Gingerbread men

My eldest boy is learning about the gingerbread man at school and came home on friday wanting to make a gingerbread man. I foolishly agreed and so on sunday afternoon having already made a roast dinner i found myself arm deep in gingerbread dough with two excited little pixies running around my feet.

the recipe-

Ingredients- makes 25 ginger bread men

125g Butter or Baking fat (much cheaper and in this instance tastes fine)

100g Muscovado sugar/ brown sugar

4 tbsp golden syrup

325g Plain flour

1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ginger

1. Preheat Oven to 170c.


2. Melt butter, sugar and syrup in a pan over a low heat


3. Place the rest of ingriedients into a bowl


4. Add the melted mixture to the dry and mix thoroughly until it forms stiff dough.


5. Roll out to about 5mm thick and cut out your shapes.


6. Bake for 10 mins or until golden brown


7. Cool on a wire rack.


8. Decorate.

Personally i added a touch of cinnamon too. i also only made 6 gingerbread men because they are very fiddly and we turned the rest into houses and a sun. They all took the same amount of time to cook and remember that they comeout soft and harden as they cool. As you can see the kids loved decorating them, as did hubby and i. We used supercook icing tubes that are about 1.78 for 4 tubes. Not very cheap but will last about 3 batches and worth it for entertainement value. We ended up with a gingerbread street!

I think i was possessed by germaine greer yesteday, it happens occasionally. I get all Vaginas and bad men and everything turns into phallic symbols. It soon passes and i turn back into a more liberal and easy going me. The scary thing is that as i get older i'll become more like the germaine greer me.
Here's a lovely recipe for Beef Curry i havent cooked it yet but i've no doubt it'll be lovely.

Serves 2+ 2 little uns

1 frying Beef steak tenderised and sliced thinly
6 Tomatoes fresh and diced
1/4 big bunch of tesco fresh coriander, chopped
2 onions diced
4 carrots sliced thinly
1 pepper sliced
6 mushrooms sliced
1 1/2 pints of water
1 beef stock cube
1 tbsp Plain flour
1 tbsp mild curry powder
1tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tbsp tom puree

1. Fry the beef strips in a little oil for 3 mins,
2. Add the onions, carrots and peppers. Fry for 4 mins.
3. Add the toms, mushrooms and coriander and fry for futher 3 mins.
4. Add the remaining ingriedients minus the water and stir through.
5. Add the water and simmer for 5 mins.

Serve with rice or poppadoms.

What is Facebook Etiquette and fairy cakes

I have no idea what facebook etiquette is? What happens if you dont wanna add someone? I dunno it's tough. You may be wondering where this has come from...hmmmm. Stuff and Stuff!

Any ho. No grrr i cant think. Heres a pretty cake that i made for my little girlies first birthday years ago. It's just made from 1 square sponge cake and 1 round sponge cake all homemade. A good few hours and a hell of alot of icing sugar and red food dye some ice cream cones and a few swiss rolls and marshmallows later i had this beautiful pink masterpiece.

Heres roughly how it's pieced together- Place the square cake onto a strong cake board, cut about an 1/8th of the circular cake out and cut out steps. You should be able to slot the steps back into the hole you took the segment from and the other half coming immediately from them.Cover the whole cake in pink ready to roll icing. Cover 3 mini swiss rolls in the same fashion and attatcg using a little soft icing to each corner. Roll 4 cornets in white icing and place ontop of the swiss rolls. Then have fun decorating with marshmallows and icing, I have also made a boys version which was grey and didnt have turrets but lots of marzipan knights.

Mums Birthday

Yesterday was me mums birthday and our 5 year wedding anniversary. We tend to just celebrate our wedding anniversary the day before so we can spend most of the day with mum. She wanted to have a little get together in the evening, so i took her out for lunch then we all went round in the evening. She put on a beautiful spread, not a soggy sandwich in sight. She makes amazing samosas and yesterday was no exception. She made pork and stilton samosas, delicious!
We also made the quick paella previously mentioned and made parcels with filo pastry with it.
Below is a great recipe for an accompaniment to curry or maybe just a good snack. The kids love it and really enjoy helping to make it.

Lentil Curry

1 mug lentils
1 beef stock cube
2 mugs boiling water
4 grated carrots
1 grated onion
1tsp mild curry powder
1 tsp Ground allspice
1 tsp of turmeric
1/2 grated pepper

Combine all ingriedients in a pan and simmer, covered, adding more water if needed for about 1/2 hour. Serve with naan, or pitta.

Do you ever feel like screaming for no reason?

Lots to say today-

Yesterday was valentines day. We decided not to buy anything for each other but to spend all the money on buying in a really great meal. We had-

Starter

Smoked Salmon and Caviar on Ciabatta

Smoked Mackeral and Prawns

Main

Squid ink spaghetti with tomato and mascarpone sauce with stuffed olives and peppers.

Dessert

Pavlova

It was delicious.

We're going away tomorrow, just a trip to the Isle Of Wight but still a well earned rest i think. We're renting a cottage for the week in Shanklin Old Village, it's a really lovely part of the world. Yes part of me does want to just hop onto the eurostar but we have to holiday in England sometimes!

On a completely different subject i'm so fed up with the Heather Mills bashing, i thought we had stopped witch hunts a long time ago but it appears not. This poor woman has done very little wrong and yet has been hounded and abused every step along the way. Why is it that we feel the need to attack anyone with a political agenda in this country. She is one of the few women in the public eye that will actually stand up for what she believes in and yet all of this is forgotten because she's going through a messy divorce. I love the Beatles but i have to admit that i will never like Paul McCartney Again. He seems to be a complete weasly media attention seeking *******.

Heres a quick lunch recipe that you can whip up in about 10 mins, it's healthy and cheap.

Ingriedients- Serves 4

2 Peppers

2 onions

5 mushrooms

2 fresh toms chopped

1 veg stock cube

1 tbsp of p/flour

1 tin toms

1/2 pint boiling water

1 tbsp of tomato puree

1 tsp of sugar

1 cooked smoked salmon fillet sliced.

Slice the top 3 ingriedients quite coarsly and fry in a little olive oil until cooked. Add the stock cube and lfour and stir through. Then add the rest of the ingriedients in order above, stirring after each addition. Once all the ingriedients are in, simmer for about 5 mins until piping.

Top with Cheese and serve with pitta bread for a lunch. Serve with Rice, nachos and soured cream for dinner.

Variations: Add chilli to make it spicy, or curry powder to have a quick and simple little curry.

As for te title. Thats just because soemtimes you know i just think it would be fun to scream at the top of your voice, just to release a little tension.