This year we made a last minute decision to head up to Mt Coot-tha to watch the fireworks from up there. They are fairly distant so we figured that it might not be as busy as the city. So off we went, roads extremely clear, no delays to find that every man, woman, child and a few dogs as well were up there as well even on the lower reaches. We managed to find an illegal park and caught the end of the early display in the city at which time, most people started heading off. We hung around to see a few more of the more distant displays starting up. An hour later, we had provided enough food to the local mosquito population and we just headed off home again on even clearer roads and not a single police officer to be seen.

All the lights made the night time view a little special, even if you could sometimes barely make out the fireworks in the distance.

Happy New Year, welcome 2012!

So back to reality it is. Only to be reminded that this Friday night is our annual Christmas party come combined birthday party for a few of my co-workers who are celebrating the big 5-0 this year. It should be a real blast but there is one major issue slight problem.

I have to wear something pink. :O

Seriously, this is a disaster. I do not own anything pink. The closest thing I have is maroon and I’m SOL on that account because I wore it to work today and the party is Friday. Enter problem solving mode for which I am famous – I will just accessorise with pink! No sweat, this will be EASY.

Except it’s also Pink for October and the only thing remotely acceptable is a weird looking “pendant scarf” purchased at a ridiculously cheap price. I figure I will just wear it as a belt given it is far too hot to wear a scarf now. I have visions of looking something like this.

Image courtesy of Grace N Glamour

Only my stupid jeans don’t have belt loops. Curse the twits who decided that women don’t need front pockets or belt loops on their jeans but sadly my favourite jeans have neither. Thanks for that clothing manufacturers! No problem, I’ll just get one of those belt buckle thingies that I see girlie girls wearing and hopefully that will keep it in place.

Do you think I can find one of those thingies anywhere? Or even what it is called? So I can’t even Google it effectively to come up with a list of retailers that might stock it. It’s just all too bloody hard so I will just tie the stupid scarf around my waist and hope that it doesn’t look completely stupid. May the force be with me.

I guess you could call it a transition zone between the garage and the house. So theoretically you could dump your boots in this area and not traipse them through the whole house. So there is a bit of that – our work shoes typically live here and we have some hooks on the wall for hats, jackets and backpacks. We also put an Ikea book case in there to use as holding area for stuff we grab when we go out the door but don’t necessarily want on view – like reusable shopping bags, bicycle helmets, rain jackets and sunscreen.

The basket on top of it was recycled from a Christmas hamper I got given one year. It’s a great place to keep my handbag of the day. Oh – and the odd cat as well.

This is mainly because I am notoriously bad at baking pretty much anything. I don’t mind having a crack at things but it’s a rare day when I produce something that not only tastes good but looks good too. I’ve had Anzac biscuits reminiscent of macaroons, chocolate biscuits that reminded someone of dog turds. You name it. People just don’t like my style of presentation which is mostly accidental.

Yesterday was fairly cool even by my standards so I decided to have a crack at some good old fashioned cooking FROM SCRATCH! This is something I almost never do and really, what is from scratch cooking anyway? Do those people go out and mill their own flour? Perhaps culture their own cheese? Of course not. So really everyone is a packet cook – it’s just the degree of dependency on product packaging that differs. It always cracks me up when someone gives me a recipe for something FROM SCRATCH and it contains a packet of cake mix or a packet of something else. Anyone can embellish upon a basic packet mix but it takes some kind of talent to come up with a recipe that consistently turns out right time after time.

I found the perfect pancake recipe in the Better Homes & Gardens magazine (July 2011 edition) and now I’m just a tiny bit obsessed with different types of toppings. Pancakes are supposed to be easy but I’ve always had trouble with getting them to be perfectly round and golden. And the flipping bit….for some reason that always goes terribly for me. I’ve since discovered the Breville Pancake Creations gadget which now has a happy home in my kitchen drawer. They turn out much neater than the pan flipped ones below but just as yummy! It’s a spin on banoffie pie and for anyone who is a fan of that, they’d love the combination. Pssst! For a lower fat content in the topping, substitute the double thick cream for Philadelphia Cream for Desserts. It’s lower fat content but has the sweet taste. If you want to lower the energy content in the caramel topping, you could just use Queens Maple Flavoured syrup instead but it won’t taste as awesome as if you had just gone all out and used Toffee icecream topping instead.

Banoffie pie inspired pancakes - awesome!!

So on the back of that, why not a pizza made from scratch? Sure can! I even made the dough, with a little help from the Kenwood mixer. Even so, the messiness involved, the noise and all that – I’m not convinced that the end result is better than a store bought base with toppings just thrown on top. It certainly takes a lot more time! Rest the dough, knock it back and divide in half, rest again, roll it out, trim off the edges to try and make it more round. It’s a painful exercise really. Trust me – ditch the home made dough and just go get a base from the shop if you want to make your own at home.

I do have some leftover dough which I was thinking of making a foccacia with but maybe I’ll just make some pizza scrolls instead. Hope you’re all enjoying your long weekend if you have one wherever you are.

