Shelagh Duffett's Blueberry Orange Cake

Me and my pink glaze...

Got this recipe from HERE. She takes really NICE food photos, something I'd want to do as well as. But then again, she probably invested in a pretty hi-tech type of camera. Which for the moment I could not afford to get, seeing that there are tons of other stuff I'll be spending on:, like stitchable stash and other equipemet!! :D LOL!

Tried it out and I really do like it. Its jus so moist. I opted for a pink coloured glaze instead of orange, as I don't have frozen orange concerntrate (used orange juice, its zest instead and some food colouring). I will make this cake again but may be instead of blueberry, I'll be using frozen mix berry just to see.

Cute little flowers 1st & 2nd attempt

I saw some pretty little felt flower clips awhile back, thanks to looking up for ideas for NeedleN'Crafts anniversary gift exchange. Each participant has to construct a felt flower for their partner.

So while browsing, I thought to myself that "hey! I could make that!". So now is the time to make it. The idea comes THIS online tutorial (THANK YOU FOR PUTTING IT UP!!). It really is amazing the amount of tutorial this crafter and the rest has put up! Imagine the time, money and patience (some of us do have tots that drive us crazy while we're blogging, you know) for each tutorial spend.... So I've always think that its nice to link it back to the owner of the tutorial, to show appreciation you know....

Just too bad that we don't have little girls of our own, so these will go to a very cute little girl whom I'll be meeting later in the afternoon. Who knows, I'll be trying out a hair band next for myself? *wink*wink

Pâtes au poulets et au fromage frais

Literally means: Chicken with pasta and fresh cheese sauce. Took this out from my weekly COOP newsletter (its a chain of supermarkets like Tesco). I really like this recipe and its really quick and easy peasy to prepare. So here goes...

Main meal for 4 person.

Ingredients

Enough olive oil for cooking

3 spring of thyme

400 g chicken breasts sliced into bite size

1/2 tsp salt

a pinch of pepper

1/2 tsp olive oil

450 g zucchini cut in half and sliced into 3mm thick slices

150 g frozen peas

100 ml chicken stock

1 tbsp mild mustard

125 g fresh herb cheese AKA cream cheese, such as Cantadou or Boursin, cubed

1/4 tsp nutmeg powder

300 g pasta

Enough salted water for pasta cooking.

Method

You first heat up some olive oil in the pan, then add thyme and chicken breasts. Cook till meat are slightly golden. Remove thyme, season and set a side the chicken for later use.

Pour in the rest of the olive oil into the pan, lower the heat and stir fry the zucchini for about 2 minutes. Then peas, for another minute, followed be the chicken stock and simmer for about 2 minutes. Stir in your cream/fresh cheese, mustard and nutmeg and bring to a boil. Stir in pre-prepared chicken, cook briefly and remove from heat.

You then prepare your pasta according to manufacturer's instructions or till al dente/just cook. Drain and then mix the sauce with your pasta and voila!

Note: I made mine slightly different: didn't have zucchini so in comes canned mushrooms and some left over bacon... :p

The weekend was spent...

Ready to cut...

testing out a sandwich mould (well, a couple of them) received last week on Monday. Don't you just love getting gifts or parcels on a Monday morning? I know I do, beat off the Monday blues.

into a whale, dog, elephant and a car!

I seriously thing only the Japs could come up with these "inventions". Remember the square shaped watermelon thingy and there was the heart shaped cucumber? I think it has to do with their bento (packed lunch) and visual "eating".

Minnie and Micky

Anyways its pretty easy to use. Just slap on the filling of your choice (just not salad leaves or anything that is difficult to cut without a knife) and press the mould down. Voila, you'll get a little car, a whale, an elephant and a terrier dog sans bread crusts! :D Owen was pretty happy to eat it all up, just not the greens. :(

Mental note: white bread would look better!

Next is the Minnie and Micky Mouse bread stamp. I know, sounds funny right? Who would wanna stamp on bread?? Apparently some people do. So you take the stamp and stamp it on the bread (white breads are preferred), then you can either toast it in the toaster (which by the way brings out the optimum result) OR you could just slap on your favourite filling, with of course the stamped side out. You then cut the bread crust using the accompanied crust cutter, making sure that Minnie's or Micky's face is centered. I did not cut the crusts out as I find that its wasteful to throw away food. OMG! Why do I sound like my mum now? Or do all mothers feel the same ways?

Mushroom & bacon "sandwich"

Any how, besides trying out the new toy, I made pork curry for brunch on Sunday. LOVE GRAVY! I could eat it just with plain bread.... Heavenly! And then tried out supermarket finger food: pan fried mushroom with bacon. LOVE BACON!!!

Hers and his

And after all that, went out for a walk along the lake with the boys. The weather wasn't really nice, all grey and cloudy. But still at least it didn't rain, and it wasn't really windy. It just look depressing that all. So to perk things up, a nice thick hot chocolate is in order. Minus the marshmallow and whipping cream.

NKOTB

or rather on 2008... YES, I'm still a fan! Bite me!

NKOTB with Ne-Yo: Single

NKOTB

I was just listening to my New Kids on The Block on my Ipod. Brings back sooooo.... MANY memories. A really close friend I think (might be mistaken) had this song as her wedding march! Crazy girl! LOL! Both of us went gaga over NKOTB. We had all their songs and posters etc!

Here's the video of The Right Stuff: one the many fav of mine...

Winnie and friends

Winnie and friends wall clock that seems to be FOREVER!

I've been on this for weeks now... Its a pretty simply and straight forward piece but some how I seem to be stitching it like forever!

I think part of the reason is that by the time I'd like to sit down and do it, I'm just so tired that ended up making mistakes. So that means I'm frogging more than stitching! ARRGGHHHH.... I'd love to start another piece but then again, its just not me to start something and abandon it half was like what I did to my 9 gold fish piece. Its now officially an Unfinished Object laying around and I do feel guilty just looking at it. So what I do? I kept it "hidden" in my "Work In Progress" box. Well, its at the very bottom... :p So far that is the only one there.

My little model...

It has been 3 days that Owen has not taken his afternoon nap. Somehow he doesn't need that much of sleep ever since he was a baby (and he's still a baby to me!). Which makes me wonder where does all his energy comes from? I would LOVE to have this type of stamina but alas, as we grow older its the opposite.

Next model in the making? ^_^

Speaking of sleep, Kevin seems to be sleeping more than his older brother. Which is GOOD for me. As I was determine NOT to repeat our mistake with Owen, by letting him sleep later. So Kevin now sleeps at around 7:30pm or 8pm and wakes at around 2:30am or 3am for milk and sleeps back till around 9am. There are a few times when he slept right through the night till 5am! Pretty amazing for a breastfed 3 month old, I think. I wonder he'll continue with this trend of his?