauce out to defrost at room temperature the day before you need to use it. When its defrosted give it a good hard stir to mix all the berries in and then just eat!

Getting ready

Well it’s the 4th of December! Don’t roll your eyes thinking I am stating the obvious will you!

I haven’t updated my blog site for so long people are beginning to think I have fallen off the face of the Earth. So here I am with a summery update for everyone, especially those who asked.

Anyway, there was a series of mini catastrophes happening such as the car breaking down while I was travelling at speed (we were ok), and the roof leaking in, and the car breaking down again, and needing repairs done at our other house and, and, and …oh there is a list.

My eldest child has been working incredibly hard lately, he has finished all his GCSE maths work and is finally ready to do his exam. That exam itself pretty much organised though forms still have to go in but the school who have accepted him are dealing with that. Mag’s first GCSE paper is in February so he has two months to revise and get everything up to scratch, if you take away time at Christmas it really isn’t that long. We have started the practise papers with him, he got an A this week, it was a low A but its still and A and shows that there is room for improvement. He is confident that come February he will be getting an A*, and of course I am really proud of him. The following academic year he will do his sciences exams and contemplate doing the advanced maths exam but we will see how it’s all going in a couple of months as there is no real rush for all this. Anyone who knows Mag will understand why he is doing these exams, he is a bright boy who has always excelled at everything he has done.

I am trying to get organised for Christmas (who isn’t?), and I am going to officially give myself a week off from cooking apart from the main event. We don’t have Christmas dinner on Christmas day usually, it’s just too much as I like to spend time with the kids and not slave over the proverbial hot stove. So I have spent several days cooking, baking, freezing, then cooking some more, vacuum sealing and freezing some more. I now have two weeks worth of prepared food in the freezers, everything from sausage rolls ready to go in the oven to lasagna that just needs finishing off and I am not going to let anyone near it till Christmas week. It feels good, and I have to say I do feel slightly smug about that fact too. Then I decided to get all of the presents done, which they are almost. The cards have yet to be written; I have written a few envelopes and will slip the cards in later. Now back to that week off ……… if only the laundry fairy could come in and do that for me then I would be all sorted.

The Children Made Irish Soda Bread

For all my American friends out there who asked about Irish Soda Bread, we finall got round to making some.

Irish Soda Bread

1lb 2oz of Soda Bread Flour
1 teaspoon of salt
12 floz of buttermilk

Mix the ingredients together in a bowl, when sufficiently mixed turn out onto a floured surface.
knead and work the dough into a circle shape and cut into quarters. This mix is enough to make a huge 'circle' and this will give you 4 generous quarters of soda bread. I made double the quantity and the soda bread lasted the kids a couple of days as a snack.

Cook on a hot heavy based pan or griddle with a little bit of butter.

Serve hot with butter and jam.

Seb's Birthday

Photos from Seb's Birthday party in October. We don't usually go for parties away from the house purely from a cost point a view. But we shared the costs with another and had a joint party in one of the near by soft play areas. It was fun and the children all enjoyed themselves, it felt strange coming home to a tidy house too.


In the morning opening gifts.

The party table!



Mag was really getting into the swing of things (NOT).


The food was nuggets and chips!

Toni's Birthday!

Its been a month since I updated my blog! I have lots of photos and probably too many stories to tell ..... I will post what I can over the next few days until I get caught up.



Toni on her birthday way back in September!

More photos from our holiday

I did this vertical drop - it was scary! Oh and this was at Port Aventura Theme Park, in Salou, Spain.

This is the Dragon Khan - oh and I rode on it twice, Mag five times!

We visited this beach but did not take the children on to it to play - too many people to be safe. We had a little more private beach at the hotel where we were staying.

SOME of my photos from our holiday

 We went to Salou in Spain for a fortnight recently, as usual i haven't had time to blog or chat about it.  I am swamped with all the catchy uppy stuff.

Cleaning up my greenhouse

Today I am clearing my twenty-odd tomato plants, eight cucumber plants
with cucumbers attached, and a dozen or so pepper plants. I have had
to throw every single plant out, barring a water logged chili pepper
plant.
I spent all summer nurturing these plants, twice a day watering,
feeding, spraying and loving. Space, effort, money and most
importantly my time.
In August my tomatoes were healthy green and swollen. I went off on my
holidays at the start of September, handing over the care of my two
greenhouses to my much trusted neighbour. On my return from my
holiday I discovered not one single plant had survived. Well one left
and it is a chili plant which is water logged and half dead.
I don't know what went wrong, some were water logged, some were bone
dry, none of the plants appeared healthy. One greenhouse was closed up
and clearly never ventilated, the other destroyed in the wind with
little done to rescue it's contents.
I want to cry over this, my friend who came in to help me clear up did
cry as she saw every week the progress we had made. I can't say
anything my neighbour, as I am sure she feels guilty enough. It's
hard, when they were gone in the summer I looked after their crops of
tomatoes and peppers for three weeks, it never occurred to me that
things could go so badly wrong.

