Made My Hair Stand on End!

I made it into Richard's newspaper last week...but didn't realize that it was windy, or that I was having a bad hair day...or both. All for a good cause, so what the heck.

The Big Dumpster in the Sky

 I had this really really old sofa that my parents bought in the 1970s. I also had a pee pee cat who loved the sofa. When Cinnamon died, I swore I'd get rid of the sofa. A few weeks back, I finally did.

 And the perfectly ugly sofa came with two ugly side chairs that the other cats took a liking too. I bet I had generations of cats who liked to claw those chairs.

 Lucky for me, Gordon and Natalie were getting a dumpster and graciously offered to schlep my old furniture away...

 Oh gawd, I was so hoping that everything would fit in  their trailer.

 Gordon was pretty adept at fitting the puzzle of the sofa and two chairs together.

Then of course, there was time for me to wear the little arm protector thingies one last time.

 This is me being very happy to get rid of that darn old furniture. Truth be told, my mother brought this set home and I think she hated it from day one.

 But as I recall, Dad got it from a furniture place in trade for a brochure he did for them.

 My mum would be delighted to see the back end of these!

And see, I never removed the tag that said, "Never remove this tag under peril of prosecution!"

Christmas Celebrating

Part of our gang at The Glengarry News got together for a photo at our annual Christmas party on Saturday. 

 The gals got together to ham it up.

Richard and I were sharing some sort of secret. Actually, our publisher showed a sequence from the film The Paper and Richard and I were critiquing it...I think.

Step-by-Step Melting Snowmen Cookies

 Kicking around the Internet, I found cookies that looked like melting snowmen. The amazingly creative Meaghan Mountford who invented it has a blog called
The Decorated Cookie.
Here's the link to her Mr. Melty snowman cookie:
 thedecoratedcookie.com/2010/12/the-journey-of-mr-melty-and-a-very-small-me/

Then I found another site that claims to be the originator of this cookie using a marshmallow at Truly Custom Cakery: http://www.trulycustomcakery.com/tutorials/25.html

Thanks to them for the inspiration!

Okay, so I have a cookie exchange this weekend and thought these cookies would be the perfect thing to make. But since I need to bring six dozen cookies with me, I decided to make them smaller than the ones I've seen on the web, and use mini-marshmallows.

I baked a bunch of sugar cookies, sort of oval, but not really necessarily oval. Just imperfectly shaped cookies, about 2" x 3" (or smaller). You can use any standard sugar cookie recipe. I pulled one off the Internet.

 I made some royal icing (another Internet recipe) and made it kinda runny and spread  it around...

 ...trying to keep it a bit messy to look like it's melted.

 Then I squished a mini-marshmallow between my fingers and stuck it into the wet icing.

 I had saved some of the royal icing and didn't water it down, then tinted it black with food colouring so that I could faces, buttons and stick arms. I especially like the "Oh no, Mr. Bill!" faces

I also added orange noses (I tinted some leftover royal icing orange) to look kinda like carrots.

Lots of fun but very time consuming. I spent about 3 hours just icing them! But in the end, I think they came out great.

Butterscotch Pie Lessons

My friend and neighbour Flora makes the best butterscotch pies in all the land. 

So my friend Peggi and I asked her to give us a lesson.

First we started with pie crusts.

We got step-by-step lessons on crimping edges.

Peggi wrote everything down as Flora demonstrated.

 Flora got busy at the stove, cooking up the butterscotch ambrosia 

that will end up being the centre of the pie..

She popped it into the pie...

 ...and topped it with luscious meringue.

And voila! An amazing butterscotch pie.

Then Peggi and I had a turn at making the pie under a watchful eye.

 While Peggi was busy at the stove....

I got busy on meringue detail. Our pie came our well and at the time I was sure I could make one myself. Time will tell. I'll keep ya posted.

Flora’s Butterscotch Pie

In a saucepan put 1 cup brown sugar, 2 large tablespoons flour, ½ tsp. salt.

Combine and add ¼ cup butter.

Put on stove on high stirring constantly.

Lower heat and stir till caramelized. Turn off heat and leave on burner.

Add 1 cup milk stirring well.

Separate 2 eggs (set aside whites), beat yolks and add to filling. Then add additional ¾ cup of milk.

Turn burner back on and stir. Will be very stiff at first. Stir till creamy and thick.

Pour into baked 9” pie crust.

Beat egg whites till stiff; add 1 T. sugar and continue beating till soft peaks form.

Top pie with meringue and bake 5-10 min. in 400F oven till edges are browned.

Horses and Doggies

Mark and his wife have three horses and two dogs. Here they are celebrating Mark's birthday in the paddock...or on top of a chocolate cake. Chocolate fencing, chocolate rocks, buttercream grass. Sounds good to me!

All Aboard!

Vanilla birthday cake for Sean who not only loves train travel, he's also a miniature train collector!

Richard's Chainsaw Cake

 I've wanted to make a chainsaw cake for Richard for a few years now but always chickened out!

But this year, I finally bit the bullet and did it! And the birthday boy was delighted.

Time for Kittens

 Okay, anytime can be kitten time. I found these little guys in a friend's garage. She didn't want them and I feared they'd grow up and have to fend for themselves in the bush. But...I was so happy I found them both homes! And I hear both are doing quite well in their new homes; one in Alexandria and the other in Ottawa.

I came THIS close to taking this little guy home with me. Three is enough for now...until my next cat or kitten shows up and has nowhere to go...

Happy Birthday Doggies

Mark's has two dogs -- Coco, a maltipoo and Carlos a shih-tzu. Here are their likenesses in buttercream icing, wishing him a happy birthday on a French vanilla cake with mocha icing. Happy 70th to Mark!

Taking Time Off

I've been away from my blog but after a bit of time off, I'm BACK!
Don't think I'll be blogging every day because frankly, I don't have that much interesting stuff to share. But, I will be posting pix of cakes and cats and things outside my window.
Stay tuned!

The End...?

I got a notice that I've used up all my space for this blog...so...not sure what I'll do next.
Please stay tuned!

Posing Pumpkins

I was in Hawkesbury last weekend where they had an event for kids for Halloween. But behind the picnic tables set up for painting were pumpkins.

 Lost of pumpkins. Pumpkins pumpkins everywhere.

 There were pumpkins posing in front of giant Swiss chard...

And even a pumpkin in a pansy patch. Sweet.

Hummingbird

Richard got this amazing photo of a hummingbird last month in Berkeley, California while we were waiting for the bus. I'm not sure what kind of hummer it is but love how you can actually see the wings. Usually they are just a blur!