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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby strictlysalsaclare » Fri Jun 01, 2018 3:50 pm

I have a very foodie weekend coming up tomorrow and Sunday. I'm going to a food and drink festival near where I work tomorrow and a French food market near where I live on Sunday.

In between all of that I'll be making 2 birthday cakes for myself, one for home and one for work. As baking time will be short, I've chosen some quick and easy methods for the cakes. The 'home' cake will be a Sherry, Raisin and Almond one. The 'work' cake will be a Chocolate Mint version of a Victoria Sandwich. The frosting is going to be a cheaty one made with chocolate spread, some cocoa powder and mint extract. I've also got some Matchmakers to use as decoration.

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby Suffs » Fri Jun 01, 2018 4:28 pm

Oooh, the Sherry Raisin and Almond cake sounds delicious ... any chance of the recipe?

Hope you have a fabulous birthday :blowing-birthday-cake

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby strictlysalsaclare » Fri Jun 01, 2018 4:51 pm

Here it is Suffs, although I have fino sherry and not much of it. I may have to add some orange juice to make the liquid up to the right amount!

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/539 ... ith-sherry

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby Suffs » Fri Jun 01, 2018 5:19 pm

Could you get someone ;) to pop into a nearby pub/hotel with a paper cup for a smidgeon of Amontillado :idea:

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby strictlysalsaclare » Fri Jun 01, 2018 5:32 pm

I like your idea Suffs, but as Mr Strictly and I do not have a particularly sweet tooth when it comes to puds, I think the fino sherry will do us just fine! Put it this way, given the choice between a white chocolate fudge cake :vomit and a rhubarb pudding of some kind :yum , it's the latter all the way for us. :)

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby Suffs » Fri Jun 01, 2018 6:09 pm

Oh .... same here ... don't do white chocolate anything except tiny little petit fours ... far too sweet.

But I was thinking about the sort of 'roundness' of the flavour ... maybe a little vanilla ?

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby Gillthepainter » Sat Jun 02, 2018 11:08 am

Happy birthday, Stricters.
And enjoy that cake baking. Such a shame my husband doesn't do cakes. I'm sure I'd be an excellent cake baker given the chance (or maybe not, we shall never know).

All go here, I'm off to the local car park shoe mender to get a new shed key cut.
Then down to Bristol shopping. Tony's looking for a new canvas jacket with a specific type of collar = impossible find.
And I'm looking for anything I see that fits me.

Frustratingly Suffs and Strictly, I've got loads of sherry in, from our trip to Cadiz last year.
I've got some amontillado infused with sloe gin berries too.

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby Suffs » Sat Jun 02, 2018 11:40 am

Good morning all :wave

Too damp this morning to continue what we'd started which was painting the garden shed, so now the freshly painted side is swathed in bubblewrap and sticky tape and I shot down to W'rose in the village to grab some weekend food (seabass, noodles and spinach for tonight, lamb and aubergines etc for koftas etc tomorrow and chicken thighs and Albacore tuna for later on) ... just as I got out of the car the heavens opened ... I pulled on my showerproof jacket and paddled into the store where the staff were already armed with brooms to sweep the deluge out of the foyer and a throng of shoppers were waiting to venture back out into the carpark!!! At least I had the aisles almost to myself :roll:

It's more or less stopped now and I've changed my clothes and OH has unloaded the shopping and made me a coffee ....... time to collapse on the sofa for ten mins ...

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby Renee » Sat Jun 02, 2018 11:47 am

Have a very happy birthday Strictly!

:birthday-present :birthday-present

Suffs, I could have done with some of that rain here … but not that much! It has been so very dry here for ages it seems, but started raining lightly last night, which will save a lot of watering today. Lovely weekend food you're having!

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby Suffs » Sat Jun 02, 2018 12:04 pm

Renée ... I'll try to nudge it over your way ... our water butts are full again :D

Oh yes ... Very Many Happy Returns to Strictly :birthday-present-and-cake

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby strictlysalsaclare » Sat Jun 02, 2018 1:15 pm

Thanks for all the birthday wishes ladies. :newhuggy

I had a good time at the Kent food fair. I bought quite a few things such as rhubarb gin, chilli relish, a white sourdough, summer berry jam and a couple of African non-alcoholic beverages. One is a pineapple drink and the other is lemon and ginger. I also has a chat with my workmate who had a stall there. She specialises in celebration cakes so was selling mainly cupcakes which looked amazing but not my thing. The same goes for Mr Strictly - we both have a major dislike of buttercream!