Saunas and Storms

I treated myself today to a sauna. Well to be perfectly honest I had
some difficulty shaking off all the ankle biters the last couple days,
especially Sol. So yesterday I bought this little pink plastic
mobile phone that contained sweeties, and I used it. But not to make
calls, no I am not that crazy, but to bribe my four year old into
going to the creche for a while. She did, and the others duly
followed. Kids got rid off now it was my turn to look after ME,
something that does nor happen so often. Our hotel has a lot of
facilities including a gymnasium, Turkish baths, sauna etc. So I did
the Turkish bath first, I lasted about 20 seconds! Didn't like it one
bit. Unperturbed I tried the sauna, ooh it was warm, smelled lovely
and it did me the world of good. I have circulation problems and
despite the warmer climate I never get my feet thawed out, well the
sauna was magic. The first time in a long long time my feet were warm.
After the sauna I did a lovely jacuzzi followed by 20 lengths on the
heated indoor pool. And just when you thought that this was the end to
my story I had another jacuzzi. Lol I am spoiled. Finished up just in
time for kids
to be collected!
Now back to yesterday ....
It was warm and we decided to head to the beach. We watched forks of
lightening move up the coast from the waters edge. Eventually it was
hitting our town so we headed up to our apartment for a much needed
siesta. That night we watched the most amazing electrical storm over
the water from the same beach we had been on earlier in the day.

Sent from my iPhone whilst away in the sun

Riding the Furious Baco is fun!

I have to say that the hotel we are staying at is amazing. We watched
a Temptations Tribute band last night and the kids danced their little
legs off at the mini disco. The hotel animation team have worked
excessively hard to keep the children entertained. Yesterday they held
a paper aeroplane competition, darts and rubber ring racing (lol).
Ashley won the rubber ring races but failed miserably with his origami
like paper plane.
We made it to the theme park today. Port Aventura is an impressive
place, there are five countries each with different styles of rides.
We only managed two of the countries so we are planning on going back
for more fun Friday. They do all the Disney thing at night with the
fireworks too so it's going to be fun. We did not make it to the
Dragon Khan today but we did go on Stampedia which was a bone shaker
double roller coaster where two sets of cars race. We also got on the
Furious Baco, and oh my goodness I have ridden some rides in my time
but that was a scary one. It's a strange one you are suspended out to
the side of the track with your legs hanging, then you think it's
going to be like any other ride with a slow start you realise how
wrong you are in that assumption. Like a bullet out of a gun the
forces are instantaneous and whizzing round upside down just a couple
feet from the lake is an exhilarating experience.

Sent from my iPhone

Blogging from Salou

It was a long day yesterday, probably one of the most tiring I had
experienced in a long time. Anyone who knows me will know I have been
wrestling with a flu for the last fortnight. Due to restrictions
imposed on our country anyone with swine flu symptoms will be refused
flight travel. Swine flu is contagious until day 7 of the illness so
I figured I would be ok.
Come hell or high water I was getting on that plane. Doped up with
three sorts of meds I managed not to start coughing till we were
flying over France, so there was no turning back.
The early start was okay, 5:30 found us on the road. We reached our
hotel 1:45 Barcelona time. The afternoon was spent lazing in our
apartment. We all came alive at seven at night!
There was a medieval restaurant just out side the hotel, that was as
far as our weary legs would carry us that night. Food was good and
two of the children were put in the stocks, literally. We checked out
the entertainment, the beach by night and the supermarket - I think we
will be happy here.
This morning was lovely we booked half board today and the breakfast was
Buffet style with much as you could eat of every single food you can
imagine. So the nine pounds I lost while I'll is going to go straight
back on again. I will let you know what dinner is like later LOL.
Tomorrow we are going to Portaventura the theme park, the kids are
bouncing with excitement and we still gave two weeks to go of this.
One final comment will be an apology from me to everyone reading this,
apart from making you jealous I have to say all spelling mistakes will
have to stay till I get home and run the spelling and grammar
checker. Blogging from an iPhone is easy and suits me fine, but the
keys are small and the spell check does not do English I think.
Sent from my iPhone

OINK OINK

This blog post is going to be short and sweet.

You see, earlier in the summer I was convinced I had the swine flu, really I was sure of it LOL! I was so sick and barely could move for 3 or 4 days - gee I thought I was ill!

Well it seems Swine flu is back, this time for real! I have been sick for 6 days now, I am hoping tomorrow I am going to be on my feet. It started last weds, after Toni and Mag had been ill the previous week. Sore throat, fevers, hot, cold, unable to move without pain, nausea, iffy tummy, hacking chesty cough, wheezing, cant sleep, cant eat (not eaten for 4 days), useless in other words! I have been laid on the sofa for the whole time, watching my family get on with life, watching the laundry pile up and feeling more grossed each time I approach the science project in the bathroom sink .... oh other half did clean it yesterday at long last. That was before he built up the new rabbit hutch (its huge BTW) in the dining room need I add so I could sit and read the instructions out to him (I got the photos on my phone to prove it, I will add them in later).

We have all had this illness bar other half now so he is the ticking time bomb waiting to go off, so far symptom free apart from a sore throat the other day.

Peace at last!

That's the kids sorted for the bank holiday tomorrow!