HAPPY NEW YEAR ~ The Fast Diet 5:2

After 2 weeks of festivities - which really means eating and drinking stuff that's not good for me, I've decided to start the 5:2 diet.

Earlier in the year I dieted and lost 1 stone in 4 weeks, that was through cutting out all wheat and sugar. I have kept that 1 stone off. I also increased my exercise and have kept that up but lately I have slipped back into the old convenient routine of eating bread and wheat products and sugary stuff all too regularly, which makes me feel really bloated and lethargic. So new year new me and all that.

The idea is that you eat 'normally' for 5 days and fast for 2 days. Fast as in you are still eating, but at a reduced calorific intake. You can increase the fasting days, which is what I plan to do for the first 4 weeks. I'm going to do alternate days.

Day 1 was yesterday. My first fast day and was much easier than I thought it would be. Plus side was that the weather was so hot and I really never feel like eating when it's hot. Here's what it went like:

2 x Nespresso coffee + 200ml skim milk = 90Kcal each
6 waferthin sesame crackers 39Kcal
1 hardboiled egg 69kcal
150g serve cooked peeled king prawns 108Kcal
large green salad & cherry tomatoes 20 Kcal
Low cal dressing 10 Kcal
1/2 mango 22Kcal
1 kiwi fruit 29Kcal
1.5 ltr iced water with a squeeze of lemon juice 0 Kcal
2 cups black tea 0Kcal

Total = 477 Kcal. 500 is my limit on fasting days. I did good.

Day 2 today so a 'normal' day. I aim to cut out wheat and sugar again and will still be watching those calories. So due to my change in circumstances sadly there will be no more baking posted on here for a while.

Chocolate Mousse Cake with Berries

A New Years Eve show-stopper of a cake!
This is luxuriously rich and chocolatey yet is surprisingly simple and quick to make (apart from the chilling time).

You will need a 25 cm springform cake tin, with the base and sides lined with non stick baking paper
Oven 180 degC, 160 deg fan

For the cake:
25g cocoa mixed into a paste with 3 tablespoons boiling water

add to this:
2 large eggs
100g caster sugar
100g self raising flour
1 level teaspoon baking powder
100g soft butter

Whisk using an electric mixer for 1 minute. Spread the mixture into the lined tin and bake for 20 minutes. It will have shrunk away from the sides of the tin a little.
Sit the tin on a wire rack to cool, don't remove the cake from the tin! Sprinkle over 2 tablespoons of rum or brandy while the cake is still warm and let it soak in.

While your cake is cooling melt 300g of dark chocolate (I do this in the microwave in 1 minute bursts, reducing to 10 second bursts) allow to cool a little.

Whip 450 ml cream to a softly peaking stage, then gently fold through the melted chocolate, do this thoroughly until there are no streaks. Spoon the chocolate mousse on top of the cake, smoothing the surface carefully to get a neat finish. Chill for at least 6 hours or overnight in the fridge to firm.

Release the springform clip of the tin and remove the ring. The cake on the pic is straight after the tin was released and sometimes the sides may look a little rough, you can use a hot, wet palette knife and run it around the outer edge in one quick movement to neaten it, but you have to be confident to do this in one action and it helps to put the cake on a turntable.

Dust the top of the mousse with cocoa powder, pile on some berries of your choice. Give it a final flourish of icing sugar over the top of the berries.

Serves at least 12 people, small slices are best. Enjoy!

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting & Other Things..........

It's been a very busy week and also a very cold week. I never thought I would see the day when we had the christmas tree up and the fire lit, but we did.

I made Gingerbread Cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting this week, they make the house smell so christmassy while they are baking:

For the cupcakes:
4 oz soft butter
1/2 cup soft brown sugar (packed)
1 egg
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup black treacle
1 1/3 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

For the frosting:
100g cream cheese (full fat)
30 g soft butter
150g icing sugar
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon lemon juice.

Oven 180 degC/350 deg F

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg then add the treacle and water. The mixture may look like it has split at this point but don't be concerned, it will work out right. Mix all the dry ingredients together and mix them into the butter mixture until combined, then beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Fill paper baking cups 2/3 full and bake for about 20 minutes. They will be risen and nicely brown, when you gently press them in the centre they should spring back. Let them cool in the tins for 10 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.

For the frosting: Mix all ingredients together and mix with an electric whisk for 2 minutes until light and airy. Pipe swirls on top of the cupcakes and decorate as desired. I used snowflake sprinkles. This makes about 18 cupcakes depending on the size of your paper cups.

The postie has been busy at my house this week, delivering parcels and goodies:

An early Christmas Gift.

My holiday colour swap-mini-swap envelope from Annie in The Netherlands, crochet snowflakes for my tree, organic chocolate, mini skeins and a skein of Wollmeise in the most gorgeous shade of red. What a lucky girl I am.

My wonderful colour swap parcel from Aryn in Canada, stuffed full of yarn, fibre and goodies all packaged in the neatest handmade fabric basket.

I'm making slow progress on my cardigan, just not getting enough knitting time lately. Onto the third stripe and have joined in the round for the body part.

My Christmas tree has a bird theme this year.

December Already..

