Chili 2
17 minutes ago
I love:
- eating. Especially sweets
- having a tidy house
- when a meal I make/baking/a photo I've taken turns out really well
- craft blogs (even though there are far too many good ones to read)
- sewing (even though I'm amateur at best and don't have a sewing machine)
- being spontaneous
- YouTube
- My earrings. I "made" these at a Relief Society meeting the other night by putting paua shell discs on my sleepers. My everyday earrings are now sooo much better.
I know you can't really see the earrings in this photo but I thought I looked good in it so I didn't want to crop myself out.
Now on to the chores I've been putting off for 2 hours! Yes! 2 HOURS!
...Put my sunglasses on.
Check me out.
I've had a few conversations recently about how life can carry you along. And even though I'm only 22 there are times in everyday life that I feel much older. So today* I did a few things to spice it up a little.
- Went shopping with my sister with no kids in tow.
- Walked through the pet store just to look.
- Dilly dallied at anything that caught my attention.
- Bought an expensive treat from Wendy's.
*It was actually not today that I did these things, it was Wednesday that I did these things. But you get the idea.
Michael Buble is performing at the Australian Idol finale.
And Nicole, I'm such a lover, I'm watching Aus Idol tonight and I just love Hayley so much, I'm going to defend her to you.
I think she is taking it seriously, because she is one of the best performers and her and Stan make the best song choices ever. I think what you might consider her not taking it seriously is just her being so super cool on camera that she's not awkward and embarrassing. It's her keeping her cool, loving the audience and being a natural. She's awesome.
Also, someone just mentioned Stan's "irresistable pout" on the show I'm watching right now. I hate the pout! It's the first thing I would change about him if I was his producer, the second would be those disgusting t-shirt singlet hoodies that he wears. Gross."
How funny is that?
And I thought my rant in the comments of a recent post could fill this out nicely, seeing as I almost posted it on it's own but didn't.
"I'm on the fence with Michael Buble because I've never seen him perform really, just that one video. And I've never thought I've heard a lisp! I'll have to listen for it!
And Nicole, I'm such a lover, I'm watching Aus Idol tonight and I just love Hayley so much, I'm going to defend her to you.
I think she is taking it seriously, because she is one of the best performers and her and Stan make the best song choices ever. I think what you might consider her not taking it seriously is just her being so super cool on camera that she's not awkward and embarrassing. It's her keeping her cool, loving the audience and being a natural. She's awesome.
Also, someone just mentioned Stan's "irresistable pout" on the show I'm watching right now. I hate the pout! It's the first thing I would change about him if I was his producer, the second would be those disgusting t-shirt singlet hoodies that he wears. Gross."
SO! I'll get to watch Michael Buble's slight "spastic"-ness on Idol. And listen for the lisp. And probably my girl Hayley on the same stage.
Love it.
*It's not really breaking news, the show aired live in Australia last Sunday, but I'm only watching it now. And it was probably announced before then that MB would be at the finale anyway, I'm just a bit behind.
I know they're not much to look at, but these are my new keeper/go-to sweetened condensed milk recipe, Butterscotch Blondies. Blondies are pretty much butterscotch flavoured brownies.
So I found the recipe and thought it looked good. And it is good. So if you're at all interested, listen to how I made this and give them a go. They're delish.
The problem with this recipe: I don't have yellow cake mix. Who in NZ keeps that in the cupboard? It's a pet peeve that I have that when I'm looking up recipes online 3/4 of them I normally rule out because they start with a cake mix. They sell about 3 various cake mixes in the supermarkets here. And they're super expensive. Compared to online I found someone say you can get any flavour at the store in the states for about $1, and found a recipe that started with something like "Monster Rainbow Chip Cakemix". What the heck is that? Anyway.
So I decided it was time to end that. I found this:
"I have a few recipes from my mother-in-law, who I always thought baked from scratch... Come to find out that EVERY SINGLE ONE of her ecipes start with "1 yellow cake mix" or "1 white cake mix"
The problem with this is that I don't recall ever buying a cake mix. I am 25 and grew up baking with my grandmother, who never used a cake mix. I have every other ingredient you could want to make 30 or more cakes, but no CAKE MIX!!!
Can anyone please tell me how to substitute this ingredient?!?"
I share the sentiment. And what follows, if you click the link, is an excellent, super simple and easy way to make you're own "cake mix" at home.
So once you have the cake mix, and you don't need the pecans or butterscotch chips because who really has those on call in the cupboard either, you can start.
Wait, how many cups of cake mix are in a 16 ounce box? Roughly 4 and 3/4. You're welcome. What I did is used 5 because I thought sifting those dry ingredients might have given them more volume. Then added 2 eggs instead of 1 at the first step to get the right texture dough. It's kind of like cookie dough when you press it in, maybe a bit dryer. The rest should be easy peasy!
My oven, which I have so many issues with that I almost posted about it on it's own, is a bit temperatmental. Gas. With only the fire at the bottom of the oven. No upper element. It makes me feel like I could cook in the forest if I needed to and every time I bake or cook it's an adventure because the sparker is broken and it needs to be lighted manually. That said, with this recipe, it didn't go wrong, it went right. You may notice in the above photo there are dark squares and light squares. That's okay. Even though the oven cooked from the outside in so the edges were brown and the middle was custardy yellow because there's no upper element to grill the top evenly, that's okay. Because for me it was like two squares in one. The dark ones are more cakey, still deliciously soft and brownie like. Nat likes these better. The light ones are custardy on top, gooey, and deliciously soft and brownie like under that. I like these better. Win win.
So give it a go! And if you do let me know how it goes.
1) I forgot that it's Halloween. Kind of. This was the extent of the dress ups in our house.
And there were masks at a birthday party that we went to today.
What I forgot about is trick or treaters. And so after getting a bit of a fright from the first insistent knock on my door, I didn't have any candy. And this is the first year that I've actually had trick or treaters knock on my door. Previous years I've bought candy for them and then ended up eating it myself because no one else came to claim it.
So I found a block of chocolate in the cupboard, made sure the kids saw it coming straight from the packet, had them take it out of the foil so I didn't touch it, and told them to eat it before they get home because their parents might tell them not to eat any unwrapped candy.
2) Who's this guy sitting outside my house eating his dinner with a stash that would fill my kitchen cupboard, minutes after I hear a bunch of banging on the side of the house?
I don't know.
Probably my neighbour who I haven't seen since he moved in. I've seen his significant other lady friend who also lives downstairs a few times, but maybe this is him. I don't know because I didn't want him to look up and see me taking a photo of him so I never saw his face.