The raisins for my home birthday cake are currently soaking in fino sherry, orange and lemon juice with a little water to make up the amount. I will probably add a touch of cinnamon to the cake to round the flavours out. We both love this spice in sweet things, whether it be a baked good or poached/stewed fruit when relevant.

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby Renee » Sat Jun 02, 2018 2:23 pm

I'm pleased that you had such an enjoyable day, Strictly. I was in Asda yesterday and a woman told me how nice the rhubarb gin was! What a coincidence!

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby strictlysalsaclare » Sat Jun 02, 2018 2:50 pm

I'm not normally a fan of gin but this rhubarb one is very nice indeed, and incredibly smooth when sampled on its own.

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby strictlysalsaclare » Sun Jun 03, 2018 2:56 pm

I'm now back from the French market which was extremely good, and not just a food one either. Food-wise I bought some pain au chocolat and pain aux raisins; two lots of pate (wild boar and de campagne); some Tomme cheese (the one with the black rind), and some large, ribbed tomatoes. My parents-in-law and brother-in-law gave me some money for my birthday. As there was a stall that was selling reproduction copies of vintage advertising posters, which I love, I bought a couple. One is an Art Nouveau one, and i think it's been designed by my favourite artist Alphonse Mucha. It definitely looks like his style. The other is an Art Deco one advertising Fritz Lang's Metropolis film - some of the scenes were used in the Queen video for Radio Ga Ga, so it was a must-buy! For those of you who don't know, Mr Strictly and I are both big fans of the rock group Queen, which brought us together in the first place.

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby Renee » Sun Jun 03, 2018 3:21 pm

What a wonderful time you had at the French market, Strictly! It's ages since I went to one. Far too many temptations, but I did used to buy soap from Marseilles. The mimosa soap was my favourite. Now I can get the liquid soaps from TKMaxx.

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby jeral » Sun Jun 03, 2018 4:19 pm

Probably of interest to no-one:
I finally (after three days of trying) figured out why my Excel had conked out. It wasn't to do with other apps or possible new privacy conflicts etc, just good ol' Microsoft forcing a Windows 10 update that screwed it up.

I'd already tried a System Restore which failed for some reason but I found a way to go back to version 1709 and hopefully a way to stop 1803 being forced on me, at least for a while. Thank goodness for public forums eh?

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby Sakkarin » Tue Jun 05, 2018 1:59 pm

As a listoholic I'd be lost without Excel :-(, spreadsheet below by the fabulous Brian Bilston

Also I've just been reading a book of quotes, this one made me smile:

"The trouble with eating Italian food is that 5 or 6 days later you're hungry again..."
GEORGE MILLER

Image

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby Renee » Tue Jun 05, 2018 5:24 pm

Wonderful! I did learn to use Excel at college, but I don't need to use it I don't think, or do I?

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby jeral » Tue Jun 05, 2018 5:44 pm

Sakkarin, scary that. I mean, if Mr Bilston really has no friends who'll help him =concatenate himself or help rebuild him like Humpty Dumpty with =cell&cell&cell, then maybe we're safer with him remaining trapped 8-) On the other hand, as an escapee he might relish his freedom and create some wonderful letter art :)

Meanwhile on Italian food, there's probably some truth in the "slow release" aspect, as pasta (surprisingly perhaps) is recommended for sustained energy. 5 or 6 days? might be a stretch, unless it has a sneaky and inordinate knack of quelling hunger pangs indefinitely...

Saying which, I've ordered an oblong non-stick loaf tin that's exactly the right size for standard lasagne sheets - hopefully this one won't rust.

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Re: CHATTERBOX

Postby jeral » Tue Jun 05, 2018 6:58 pm

Renée, I use Excel for home these days and would miss it (or its equivalent). It's easy for me as I've used it for years to do quickly things that would take forever with pen and paper.

It shouldn't take too long to grasp the basics of spreadsheet ethos and simple formulas and a few functions that you'd use most often to make it a calculator with wings, although learning (and remembering) some of the fancier things will take as much time literally as you're prepared to give it. Put a different way, if you like doing crossword puzzles, you'll be OK with spreadsheets. If you can't be bothered as they drive you mad, then spreadsheets will too ;)

Incidentally "Libre Office" is free (open source) and includes "Calc" if you want to try spreadsheets. (Excel isn't the only player in town.) https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/libreoffice/

Needless to say, always glad to help if I can if you do decipe to dip your toe in the water :)

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