So when the UK sleeps, we know you other MNers are out there part II

[tadjennyp]

I was looking for thumbwitch's recipe for that cake and found the old thread has disappeared so Linzer and I thought we'd resurrect it!

yes, kickass - that is right, it is called tailgating!
To be fair, that's what I thought stranded was talking about at first - didn't know about the American picnic thingy.

So grilled cheese is actually griddled cheese...

Well - there we go.

DH had to operate a barbecue at work yesterday (they were having an open day for their customers) - so he came in last night and said he was barbecuing for 2 hours over lunchtime, and I said "you mean you were operating the gas-fired hotplate?"
We discovered that Aussie barbecues have mostly moved on from open coals one birthday in the UK - I had a small charcoal grill barbecue and was expecting that my Aussie then-BF would be a whizz with it - he just looked at it in horror and said "WTF is that??" I had to do my own barbecue...
So here, there is no flavour advantage of barbecuing over oven cooking, really. You can still get coal ones but most people have a gas-fired hotplate version.

Oh yes Australians and their barbq's. A friend of mine lived in Singapore and had Aussie friends. They were so proud of their Weber they got it out at every opportunity. Apparently you could even roast a turkey in it

Webers are very popular here too. I've seen some enormous ones! Dh insists on his charcoal though. Tastes better, I think.

Some grilled cheese sandwiches you get in restaurants here are apparently 1000 calories or more. Heart attack between 2 slices of bread. Would rather have a croque monsieur.

I'm pregnant stranded - due in 10 weeks! Help, have only some clothes sorted!

I agree with your DH, jenny. Can't really see the point of the barbecue as an alternative cooking appliance yet - will do when we know more people and can have a big party, it will come into its own then.

Ours isn't big enough to cook a turkey in it, but I have seen ones that are!

we have one we could cook a turkey in, if we'd bought the right bit. it is also brick lined, to get it hotter, weighs a bloody ton & how we lifted it through the house to the decking is a marvel. it was on special offer & we got excited about what a bargain it was, without thinking it all through properly.

the BIG advantage is not having to turn the oven on when it's too hot in the summer.

tad you only NEED a car seat and a sling. So everything else can come in it's own sweet time. Do they have new years sales over here. You still going to San Fran?

We had a lovely day out in Sydney yesterday! DS had a grand time - we drove for an hour in, then took the train the rest of the way (2 in fact, needed to change) - then a ferry out to Manly and into OceanWorld. Not the best aquarium ever, but it had its good points - the walk through tunnel area is fab, some really quite big nursing sharks in there (look fierce, horrible teeth but very non-aggressive) and enormous rays, and a couple of big ol' turtles, as well as loads of other fish.
Then back on the ferry, went to Baskin-Robbins icecream shop (but they'd run out of Love POtion #31, the only reason I wanted to go there!) and caught the trains back to the car; another hour's drive and we were home. It was knackering but good fun!
Did DS's presents when we got back; but two of them (garage and with-noises oven) were in kit form so I had to build them last night when he was in bed. His face this morning when he saw them! He's been cooking us sausages, mushroom, broccoli and chips all day, bless him.

Quiet day today!

Sounds fab thumb, enjoy your day 'off'

Was it your ds's 3rd birthday Thumb? Sounds fab. We're doing a Princess Party for dd2 when she turns 3 next Saturday, which basically entails her wearing her new Belle dress (or possibly her old Cinders dress as she keeps telling me she doesn't like Belle - woops), and having a few friends round for a Princess cake, some pizza and other wonderfully healthy food.

Two weeks today we will be on a plane home!

yes stranded, DS was 3.
Presumably she knows it's a Belle dress, you can't pretend it's Cinderella's other dress, can you?

We had homemade pizzas on Saturday night - but DS didn't want any (too much picnic and icecream, I think!). Very nice they were too!

Unfortunately she has met all the princesses at Disneyworld so knows them all very well. She also has pictures of them all over the place - bags, books, dvd's - she is truely Princess mad!

oh poo. Ah well, never mind!

I am in the throes of cake-making Mark II. I was going to do fairy cakes, but then we've just finished the last birthday cake today and it was sooooo good and soooo yummy that I'd just do another one the same! DS has another party tomorrow with his other playgroup you see, we are hopefully going to have a joint party with a little girl who turned 3 on Sunday in the park (weather permitting - God, December in Australia, you'd think we'd be fine but not necessarily!)

So - didn't get organised earlier, then had to get DS to bed and to sleep = late start to the cooking process so it's a good job I'm a late bird! It's been baking for about 40mins so far, wonder if it will take the full 1.5h it took last time (as opposed to the 1h it suggested in the book )?

