Rum and raisin to me is the perfect flavour for anything sweet. If it’s chocolate, icecream or fudge, it’s always best in rum and raisin. Mint comes a very close second. So when I was flicking through a cook book of mum’s and saw rum and raisin cake, I thought I’d have to be onto a winner. I’m on holidays at the moment, so I have plenty of time to muck around in the kitchen if I choose to. Just as well, because I think I need to have another crack at this particular one.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice enough cake. But it needs something to replicate that familiar rum and raisin flavour that I’ve come to love so much. I’m not sure whether it’s some vanilla essence, more brown sugar or even just more rum that’s needed but there is something missing. I’m even toying with the idea of subbing some of the rum for coconut rum to see how that turns out.

RUM AND RAISIN CAKE

Ingredients
155 grams of raisins
3 liberal tablespoons of dark rum
185 grams of self-raising flour
150 grams of unsalted butter
140 grams of brown sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Lightly grease a deep 20cm round cake tin and line the base with baking paper.
Soak the raisins in the rum for at least 10 minutes.
Sift the flour into a large bowl and make a well in the middle.
Melt the butter and sugar in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved and then remove from the heat.
Combine the melted butter and sugar with the rum and raisin mixture and add to the sifted flour with the beaten eggs.
Stir with a wooden spoon until combined but do not overbeat.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Serve with custard or ice cream on the side if desired.

August 31st, 2010 | Category: Nowhere Near Nigella |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

Today is a very sad day for me. My faithful Canon Powershot which has been my handbag or pocket companion camera for a fair few years now is on its way out. I love this little camera….it takes AA batteries so I never have to worry about running out of power and consequently  never need to recharge. The SD card conveniently slots into my laptop without needing a card reader. And I could take it anywhere, particularly if my luggage space was limited and still get a nice shot. Sure it doesn’t have the capability of the DSLR but for a small point and shoot camera, it’s manual functions really weren’t that bad.

It still takes photos on landscape mode but the flash refuses to fire on any setting. It also refuses to focus in any way shape or form unless on landscape. I could take it to Canon to have it assessed but being well out of warranty period, I’m assuming that the price of repair will be much more than the price of replacement. I can’t complain though – it has been thoroughly tested over the years and truth be told, it’s probably had its shutter pressed more times than its shutter life span should allow.

Fortunately we have another pocket sized camera, a small Canon IXUS, which is still going strong. But it’s a lot heavier, doesn’t take batteries and I’ll need to get a much bigger CF card – 256 MB just doesn’t cut it for me.

August 27th, 2010 | Category: Photography |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

It’s the first week in August, so that means it’s time for the Ekka to hit Brisbane. It also represents the very last public holiday until the Christmas season. Fortunately I work in an area of metro Queensland that allows me to have Monday off as my show holiday. Long weekend! < insert happy dance here >

Usually I don’t bother going to the Ekka. I hear people whining about how much it costs, how food is hideously expensive and how it just saps money out of your wallet from the minute you go through the gates. The last show I went to was the regional one in Rockhampton, probably around 1997. I went with the standard $120 and went home when I was broke. That was a lot of money in 1997 – not so much in the sense that you could buy two licorice straps from the corner store for $1 (which you could) but because it represented about a week’s  worth of my pay as a student. I’d try to ration it out so I could at least spend the day there….usually I’d have enough to see me through till 5pm. By that time I’d had enough sugar and silliness for another year.

So I assumed that it would be the same process, only my money just wouldn’t last half as long.  But after today’s experience, I’m hard pressed to think of how I could possibly have spent $120 at the show. I went with around the same amount of money and surprisingly came home with more than half of it still in my wallet. That included lunch and ice cream for two and two Darryl Lea show bags. Of course, we’re now in our 30s and not willing to part with good money in order to feel nauseated so we didn’t bother with any of the rides. Therein lies the secret of having a fairly frugal Ekka experience. We could have saved even more money by taking our own food for lunch – but surely half the experience of the Ekka is having a rib fillet burger with all the trimmings for lunch – right?

Overall we had a good time, soaked up a bit of the sunshine and got to see the dirt bikes and precision driving team put on a good show in the main arena. Best of all, since we had gotten there so early in the morning, we were able to head home just as the crowds were starting to build and get that little bit crazy. And courtesy of Darryl Lea, we even had something to nibble on during the drive home.

Such a beautiful day and not a cloud in the sky!

August 6th, 2010 | Category: Special occasions |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (2)

I had a brain wave about the cat enclosure – why not use a cubby house or a kid’s play fort? Unfortunately most of the options available involved too much customisation, weren’t tall enough or weren’t quite right for our needs. Then I stumbled across the Design A Shed website and found something perfect for our needs. Unfortunately they are based in Victoria and they do not have an outlet in Queensland. Fortunately the freight isn’t too bad to get it up to us so we will probably go with this option.

The number of cat enclosure options available in Victoria is staggering. Where we live, the options are much more limited. There certainly aren’t products like the one available below in kit form for purchase. Perhaps there is more demand down south for enclosures of this type where the weather is substantially more….shall we say erratic? I like the idea of an under cover area – it contains sleeping nooks and there is ample room for a litter tray as well. The wire enclosed area has an open bottom so they can nibble on grass – no doubt to be later regurgitated inside.

I think a pot planter of cat nip in the corner will be a perfect addition. The roof has slots in it so the grass and any plants we place inside will still get rainfall. All we need to do is hook up one of our existing tunnels to the side mesh and that’s it! I plan to order it in the next week so hopefully by the time we go on holidays in September, it will be here ready to be put up. Fingers crossed that all goes well!

From "Design A Shed" - very noice style!