All of the Little Red melaleucas and the token banksia seem to be suffering the same fate – their leaves get smothered by some insect (most likely a tea tree moth if this comparison is anything to go by), which uses the leaves to make a nest of some description. I’ve given all of them a savage pruning which they respond to but they are hardly going to grow to any significant height if every 3-6 months they have to be hacked back to something the size of a seedling.

I’ve tried spraying with Confidor, chucking soapy water on the plants and any other kind of remedy that friends suggest or even some suggested by Google. But still the problem persists. I’m giving thought to ripping up the entire garden bed and starting again….although there are some plants that are doing really well and it would be a crying shame to lose them.

Easter holidays can’t come soon enough. Stuff going away for the long weekend – all I’m wanting is nice cool weather, a trailer and possibly a garden guru to wave a magic wand over the place and fix up all the bits that are giving us headaches. I wonder if Jamie Durie is busy.

I hate crowds so anywhere in the city wasn’t going to be in the running. And Surfers Paradise is pretty notorious for crowds going wild and cops having to go in for crowd control. So instead we decided to go to one of the “community” fireworks shows armed with a box of pizza and a bottle of fizzy stuff. We found the park where the fireworks were going to be set off only to find that a heap of other people had the same idea. Meh.

Then we remembered that there was a nice grassy park on the other side of the river which looked fairly abandoned so we decided to head there instead. A couple of other people had the same idea but still not remotely crowded. Pizza pretty soon got polished off and we sat and waited for the crackers to go off.

I was fairly under-whelmed by the whole experience. Perhaps it was just because it was the 9pm show but it just wasn’t that spectacular….consequently we headed home not long afterwards and didn’t bother hanging around for the midnight showing. Cue some movies and falling asleep on the couch, waking up just before midnight to hear the neighbours (who had actually stayed awake long enough) yelling out Happy New Year.

I know you’re meant to start a year how you mean to finish it, so of course there was croissants and pain au chocolat for breakfast. No I didn’t make them. Why would anyone make their own when they’re freely available from any bakery? Heated up the oven and kept them in there long enough for the chocolate to go just that little bit gooey. Noice!

The rest of the day was pretty much a lazy one….rained plenty so not much to be said for it. I’m all for having a forced rest due to inclement weather but after a few weeks of rain already, it does get a little bit old. The boys were happy because they got about 10 minutes of RC Chopper flying in before the rain set back in. I played more Wii games than is generally considered healthy. And as for the cats? Meh, it was just a day like any other really with plenty of napping to be had.

This year is a little different in that we’ve had the rains around for a few weeks with only the odd day of sunshine in between. The outcome is that everyone seems to be pretty miserable – particularly if they are of the opinion that water does not have the same physical properties as the rest of us know it does (but that is another story for another day). There are no Christmas carols playing on the radio, the stores don’t have their usual festive appeal and most people I have encountered have been pretty bah humbug. That in itself is awesome, it would have been perfectly acceptable to wear my Bah Humbug tee to work today because I was the ONLY person in the whole department wearing a Christmas shirt! Ordinarily I’d be the only one in business wear.

The big man is on his way tonight and so that means a day of celebrating with family tomorrow. I’m extra lucky this year with two family Christmas celebrations a day apart. So if I don’t eat myself into a small bowel obstruction tomorrow, I can always have another crack at it on Boxing Day.

"I'm dreaming of a turkey dinner...just like the humans have each year"

As it happens, my work Christmas party is next Saturday and I have been ordered to make the place look festive. Yeah bah humbug. Anyway I thought I would attempt to comply with the request. I bought a set of outdoor lights which can be staked in the ground near the patio even though having lights up at Christmas time strikes me as an insane waste of power. At least the ones I got are LEDs so they won’t chew up as much as the standard lights.

I even bought a wreath that is designed for my front door. Unfortunately we have a security screen so I’ve put it up on a hook where some silver wind chimes normally hang. I think it looks just as nice up there and the tinsel star shaped decoration that I got to hang there is now adorning the security screen. That’s problem solving for you.

The absolutely brilliant thing about this set up is that it is easily demountable. The last cat enclosure we had was fantastic for them but when it came time to move house, removing it was an utterly painstaking process because the new owners didn’t have cats and had no need for it. When we took it down, we discovered that parts of it had rusted out which is why we ended up going with this kind of structure. With this one, it isn’t really connected to our house and should we decide to move, all we need to disassemble is to take out the bolts holding it together.

The cats are enjoying their new space outside, particularly when we’re outside pottering about. They can watch the birds, bask in the sun and jump around on the platforms that are up. Their litter tray is out there as well so they can go to the toilet in peace….or should I say, I can have a bath in peace without the accompanying noise of cat scratching around in hooded tray.

There are still more things we’d like to do to make it a really fun place for them to be – more lounging spots, a few platforms lower down for Rosie so that she can get to the upper perches and maybe a swinging hammock that hangs from the ceiling. Even though it took several months, a painful freighting process and a few injuries along the way, I’m glad we decided to get this one. I’m sure the moggies are glad too.

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.