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Make It Perfect

Make It Perfect

.Recipe Monday.

This is one of those “don’t bag it ’till you try it” and don’t tell your husband/kids whats in it until they have a taste kind of recipes!
I used to make this cake on the odd occasion growing up, and was talking to Carli about it last week and felt like giving it go. I had forgotten how absolutely delicious it is, and I can’t really describe the great texture this cake has. Its extremely moist and dense, but not in a mudcake kind of way. Three days later it still tastes as good as it did on day one.

Potato Chocolate Cake
125g butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup cold mashed potato
1 1/4 cups self-raising flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1/3 cup milk

Grease 20cm ring pan.
Cream butter and sugar in a small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy, beat in eggs one at a time. Beat until combined.
Stir in potato with half the milk and half the flour. Then stir in remaining flour, cocoa and milk.
Spread mixture into prepared pan. Bake in moderate oven for about 40 minutes.
Stand 5 minutes before turning onto wire rack to cool.
Spread cold cake with your favourite chocolate icing.

April 13, 2008
Make It Perfect

.almost impossible.

I should be in bed. I have a habit of doing this – telling myself to get to bed early and then finding myself sitting down at the computer, having a quick blog read and ending up doing a post myself!

We had a full-on week last week. It seems like we have weeks full of busyness followed by weeks of nothingness. This week is going to be a week of nothingness. Some home time, getting into some housework and chilling out with the kids. A bit of sewing and crafting, some cooking – all that fun stuff!

I came down with the flu yesterday. Blah. Mums aren’t allowed to get sick, right? Hopefully the kids won’t catch it or our week of nothingness is likely to turn into a week of no sleep and grumpy small-frys (fingers crossed they are strong and don’t get it!!)

I am in the finishing stages of my next pattern. Should have it ready to go in a couple of days. Just a little sewing to finish off, some tweaking of the pattern and a photo shoot and it will be done! I’m excited about this one!

Once upon a time I would have been horrified at the thought of little children crawling all over a quilt I was trying to baste on the floor…not anymore! It was a bit of a juggle, but I managed to get it basted and ready for quilting with Oscar helping me with the pins (he thought he was putting them in anyway but didn’t know that they were meant to open up!) and Lil trying to eat them as I was putting them in! The joys – no one got stabbed, promise! And it actually came out nice and flat in the end!

Anyways, its late and I’m rambling and probably not making sense! I’m off to bed…can’t wait to stop breastfeeding so that I can take some drugs when I get sick! Lil has just cut back to 3 feeds a day though which is nice, one when she wakes up, one around lunch time and one before she goes to sleep. I remember thinking when she was a newborn that I was going to be stuck feeding her forever and would never be able to leave her, but the time is going sooo fast this time, I can’t believe that she will be weaned soon! Little precious. 🙂

April 13, 2008
Make It Perfect

.meet the circus!.

We had another fun play with Linda, Melissa and Danielle on Wednesday at the Raspberry Farm..

What started out as a little gathering of four new Mums and four quiet babies two years ago has seemed to grow out of control! Between us there are now 7 little kidlets aged 2 and under with another about to join the group any time now, and boy, did we feel like a circus!

We began our lunch sitting inside until the lunch time rush arrived and we were getting a few too many stares (you know the ones you get when you try and take toddlers to a restaurant!) so we took our crew outside and had a much more relaxing time out there with no noise or speed restrictions. 🙂

As always, the kids loved playing together and Oscar hasn’t stopped talking about Riley, Zoe and Olivia since! And it was fun to catch up with the Mums again and do what we do best when we get together…talk and solve all of our mothering problems!!

P.S. Hope you guys don’t mind me sharing pics of the kids on my blog…let me know if you do and I will take them off!

April 11, 2008
Make It Perfect

.a good start.

I really struggle with breakfast. Breakfast and I have a love-hate relationship. I don’t want to skip it but I have a hard time finding something that is going to sit right in my stomach first thing in the morning. I don’t like cereal, I don’t particularly like milk, and I feel bloated and gross if I eat bread to soon in the day. So, most mornings it is a matter of quickly downing a weetbix or small bowl of cereal before I have too much of a chance to realise that I am eating something I don’t like!

I was browsing through a cooking magazine a couple of nights ago and was reminded of something I do really love for breakfast…bircher muesli. Yummo! So, before I went to bed I got some ready for the next morning (because it has to sit in the fridge overnight) and yesterday had the most delightful breakfast ever! Would have been even better with some fresh berries to top it off. It’s funny, we always used to have bircher muesli for christmas breakfast, so I had put it into the food-for-special-occasions category in my head. But no longer, why save the good stuff for a special occasion?

So, this could be a Recipe Monday post, but I’m eager to share the recipe now, so I will but I will still add it to the recipe links on the left.

Bircher Muesli
1 green apple, grated
1 cup light milk
2 tbs maple syrup
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup sultanas
yoghurt and berries to serve

Combine apple, milk and maple syrup. Stir in the oats. Cover and soak overnight in the fridge.
Toast almonds (this can be done in the oven or I do mine in the microwave by spreading them on a plate and cooking on high for 20 second intervals until they are toasted, it takes under 1 minute.)
Before serving, stir the sultanas and toasted almonds into the oats mixture. Drizzle with yoghurt and top with berries.
And some more early morning inspiration…this is one very cool etsy store. She sells little pottery bowls. Very cute, I can see one (or two) of these nesting around my place.
I’m off to get me some more bircher…

April 8, 2008
Make It Perfect

.more cool things to do with socks.

Ha! I’m excited. I’m always up for a bargain and today I got one!

Last week I was browsing a baby boutique (for that is mostly all I can afford to do in a baby boutique!!) and came across these very funky little things. Cute, cute, cute! I was trying to decide which ones to buy for Lil, but at $18 a pair and sooo many colours and designs to choose from I couldn’t make up my mind and decided to go back another day when I had assessed her wardrobe and worked out what colour/pattern would go with most things.

Today I was hopping around in blogland and came across a tutorial to make your own! You know thats the kind of girl I am…why buy it when I can make it!! So I grabbed a hardly worn pair of socks from my drawer and whipped up a pair for Lil. Now, I’m not using the phrase “whipped up” to sound boastful here…they are seriously an easy to whip up kind of little project. Like it took me about 10 minutes tops. (seems that I have a thing for making stuff out of a pair of socks!)

So now she is sporting one very cute pair of baby leg warmers (which apparently, after doing a bit of googling, I found out are quite common!) and we are all set for keeping our eyes opened for cool socks to make many more pairs, for, at a few dollars a pair we can surely afford more than one!

According to many leg warmer wearers online, the wonderful thing about these are:
**They are a great fashion statement! Great to wear under a dress, skirt or bodysuit.
**Make nappy changing a breeze.
**Extra warmth for winter, wear them under pants or over tights.
**Good for extra protection on crawling knees.
**Can be worn on your arms to turn a short sleeved shirt into a long sleeved shirt.
**They fit a newborn to an adult.

And of course some photos of Lil trying them out…
Then I thought I’d better check to see if they really do fit an adult…I think I like them on my arm under a t-shirt…would need to buy knee-highs to cover my arm, cute though!
P.S. Did you know that it is so very extremely hard to take a photo of your own arm?! A gazillion photos later and the best shots are still lame!

April 7, 2008