Friday, May 14, 2010

Eye candy

There's something very precious indeed about a day off.

A day all to yourself.

A day when you can indulge yourself.

A day when you choose to ignore all but the most necessary of housework and laundry.

A day when you find yourself making beautiful things worth sharing.

A day when you can make your bloggy friends scroll down a billion times to find out what the heck Mrs Moog is whittering on about ;o)

The first day since waaaay before Easter when your day off plans have not gone awry.

The next bit may shock you........I haven't knit even so much as a single solitary stitch today!!

I know!!!!!

Who would have thought it?

I have, however, baked.



You HAVE to make this - no really - you HAVE to! Another perfect recipe for those manky eating apples.

Believe it or not this is an apple cake. An incredibly simple, awesomely deeeeelicious, crumbly-sweet-bestwhenstillwarmonlyatinybitleftthreehourslaterthankstoMrMoog-apple cake.

I found the recipe on the internet. I was terribly hi-tech and took the laptop into the (tiny) kitchen (being too eager to stop and write it down) and followed the recipe 'live'.

Unfortunately, my techno-tastic abilities stopped there and I forgot to save the link - although I did remember the recipe and wrote it down ten minutes after it came out of the oven (do wish I could link to the brilliant cook who posted this recipe but I've resurfed and can't find it).

Here's how to make it:

8oz self-raising (all purpose) flour
pinch salt
1 heaped teaspoon ground mixed spice
3oz margarine
10oz sugar OR 6oz if you use manky eating apples
8oz peeled and sliced apples (cooking or eating)
1 egg

Cream sugar and marg. Beat in the egg. Add the flour, salt, spice and chopped up apple. Mix together. This makes a stiff mixture and at this point I lost the faith and added a splashette of milk.

Okay, all topsy turvy in recipe terms ....by now you should have preheated your oven to gas 4 or 350degrees or whatever your oven does AND you would of course have greased and lined a 7 to 8 inch round cake tin.

Then you can turn that big glob of far too dry looking appley cake mix into your pre-prepared tin.

Once it starts to brown on top place some greaseproof paper on top to stop it burning (this bit REALLY worked!!!) and let it cook for 1 to 1 and a quarter hours. Stick something pointy into your cake and if it comes out clean it's cooked....if not give it a little longer.

When I took mine out of the oven I immediately sprinkled sugar over the top.
Have a slice with a cup of tea about twenty minutes later. You might as well cos by the time the bu**ers have been home for five minutes there'll be none bl***y left ;o)

Luckily I have four more manky apples just a-waiting my bakerly skills tomorrow!
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Remember that bit about not knitting?

You'll be mighty relieved to know I haven't gone a whole day entirely yarn free. However, I must warn you this has not been a day for posh and natural delicious sock-yarn. Today has been a man-made kind of a day.

Today, thanks to me spending far too much time looking at crochety loveliness on Ravelry in the wee small hours of this morning, I have got my ergonomic hook and my big posh Primarni-darling it only cost me £6!!!!!!CathKidstonlookeelikee (IMHO)-bag of acryliano yarn out of mothballs and have exercised my carpel tunnels with a mahoosive bit of grannying.


Some hours later I have two of these ten inch squares done and another three on the way. We're heading for a blanket here. At least that's the plan!

This next photo is an entirely gratuitous shot to show you just how perfect my little world is ;o)



Happy hooking!
xxx

Monday, May 10, 2010

I may be heading for a fall.....but I don't care.....I'm proud to be proud!





If you listen really hard to the chorus you'll hear the Sausage Monster and all his friends in the school choir. England are bound to win the World Cup now, with that heartfelt support :o)

Not wanting to let my child steal all the glory, I'm really rather proud of not only finishing these but of even attempting to knit them in the first place!

These are the May socks for the Stashbasket and Moogsmum sock challenge. I was so delighted to have finished them so early in the month but soon came down to earth when my dear friend Mrs Stashbasket kindly reminded me that I'd also agreed to knit these this month.

No problem.

After all, I do only have two pairs of socks on the needles at the moment and I wouldn't want to get bored, would I?

xxx