Happy birthday, Olgie

Yesterday Olgie turned the ripe old age of 30.

I figured a significant birthday deserves significant gifting – so I gave Olgie a set of 4 cupcakes HANDMADE BY MOI:

Lucky for Dan and me, there were some duds left over, which of course we had to eat. To save the world from the horror of bad cupcakes.

I can cook!

Tonight I managed to do something that I have only ever done a few times before: cooked myself some dinner that didn’t include packets or jars of pre-prepared crap. Or cupcakes.

YAY ME!

Knowing that Dan was going out to a gaming work function tonight, I asked the interwebs for advice on how to cook some breast chicken I’d bought on the weekend. And within moments the lovely Kerri reminded me of the recipe she tested out last week: poached chicken with herbed tomato sauce.

Long story short, I ended up having a “quick” coffee with Kerri and Brad on the way to buying some missing ingredients at the supermarket… and got home 2 hours later than I usually do :o)

So yes, I cooked dinner, and it worked a treat. Yummy, not too difficult (although i freaked out over the slugs on the mint leaves). Will definitely make it again to prove to Dan that I am wife material ;o)

Photographic evidence so you can marvel at my new culinary talent and just how bad my mobile phone is at taking photos. Want iPhone!

Do it for (your) boobs!

So October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and on Monday it’s Pink Ribbon Day.

This weekend I’m off for a girlie weekend where we’ll celebrate Pink Ribbon Day. To bribe everyone, I’ve spent the week preparing my signature cupcakes, and finally finished them just now:

I made the ribbons over the course of Tuesday (coloured the fondahhhhnt in the morning before work and shaped them when I got home that night), made the cupcakes last night and made the icing tonight to finish off the whole shebang.

I was debating leaving the buttercream icing uncoloured, but decided to go with some pink. Overdid it with the Wilton pink icing colouring, but as if there’s such a thing as too much pink!

No doubt Barbara, Kay, Leigh and Naomi will have their sugar fix well and truly sorted by tomorrow afternoon…

Wisdom comfort food

When I was a kid, I envied everyone else who was getting their tonsils out. They got to eat icecream all. the. time.

I wanted ice cream all the time!

Yesterday I had my third wisdom tooth forcefully yanked out removed within a month. Dr Ben the Dentist did a great job last month (only one bowl of icecream consumed), but I knew this tooth was going to be more problematic, and expected a slower recovery. I prepared myself to eat icecream for at least 2 days.

After the hour-long “extraction” process (I was white-knuckled and deep-breathing the whole time), I got 2 stitches and some bone drilled off in addition to the gaping hole in my gum. I took the Panadeine Forte that Ben prescribed, but it still hurt a bit. Nothing like I was expecting, though. I still planned to have some ice cream, except we didn’t actually have any. Fail.

This morning I only took Nurofen for the pain, and only as a pre-emptive move since we were going grocery shopping (to buy me some icecream).  Nurofen has done a better job, win!

I bought So Good’s Bliss Heavenly Chocolate soy icecream “frozen dessert”. Because I figured I can’t just eat a litre of Conoisseur icecream and not end up a 10-tonne Tesse.

My mouth is doing amazingly well, but I figured I should have some icecream (or frozen dessert, even) JUST TO MAKE SURE THE RECOVERY GOES WELL. I had no idea soy icecream (or frozen dessert) could taste decent, or even, nice. Who knew?!

So even though I can eat (almost) normally, I’m going to have some more icecream (frozen dessert) .

Got booty

Yes, I know it’s bootie in this context, shaddup :o)

I keep telling myself that when I get time I’ll have a go at modelling with fondant (or “fondahhhnt”, for those to want to pronounce it properly) and finally got inspired enough to get my act together when I saw Not Quite Nigella make it look easy.

So to mark the start of my week-long break from work, I gave it a whirl.

I made about half a dozen before my attention span waned. Already I know what I’ll do differently next time, but am pretty chuffed with myself for at least pulling my finger out and giving it a go.

Major props to my Wilton icing colour pots, awesome job with the blue colouring, although I now have some lovely patches of azure on my fingers :o)