December is here already, I can't believe it! Yesterday was the first day of Summer for us and what a day it was. Hail storms, rain all day and the fire lit last night. I have never known us to have the fire lit in December.

Christmas is fast approaching and I feel so unprepared. I have mailed gifts home to the U.K. and have done most of my gift buying for family here yet I still have to bake my Christmas cakes (I usually have them done and stored away by the end of October), I have the fruit soaking it's just difficult to find the time to actually bake them. Going to work seems to suck up most of my time these days.

So, with all the 'hundred-things-to-do' swimming around in my head I decided to start knitting a cardigan lol. I'm using some yarn that I haven't tried before:

Cleckheaton Perfect Day DK weight ~ a wool & alpaca blend. It's really nice yarn, soft and light, I think it'll make a perfect BlueSand Cardigan for when the cooler weather returns. The mid grey (12 balls) is for the main part of the cardigan and the darker and lighter shades for the stripes, the yarn was on clearance for $7 per ball, a real bargain.

The red roses from my garden are making me feel quite Christmassy, they are the most stunning shade of red, have the sweetest perfume and the blooms are really large. I would love to know what variety they are.

Mary Berry's Banana loaf

Yesterday I had the rare pleasure of having a whole day at home to myself. What to do?  Spinning and knitting were at the forefront of my mind I will admit, however, I quickly shelved those thoughts and decided to catch up on household chores, a spot of gardening was also quickly shelved because of the intense heat outside (it got to 27 degrees), so once I had caught up with the mundane stuff I decided to spend the afternoon baking. 6 bananas past their best in the fruit bowl, no way was I going to waste them.

Banana loaf ~ my favorite recipe is a Mary Berry one. It's quite adaptable and keeps and freezes very well. Not too sweet as I use a little less sugar than the original recipe calls for, moist, cakey, and not at all heavy as I find a lot of banana loaf recipes are. I made 3, 1 for now and 2 for the freezer. Here's the recipe:

115g soft butter
2 very ripe bananas (about 200g peeled weight) mashed very well.
125 g soft brown sugar (original recipe calls for 150g)
2 large eggs
225g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons milk (I sometimes use buttermilk)

1 loaf tin 900g/2lb capacity, lined with baking paper

Oven 180 deg/160 deg fan/350deg f/gas 4

Put everything except the banana into a large mixing bowl and whisk with an handheld mixer for 1 minute, or beat with a wooden spoon for 2 minutes. Stir in the banana and add any add-ins you may like.

I added 100g of chopped walnuts, half of a pack of white chocolate chips and a few handfuls of dried cranberries to mine, but that was for 3 times the mixture.

Spoon into the lined tin and smooth the top. Bake for about an hour until a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean, if you press the cake lightly in the centre it will feel pretty firm and should be a nice golden brown colour.

Cool for 10 minutes in the tin then turn out onto a cooling rack.

The original recipe has honey icing but I don't make this as I think the cake is sweet enough as it is:
25g icing sugar
2 teaspoons clear honey
1/2 teaspoon cold water
Mix all the ingredients together and drizzle over the cold loaf.

Then I hung the new curtains I made for my bedroom last week:

The fabric I chose is a chocolate brown washed linen, these are lined with a thermal block out lining which will keep the heat in through the Winter. The heading is a 20cm pencil pleat. I'm really happy with them, I wouldn't normally choose such a dark colour for soft furnishings but they go so well with the pale gold colour of the wallpaper.






I'm currently working on a package for a Christmas mini swap, I've learnt myself some new skills but I can't say too much until the package has been received :-)

Spring Green Handspun Merino, finally finished

Finally finished my experimental skein:

90g
950 metres
Commercially combed 20 micron merino top
Hand dyed by me
Randomly spun
Weight: Lace
Grist:10,555 mtrs per Kg
WPI: 36
Plies: 2
Singles: Z spun
Plied: S spun
Wheel: Ashford Traditional
Drive ratio: 40:1



This is the first yarn/skein I spun using my new Ashford Lace Flyer. I really really like it. Spinning seems effortless, because of the higher ratio I no longer treadle like a mad woman to get enough twist into the singles. Cross lacing the singles across the flyer does work, it slows the take up of the yarn onto the bobbin. I soon got a feel for it.

One error I made, when I came to ply the singles I used a lace bobbin, I should have just used a normal one. I will know next time!

Now I've just made a start on this beautiful stuff:

This is a braid of merino from Heavenly wools, a lovely surprise sent to me by a swap partner this week. It has a long colour change, so a gradient spin is in order.

I originally planned to spin onto 2 bobbins and 2 ply the singles, but I had a change of heart and decided to spin it all onto one bobbin and Navajo ply for a 3 ply gradient yarn. The blue is much more teal/peacock in reality. I'm halfway through the first colour of 4.

The peonies are all coming into bloom in my garden and I cut the first vase full today. The roses are just about ready to bloom but we are still getting cold frosty nights. I cover over the potatoes and other frost tender crops at night, it seems rather late in the year to be doing that.

Merino, ready to ply

I finished spinning the merino singles last night. 2 bobbins, now ready to ply. The colours are quite a bit more vivid in real life:

Greens into blues, random spun into singles as fine as I could, it was a braid of merino I dyed a very long time ago. I hope for 1000 mtrs of laceweight!