July 24th, 2010 | Category: Cats, Home and Lifestyle |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (5)

It seems that I’m not the only one loving the cooler months. A few of the plants we put in during April are really doing well in the cooler weather. They get plenty of sunshine during the day and the odd spell of rain we’re having doesn’t seem to be doing them any harm at all. One of the grevilleas we planted was called ‘Winter Delight’. I’m happy to see this is not a misnomer – it has a beautiful red flower and once it is fully grown, I imagine it will really look spectacular in the cold months. The yellow flower is from a grevillea ground cover called ‘Carpet Queen’.

Even Rosie is loving the cold weather. Especially out on the sandstone blocks – they warm up quite a bit during the day when the sun is on them and I’m sure in kitty language, that is just heaven! They also make a handy scratching surface it seems. This is probably the first time she has been outside unharnessed and unleashed yet not inside a cat park. She is easier to catch though and she doesn’t jump six feet in a single bound so I am happy to let her out when I have time to watch her like a hawk. Unfortunately Mojo has proved conclusively time and time again that he cannot be trusted – so he had to enjoy his time in the sun wearing his harness. I’m sure if he could, he would complain about the unfairness of it all.

PS – Yes this does mean we haven’t done anything with the cat park yet. That would require us to not procrastinate and actually do something about putting it up. I’m sure the cats have lost hope that it will ever be put up.

July 3rd, 2010 | Category: Cats, Home and Lifestyle, Noice-ities |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

Nothing like being at home on a Saturday, churning out loads of laundry while the sun is shining and a decent breeze is blowing. I’m not exactly sure what she was after….maybe she just likes watching the motion of the sheets and the water.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if cats had opposable thumbs? They could help you hang out the laundry.

But then they’d also be able to raid your pantry, your fridge, mess up the linen closet….okay, maybe it’s a good idea they don’t have them. Otherwise they might be worse than kids.

July 3rd, 2010 | Category: Cats |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (1)

When we moved into our new house last September, I had my first bath in our new tub. Given the bathroom is where the litter tray is, I haven’t used the bathtub since.  Having the litter tray outside is just one of the many perks of having a cat park but we haven’t put one up at this house as yet. The one we had at the old place doesn’t quite suit where we would like to put it here and unfortunately the company we went with last time no longer operates as an installer within Queensland.  They do have modular kits available on their website but to use them without extensive modification, we would need a lot more room in our backyard.

So we looked at a few other options but so far, we are yet to come across one which is worth it to avoid DIY activities reasonably competitive and will give the cats the amount of space we would like them to have. We’ve investigated using aviaries, DIY kits and netting but none of them seem to fit the bill. So it looks like it will be the DIY route if we are going to do it at all. It should be easy enough to do but fairly labour intensive. By my best calculation, it’ll be a good weekend’s worth of work. And that’s assuming we have the faintest idea of what we are doing once it comes to doing it.

I’ve put in a very dodgy concept drawing below. The idea is to put in a cat flap in our dining room window, use some of the existing tunnels from the old cat park to create a walk way into a bigger timber frame enclosure which will be about 4m long x 5m wide x 2m high. Whack in a couple of timber ramps around the edge, some hammocks, encase the whole thing in chicken wire and voila, DIY cat park. There’s even enough room in there to put a small garden setting in there and perhaps a few plants. The only thing I haven’t quite figured out yet is how to protect their litter from rain. Maybe a small dog kennel?

It’s still just a concept but it’s a bit more of an idea of what we can do than we’ve had previously.

June 14th, 2010 | Category: Cats |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (3)

There’s nothing more I love than getting on a plane and going somewhere, even if it is for a whirlwind 24hrs. I flew in one day and flew out the next, almost 24hrs after I arrived down there. Unfortunately I was travelling particularly light so I was limited to the Powershot but I continue to be surprised by what I can achieve with that little camera. It might not be the sharpest night shot I’ve ever taken but it is certainly not horrible. It’s the first time that I’ve used the manual settings on the Powershot so I am amazed it even turned out.

It was simply beautiful wandering along the banks of the Yarra, listening to the work crowd winding down at the pubs and cafes. I almost got run over a couple of time by cyclists until I got used to the fact that providing you didn’t try to alter your course to avoid them, they would whip past you quite safely. There was a lone rower on the river but he’d long passed by the time I took this shot.

It’s a lovely memory of a very whirlwind 24hrs. Always nice to visit – hope to make it back again soon.

June 13th, 2010 | Category: Photography |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (3)

Some noice….

Winter is probably my favourite time of year, despite the coughs and colds that go around. It certainly helps when there is less rain than during the warmer months. I guess there’s something dreary about the day when it is cold and wet but when the sun comes out, it really is a beautiful time of the year.  Last weekend I spent an hour or two watching the kite surfers making the best of the gusty weather. Despite the wind, plenty of people were having a BBQ, walking their dogs or just enjoying the sunshine. I don’t usually shoot directly into the sun but I thought that my NSW friends might appreciate it. Yes it’s still in the sky – I hope the rain eases up soon for you and you get to enjoy some pleasant sunny winter days yourself.

And for some not noice….

I remember people telling me when I got my indoor pot plants that it probably wouldn’t be long before the cats started having a crack at them. Well it seems that they must have thought they were fake for around six months because for at least that long, they remained unscathed. The last few weeks they have finally realised that they are real and very very tasty. We spent about a week cleaning up puddles of greenery infused cat yak before enough was enough. They are now on our outdoor table and look just as nice out there – not before the cats did a little bit of damage to the foliage though.

June 4th, 2010 | Category: Home and Lifestyle, Internet, Noice-ities |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (3)