Birthday cake...

Well you saw the chocolate in my previous posting - this cake took all that *plus* an additional amount.  Yep to the tune of nearly 2 pounds of the lovely dark stuff.  J sure is a lucky guy to get this one but he sure does deserve it! 

Blueberry muffins that won’t make you blue!

OK – I’m probably not your average shopper.  I admit I know my prices of my basics in my head, use the web to get me the best prices but I also adjust my plans for what I can find reduced.  I’m lucky in that I find a lot of variety reduced and thus get a varied diet.  

Take the blueberries, I got them reduced but I also had some milk that was on its last leg.  So what to do?  Make muffins of course!  If I don’t have buttermilk and often I don’t – I just sour it with lemon juice instead but the milk provided me with the perfect reason to use it up.  I also had some corn meal that needed to be used up so that got thrown in – voila – muffins!

 

 

It’s not a complicated recipe as I have a basic muffin recipe and I just alter what I put in depending on what I’ve got loads of or found reduced.  I also am lucky that I get some fresh rhubarb from a friend so I just add an apple or pear or any other soft fruit I have that need using up into the mix and make a crumble.  

 

And here is a teasing look at the chocolate that will be going towards someone’s cake in early August!

Even longer but now we're onto CHOCOLATE!

Well again a long time between posts but what can I say? Life has to be lived and while it's great to have an archive of what you do at varying times in your life I don't want to be in front of a keyboard and monitor all the time!

So what have I been doing? Well, I went back home in March/April to visit my niece for the first time since she was born. That was really great to do and I have many movies and pictures of our time together. I don't like posting pictures of her - suffice to say we look strangely and eerily alike! I will post one picture - this is of a telephone mast in Tampa - yes, it's meant to look like a tree - weird or what? I guess a mast would have been too daring for that part of town and well a fake tree that's a mast well that would be just so much better to look at! Um, OK....

I then of course returned home and to work (what a dirty word!) and it has been non-stop since. I have been off the last week but have been feeling poorly due to a bad back but today has been the first day I've actually been able to sit for any period of time so thought I'd put the sitting to good use!

I recently baked a cake for J which was a 'Death by Chocolate' cake - yes, I keep going back to that book. When you see the recipes and you try a few you will see why. In any event, here is my cake which I must admit looks home made but who cares?!

It's the tasting that counts and well with chocolate - how far can you go wrong? Not far in my book. In any event, it was very good and is sadly nearly gone too! Oh dear....will have to just make something else...check back soon!