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March 15, 2013

Red Nose Day

Cuisine, Daily photo, family Comments Off on Red Nose Day

Red Nose Day is back! And to celebrate it and raise some money, we decided to have a Red Nose Day event at the office. For the occasion last night, I baked some red cupcakes, made some red frosting and printed out Red Nose logos to stick on them.

Once I finished baking I had a problem though… how to explain to a 3 years old girl that she cannot have any of the cupcakes  because mommy has to take them to the office for a good cause?

Even worse, how can you explain to a husband (coming home late from work and thinking that I baked them for him) that he cannot eat them either?

This morning before leaving for nursery, my daughter kindly posed for some Red Nose pictures…”Mommy my nose is too tiny to hold it…”

Red nose day celebrates its 25th anniversary this year… so we really must have some fun in raising money for a good cause and help to change the lives of poor and disadvantaged people in UK and Africa.

“Like that?!?”

Have a fun Red Nose Day!

“Hey, I would like to be part of Red Nose Day too!”

March 11, 2013

Mommy, a clean freak

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I think I am a clean freak, or a germ freak whatever you want to call it.

Last week I had the guys from Ikea coming over to deliver Bubu’s new bed, so exciting!

One of the guys who was delivering the bed,  as soon as he stepped in, asked me if he could use the loo.

PANIC!

With a forced smile I said “Yes… of course…” And I started to freak out.

Everyone knows that men always forget to wash their hands after going to the loo so I was horrified by the idea of this man touching my bathroom door handle, then touching the handle of my daughter’s bedroom and the main door. HORRIFIED…

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As soon as he came out of the loo and went to assemble the bed in Bee’s room, I rushed to the kitchen, put the gloves on and grabbed a sponge and some bleach. Then I quickly disinfected the loo and all handles PLUS rapidly mopped the floor as he didn’t take his shoes off (usuallly I ask everyone who comes in the flat to take shoes off but they were going in and out so I felt bad for once).

Do I have OCD? Maybe, but I’m a firm believer that hygiene is more important than being tidy, in fact if I am really tired I don’t particulary care if the house is messy as long as I know that it’s clean and germ free 🙂

Please DO judge me on this and leave a comment as it would be interesting to understand if I am a clean freak or actually just hate getting sick lol

Few things I do daily and I think are pretty normal:

  • wash my hands when I arrive home (normal right?)
  • take my shoes off as soon as I enter my flat
  • if someone uses our bathroom I go and clean it afterwards

Things I do when I go out:

  • after been to the loo in a public place, I keep  in my hands the paper towel I dried my hands with, and I use it to open the exit door (you have no idea how many people go to the loo and don’t wash their hands!)
  • I wipe my laptop keyboard if someone uses it
  • I wipe the seat with disinfectant gel when I use a public loo (for my daughter as well, I actually made her cry few times when accidentally she touched the loo and I screamed “DOOOONT!”)
  • at the supermarket I wipe the bar of the trolley before touching it (especially if my daughter is with me and sits in there)
  • I give bad looks to people who comb their hair in public places, yucky it’s grosss!!
  • when someone sneezes I kindly “offer a squeeze” of disinfectant gel (which I always have in my bag) as they could potentially be touching stuff that I subsequently could touch, yuck!
  • definitely wash my hands or disinfect them if I touch money
  • when we dine out I refrain from touching the oil bottle, ketchup bottle (or any other bottle on the table) as in case I use my hands to eat some chips for example,  I cannot stop thinking of how many germs I can get from people who touched the same bottle with dirty hands!

Not too bad right? Right…!?!??

 

March 6, 2013

Mother’s day – Festa della mamma!

Cuisine, Daily photo, family, Food Comments Off on Mother’s day – Festa della mamma!

Although in Italy Mother’s day is not until May, I still would like to dedicate this post to my lovely Mamma who not only is the best mother but also best mother-in-law! (go on, check with my husband if you don’t believe me! :))

So to celebrate, I once again found an excuse to bake some cupcakes and I made my first attempt at cake pops.

I cannot wait to show these pictures to Mamma! She definitely has a sweet tooth but unfortunately this time she will only be able to look at the pictures.

However  as both my mom and my sister will come at the end of the month for the birth of my baby boy, I will soon have another excuse to bake… well I will be 9 months pregnant but I’m sure I will manage my bump around the kitchen 🙂

To make the cake pops I cheated a bit as this time I actually bought a cake, crumbled it and added some frosting. To cover the cakepops I melted some white chocolate and added some food colouring to give it a light pink shade. Then I remembered in the cupboard I had some “Barbie sugar decorations” I bought some time before and I just sprinkled them on the cake pops before the chocolate got dry.

To make the cupcakes I just followed a basic Vanilla cupcake recipe.

The frosting I used to cover the cupcakes is special though! I found a recipe called Marshmallow fondant which allows you to make in just few minutes, a smooth creamy fondant which tastes exactly like marshamallow (duh!) and has a fine texture that will melt in your mouth!

Due to the fact that I started to bake a bit late in the day, by the time I had to take pictures, the light in the kitchen wasn’t ideal, I’m still hoping though you can appreciate the shiny colours of these sweets.

 

And obvioulsy once again, I used my lovely cake stand and replaced the green ribbon with a pink one (found in a remote box where we stored it after my daughter was born).

  Ti voglio bene Mamma!

 

February 25, 2013

My first batch of Macarons

Beatrice likes, Cuisine, Daily photo, family, Food Comments Off on My first batch of Macarons

I never thought I would actually like macarons as I believed they had a meringue consistency which I hate, and only the thought of biting into a meringue cookie makes me shivers brrr.

Because Macarons do look stunning though, I decided to give it a go and I tried them at a friend’s wedding last summer, needless to say I absolutely loved them!

Immediately I understood what all the fuss about the famous french Macarons was ( by the way, I checked the spelling with my french friend and definitely the word is spelt with  only one “o”).

When I read the recipe I thought they were fairly straightforward to make but then I checked some tutorials and read that making Macaroons is an art and that you can encounter many complications in the procedure ( you cannot imagine how many “Macarons troubleshooting posts” I came across).

To be honest the only complication I encountered is that I misread the instruction my first time around and I forgot one step in the making. When I took them out of the oven I had these totally flat, pale colour, rocking look “macarons” which looked awful… incredibly they actually tasted amazing though (I took a picture of them but they looked a disgrace so I save you from the pain to look at it!!).

Second time around I concentrated. By following the recipe step by step I already could see improvements in the texture of the macaron mix.

If you are thinking of making Macarons, I suggest you to check this video which was quite useful to me as I think it was easier to understand the procedure by actually looking at the various steps showed in a simplified way.

And this was the right occasion to show off my new cake stands, I love them!

I wasn’t sure about what filling use for these pink macarons so I thought the best one would have been a filling whose colour would stand out. I then decided to make a white chocolate filling with butter and icing sugar. To be honest it was far too sweet so I added some whipped cream to make it lighter.

As first attempt I think it was a pretty good one (pat pat my own back :)) Next time my goal is to make multicolour ones and experiment with different fillings.

 

 

 

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