Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 7: Calmly through the day

[MissConductUS]

I've started a new one. Please join us and share the boring and mundane things happening in your world. It will be calming for all.

DH worked through the night and I woke up to 70% of the paper sorted, filed or shredded - he started on the paper bc of a headache, so he couldn't write i. e do actual work.

Temp. up tp 8 °C and no sun.

A win on the paper front then prokupatus, thank god for headaches eh?!

Somewhat disconcertingly, DS has received another notification from track and trace saying he needs to self isolate until the 2nd as he's had close contact with a positive case. Miss Marple level sleuthing has not revealed who it is and he's livid.

Strawberry milkshake and the prospect of unlimited guitar / drum practice have done little to calm his rage.

I think my 10 texts only phone was a Nokia. It was large and grey and could usefully have doubled as a doorstop. Or as a weapon to hit prospective muggers on the head with. I once spent a whole £10 top up voucher on one phone call with a friend discussing boys we fancied.

I have found adjustable cake pans on Amazon but none of them have reviews, which makes me wonder about it all. Perhaps they're just not popular in the US. Would you slide the dividers around to get the exact size you wanted and just bake in that section? I'm not getting a clear idea of how to use one.

In keeping with our current baking theme, I made chocolate chip cookies last night. There were more after the batch you see cooling. They are DS's favorites and I have been periodically making them, boxing them up and sending them to him at uni, along with other treats. Most of them have gone in the freezer so they'll stay fresh for his return Wednesday night but I've left a few in the fridge for us.

Please help me in my ongoing struggle to master British idioms. Are these small baked parcels of deliciousness cookies or biscuits or something else?

When I went running this morning I drove to the street I run on and realized that I had forgotten my wrist weights. It was too much bother to drive home to get them so I ran without them, which was really nice. I even ran a bit faster without them. One problem with running is that it does very little upper body conditioning, hence the wrist weights.

Those would be chocolate chip cookies here, which are a type of biscuit.

This is lots of biscuit receipes, there are loads of different biscuits in the UK, maybe 100 different types of which cookies are one:

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/biscuit-recipes

These are the ones DH makes most and we have a cat cutter so he makes them cat shaped, we don't add coconut milk as don't like it:

www.bbcgoodfood.com/user/3860811/recipe/shrewsbury-biscuits

DH just uses lots of lemon but orange and lemon would work well too. They are good with a cup of tea with milk in.

Those choc chip cookies look delicious! @MissConductUS. When I went through a cake baking phase a few years ago, I just made one cake in the adjustable cake tin but I see someone else said that they bake four cakes at the same time which is very clever and sensible.
I have done zoom yoga this morning and had French bread pizza for lunch. All is well.

I would say that a cookie is a ‘biscuit plus’ that’s in some way special (home made or with chocolate chips or fruit in, for example.) Also a cookie is always sweet, whereas a biscuit isn’t necessarily (like biscuits for eating with cheese).

It’s a complex grey area though, and I am not a biscuit/ cookie expert. (Although I put a lot of effort into researching them.)

@SilkieRabbits I think your son sleeping on the rug to prevent nocturnal theft might be my favourite update on this thread.

I would say biscuits are crisp and cookies are more chewy. But then there are Maryland cookies (in a packet) which aren't chewy.

My Kenwood mixer has just been delivered. £189 on Friday, Amazon deal, £318.99 today. So please I didn’t hang about.

I never know if a Plätzchen (me) / Brötlen (DH) is a cookie or a biscuit.
Luckily I never needed to translate this.

TrickyD I got mine yesterday! A Prospero, from Argos. Down to £99. I've just made my first ever lemon meringue pie. Never used a stand mixer before, can never go back now

Went for a little walk / run with ddog around the woods, then we had a takeaway roast dinner from the local pub. It was amazing and even better it came in a big box which DS is currently sailing across the ocean in, with a wooden spoon as an oar. Every time ddog goes near the box, there’s a shriek of ‘Oh no, a sea monster!’ and the boat capsizes 🤣

We have sticky toffee pudding for dessert but we are all too full to contemplate it at the moment!

@spudlet that is ADORABLE. Managed lunch at the table instead of in front of the TV, then had a walk and a game. Now various quiet activities. Dinner will be in front of the tv, I'm sure.

ReallySpicyCurry, that’s excellent. I wanted the KMix because of its Which? Reviews.
You will love having it! We already have a stand mixer, but it is one of the cheaper ones, which was a present/from DS2 and DP a few years ago. Unfortunately the two most useful attachments broke and could not be replaced. Also DH reported this morning while making his bread that the motor sounded rough.
You shouldn’t have problems like that with Kenwood.

I'm having a coffee in the car wash. The big shop came to 196 euro and I had 200 on me. Delighted with my life.

It's my 12th wedding anniversary today!

I have found adjustable cake pans on Amazon but none of them have reviews, which makes me wonder about it all. Perhaps they're just not popular in the US. Would you slide the dividers around to get the exact size you wanted and just bake in that section? I'm not getting a clear idea of how to use one.

It comes as a base with a raised edge and a notch cut out in each corner. The sides slot into one another and the corner notches hold them in place. You can bake one 12” cake if you don’t use the dividers. If you use the dividers, some are tops and some are bottoms, with slits cut into them so they slot together and little overhangs at the top which sit in small notches at 1” intervals at the top. You can interleave them however you want to divide the 12” square, from a 1” square cake to 11” or rectangles. The newer ones have more dividers so you can do 12 x 12 1” cakes if you want. After use, it all folds down flat into a 12” slim box, about 1/4” deep. When you think of the space storing all those permutations would take up as fixed baking tins, you get a sense of how clever and flexible the design is. The Silverdale one is aluminium, so highly conductive and lightweight. I saw some stainless steel versions on the link posted yesterday. I don’t know if they do as good a job.

Congratulations @ToDoListAddict!

I've just dried my hair.

I've made shepherds pie for dinner. Used a sauce from scratch rather than my usual packet mix so I'm looking forward to trying it.

@Spudlet your DS sounds adorable!

There is someone walking on the roof - at least they are not stomping about making my lamps shake.

I made some bacon and egg sandwiches. I was undecided about whether or not to cut the crust off (large multi seed). I didn't cut the crusts off my sandwiches as I prepared them, but when i was eating them I tore some of the crust pieces off. I threw the pieces in the bin. The bin doesn't emptying at the moment, but it might do tomorrow.

@MissConductUS what would you call savoury biscuits to be eaten with cheese? I would agree that yours are cookies but most others are biscuits.

My cake tin has two similar sides that slide together and overlap. So at its smallest it is the size and shape of a loaf tin, but it expands out to be a square, or anything in between.

My mum has a Kenwood stand mixer that she got as a wedding present. Still going strong. I have resisted as I don’t have space but I have a hand mixer that is good for everything except bread, which we don’t make v often and make by hand when we do.