Well, the horrible, intense month at SML is almost at end and we’ve actually delivered and made it out alive – though it was touch and go for a while. Knut ended up with a horrible cold – which he has kindly passed on to Heather and me – and AnxiousMum has developed a bunch of mouth ulcers, but we are mostly otherwise unscathed.
I was only gloating to my team on Thursday afternoon that I hadn’t had a cold for ages, so obviously it was inevitable that I’d manifest one, the secret-style (it’s just science!).
I now feel pretty gosh-darned wretched. So apart from voting in the state election today – there will be minimal actioning of any items.
Blergh!
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You might remember that I was planning to knit this jumper. I whipped up a couple of gauge squares during the week and ACK!
Normally my knitting is quite neat and lovely, if I do say so myself:
close up of recently knitted french press cosy
This time – well, my two options are an absolute, uneven mess. Ever AFTER wet blocking.
Eeeek! It looks like the work of a complete beginner (sorry beginners). I’m thinking 4ply yarn on 5mm circular is responsible for the mess and that it has nothing to do with my skillz or lack thereof.
So, I’m going to abandon the pattern and give something else a crack.
Look at me, happily abandoning a project without guilt!
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Here at ThePalace(OfLove) we are big fans of ice-cream.
In particular we very much like Cadbury Creamy Vanilla because it is gorgeous and yellow and creamy and … all the things!
The packaging changed recently and this week was the first we’d grabbed the new version.
I cracked it open last night (shut up! I was sick!) to find the contents were a completely different texture and colour.
And the taste was kind of … ewwwww.
This morning I vowed to see if the ingredients had changed. Fortunately I had an empty ice-cream tub with the old packaging laying about which I could use for comparison purposes – because I am a hoarder.
old to left, new to right
I’d expressed my curiousity about the addition of the “vanilla flavour” box when we bought it (creamy vanilla | vanilla flavour? what other kind of flavour would it be?), but thought nothing of it. The ingredients were very slightly different – colour and emulsifier numbers, but nothing that really jumped out.
Examining the packaging further it became really obvious why it had tasted so wretched:
WT(A)F?!?
The small writing on the side of the tub was the only indication that we had bought fat reduced ice-cream. Fat reduced?! The humanity!! I want the total fat experience in my ice cream – otherwise I’d have like, an apple or something.
This is just the driver I needed to get more into making home-made ice-cream. Especially after reading the additives on the side of the tub. Really ice-cream should be all about cream, eggs, sugar and possibly vanilla. Emulsifiers be gone!
I’ve been making ice cream the last few weeks, I’ve so far made macadamia/white choc chip cookie dough ( first experiment, way too sweet/rich), peppermint choc chip (very yum) and chocolate which the kids say was amazing chocolatey ice cream, I actually found it a bit hard to get through, very rich. I’ve found the best base to be 900ml cream and a tin of sweetened condensed milk, whizzed with electric mixer for 4-5 mins.
Good luck with your election and your cold, for goodness sake don’t ever say how lucky you are that such & such hasn’t happened – gets me every time.
Harriet!!
Thank you. I will give that a whirl. The recipe I used back when the babies were babies involved making a custardy base, letting it cool overnight and then doing unremembered *stuff* to it before churning. This sounds much simpler.
Will report back.
We’ve got the wine and cheese &etc in preparation for the traditional election feast, but I suspect the Libs will get back in. We and the seat beside us (our old seat and where Joan lives) are like a little island of progressiveness. This seat is very tight (as is Joan’s) – hoping for a Green win here although the Labor candidate is pretty great, so wouldn’t mind terribly if she won it. The first time I had even heard or seen the Lib candidate’s name was today on the ballot – there has been absolutely no campaigning or letterbox dropping or posters on telegraph poles.