Monday, December 25, 2006

Merry Christmas!!

Just quickly taking a break from the day's festivities to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! May it be safe and joyous! For those that don't celebrate Christmas, may you also have a safe and happy festive season :)

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Rocky Road Recipe

It's almost midnight and I've just put a batch of my Rocky Road in the fridge to set ready for Caitlin to take to her class Christmas party tomorrow. I came up with my version this time last year whilst searching for something quick and easy to make for the kids' class parties. I discovered a recipe for Rocky Road in one of Caitlin's "girly" magazines and made a few adjustments. The recipe suggested using raspberry lollies (sweets, candies for non-Aussie readers) instead of glace cherries which I thought was a brilliant idea (no one in this family likes glace cherries!). Due to the unavailability of some ingredients I made a couple more changes and made a test batch which went down well with Caitlin's class mates and teacher last year . Since it is my type of "baking" I made a few more batches for gifts and parties. It has proven to be popular and I have at least two friends asking me to make some for them this year :)

Anyway, I thought I would share the very simple recipe with my readers as my Christmas gift to you all :)

Mel's Rocky Road

Ingredients:
400g block of milk chocolate (I use Galaxy because that's the only brand of chocolate I can find in that size here)
340g bag of Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (I use Hershey's)
165g bag Maltesers (these are malt balls covered in milk chocolate - I use them in place of nuts)
300g bag Mini Marshmallows (white or coloured, doesn't matter - you can also use full size marshmallows - just cut them in half)
375g bag of Raspberry lollies (these are a soft jube like candy - I struggle to find these here so I use whatever I can find that is close!)

Method:
Line a lamington or lasagne tin with aluminium foil or greaseproof paper. In a LARGE mixing bowl put the Maltesers, marshmallows and raspberries (you can cut these in half or leave them whole - up to you). Give them a bit of mix and then set the bowl aside.

In a microwave safe bowl break up the large milk chocolate block. Add the chocolate chips. Microwave in bursts of 40 seconds until the chocolate has melted. Stir in between each burst - do not overcook the chocolate. It usually takes me 2-3 lots of 40 second bursts to melt my chocolate. We have a fairly high powered microwave.

Stir the chocolate mixture well to make sure both chocolates have combined well, then pour over the dry ingredients in the other bowl. Mix well until all ingredients are coated with the chocolate mixture.

Scoop the mixture into the lined tin and smoosh it evenly into all corners. The whole process takes about 10 minutes.

Pop the tin into the fridge until the mixture has set - I will leave mine in overnight - or you can pop it into the freezer for 30 minutes. Remove from fridge/freezer, break into bite sized chunks, bag it up in cellophane bags for gifts or place on a plate ready to eat!

Enjoy!

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Just call me slack!

Sorry I haven't posted for so long - I've gotten out of the irregular habit I had before I had the problems with my wrist and fingers!!

Anyway, I have seen the specialist about my wrist and it turns out that the tingling in the fingers isn't anything to do with the cyst - apparently it would be different fingers. I'm still none the wiser about the tingling but as it seems to be gradually going away (only in the tips now) the doc thinks I may have damaged a nerve in my elbow doing something at the gym or leaning on it too hard. I do tend to rest my chin in that hand and then lean on my elbow when I'm reading at the computer or at the table. If it hasn't settled then I need to go back and see the specialist so they can investigate further.

As for the cyst, I got the doc to aspirate it anyway - it only took a few minutes. I had to wear a pressure bandage for a couple of days and I had a mighty bruise but other than that it seems to be fine now. I do think it will come back as there seems to be a bit of a lump there but it may just be that my skin hasn't settled from the original one.

Thanks for the well wishes. I will try and get into regular blog posts again but with the holidays coming up I may still be a bit sporadic with them for a few more weeks.

No stitching to speak of but I have finished a book - "The Sultan's Seal" by Jenny White. Nicely written but I found it confusing and I'm still not sure who did what! Maybe I'm just missing something or I need to reread it ... not for a while yet though. I've just started Labyrinth by Kate Mosse - not sure what I think of it yet - it is still early days :)

Better go and sort dinner out!