by browniegirl
January 26, 2009 in Uncategorized
Did y’all see the Annular Solar Eclipse earlier this morning??? South Africa is one of the fortunate countries to see it.
I saw it very briefly as it is rather overcast here today. But take a look HERE on News24′s gallery for some striking photographs by users…….(got the link from Wotsforlunch!)
Enjoy!!
browniegirl xxx
Is anyone else having blogging problems or is it just my pc???? SLOW!!!
And pages don’t want to open……:o(
by browniegirl
January 26, 2009 in Uncategorized
My cute grandsons, Tyler 5yrs & Jay 11mths tomorrow. Both have an amazing sense of humour,
Jay was hysterical showing off his big teeth & his carrot eating ability!!!
The brownies enjoyed a lovely day with family on Saturday. It had been Auntie S’s birthday a few days earlier and grandson Ty insisted that there had to be a party with cake and candles to blow out. He found a few balloons left over from his birthday last November which he and Papa blew up and hung under the umbrella. The only problem was that cake was not on the menu for the day. The guests had chosen to enjoy Moo’s Apple Crumble so I was pondering how to resolve the cake issues when all of a sudden an opportunity was presented to me….. Original Cin left a comment on my blog asking for a recipe for the Chocolate Cake baked in a mug in the microwave oven…….THAT WAS IT!!! I could bake one of those instant jobbies, we could stick a candle in that for S & Ty to blow out while we all sang the mandatory birthday dittie!!! I was certain I had seen it since new year on foodblogs, searched for the recipe..found only one posted last year on Tickle’s blog and also a couple of other places on the www. It is really easy to make, takes 2 minutes to mix up and 3 minutes to cook….here is the recipe, pimped just a bit by me…cos I can!!!
CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE
4 Tbs Cake Flour
4 Tbs Sugar
2 Tbs Cocoa Powder
1 egg
3 Tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
A Sprinkle of Cinnamon
A splash of vanilla essence
1 LARGE coffee mug
Sift the flour, cocoa & salt into a small bowl or jug
Add the egg, milk & oil and mix in until just incorporated
Add your cinnamon & vanilla and mix in
Spray a large coffee mug, pour some raspberry compote into the bottom of the mug or break in some chocolate
Pour in all the batter over the “secret filling” at the bottom
Microwave on 60% power for 3 minutes exactly
The cake will rise like a soufflé way above the rim of the mug.
Remove from microwave, grate over some milk chocolate or break over a Flake & allow it to cool slightly before turning out & enjoying.
Don’t leave it for too long to go completely cold as it does tend to dry out very quickly & go a bit rubbery
I have heard that it is really delish with a bit of crème anglaise or a scoop of vanilla ice cream
For lunch our guests had brought over all the makings for hamburgers. While the boys got the fire ready to flame grill the marinated patties us girls hit the kitchen to prepare all the rest of the goodies to go onto the rolls.
S adeptly sliced up some onions with some fancy new little gadget protecting her fingers from the sharp blade of brownies knife, we then drizzled over a bit of olive oil, some balsamic blaze, 1 tsp of Jenny Morris Sexy Chick Spice (YUM YUM YUM!!!) and then popped them into a pan and caramelized them
Sliced up some tomatoes and washed and dried some butter lettuce leaves
For the saucy bits we had Nando’s Chilli Sauce, Tomato Sauce for the not so brave, Lord of the Rings Chilli Sauce for the insane among us and Moo’s Homemade Chutney
Also had slices of cheese to put on top of the burgers should one desire to
Once the patties were flame grilled to perfection,
everyone crowded into the kitchen with our plates and
built our own burgers. That was so much fun!!!
We then all sat outside and enjoyed an al fresco lunch in the shade of the big ol’ tree!!
This is what one burger looked like…..sans the cheese slab
Dessert was Moo’s Cranberry & Apple Crumble. There was companionable silence for awhile with happy grunts of satisfaction to be heard……………. more on that later
browniegirl xxx
PS If you can find Jenny Morris range of Spices….get them!!! They are really good!!
See her range of products here http://www.jennymorris.co.za/