Then I'll do the icing in the morning - I think chocolate fudge with glittery bits again - worked well last time!

DS will be happy as larry - he loved it, every time he had a piece, he was all "Mooooore birday cake, mummy? Pulleeeeasse?" He has a very good wheedle going on there.

thumb - can you tell me how you make your choc fudge icing please? i've tried a few recipes but never been that happy - i'd like to be able to pipe it, not just spread it.

this is the recipe I used, from the same book that the cake came from:
100g/4oz plain chocolate (I used plain cooking chocolate)
50g/2oz butter
1 egg, size 3, beaten
175g/6oz icing sugar, sifted.
Melt chocolate and butter together in bowl over warm water. Stir occasionally. When melted, beat in the egg.
Remove from heat, beat in the icing sugar until smooth.
This amount is enough for an 8" round cake.

When it is just done, it is quite runny - I had to wait until it had cooled a little to be able to spread it, because I wanted to coat the sides of the cake with it as well. You should be able to pipe it when it has cooled right down, I would think - it does set quite firm in the fridge.

thanks, thumb, i'll try that.

what a shame - feel forced to make a cake now to check out the icing.

(don't tell anyone but Betty Crocker makes damn fine frosting too! I'm sure thumb's is better but Betty's is definitely quicker!)

stranded

say that again & you'll be stran-dead

Hello, lots of cake baking going on in various parts of the world and dcs having very happy birthdays . Currently in Silicon Valley after 2 days travelling. Dcs thoroughly worn out. Dh has to work [hsad] so took dcs to see Tangled at the cinema, which is in walking distance. It was really good! The hotel is next to a really large shopping mall, which I thought I'd enjoy but I hated it. It is however really nice to walk around in a t-shirt and not full on winter gear for a change!

at stranded's going home! - and at all the lovely cakes being baked!

Linzer - did you get that cookbook translated?

Hello all,

Haven't been on here for a while, as it's just been work, work, work for the last week or so and I didn't feel I had anything very exciting to report. I am also very of all the cakes being baked. I used to like Betty Crocker's brownie mix.

I finally finished translating the recipes yesterday morning, was about to heave a huge sigh of relief - and then remembered I still had some text to translate for the website. I clicked on the link that the translation agency had sent me, which took me to an empty page. The agency has contacted the client, but I'm still waiting to hear back from them. Slightly more disastrously, the proofreader has a trojan virus and wasn't able to go online for a couple of days; he was supposed to be getting it sorted out yesterday afternoon, but I don't know how likely it is that we'll still meet today's deadline.

Hope you're having a lovely holiday jenny; I'm of you being able to walk round in a T-shirt!

Oh dear Linzer!

I am happy to report that Birthday Cake Mark II was just as good as mark I - and therefore constitutes a Solidly Reliable Recipe, in my book. Ditto the chocolate fudge icing. In fact DS was so happy with it that he didn't want to eat anything else all day and was most put out that he only got 2 (very small) slices.

I have heard of Betty Crocker of course but have nothing to do with her - she's American, isn't she? All-American pie'n'baking type thing?

We had a hot and humid day today - lowering clouds threatened rain but it didn't arrive, so we had our party in the park for DS and his friend. Rain is due this week though - flood warnings have been issued all over the shop but we are on high ground so it won't affect us. Torrential rain will of course affect our ability to drive places though - and we are due in Sydney on Friday for DH's works do, which is a leisure cruise around Sydney Harbour. Grandma has been booked to look after DS from about 2 in the afternoon, right through to lunchtime on Saturday as we are staying overnight in Sydney as well and then have to go and pick up his balance bike on Saturday morning. So - fingers crossed it's not too ghastly!

thumb that sounds like a fun weekend - i am quite envious of people who have family to babysit as we never get that luxury, although there are a couple fo reliable teens next door to us (but they cost money).

are you australian, or married to one? you've probably told us before, but i rarely remember people's back stories, so my apologies if i've asked you to repeat yourself.

No, I'm a Brit through and through but DH is Aussie (and DS is dual nationality). I'm missing England more and more at the mo - I know if I were there, the snow would be a PITA - but seeing my friends' sledding down their field in thick snow with massive grins on their faces just makes me as hell!

We've only had MIL since we got here - the first 20m of DS being around we didn't really have anyone except a good friend of mine (who was grandma age) who could do the odd couple of hours here and there to let me go to appointments, but not evenings and certainly not overnights! We haven't really used MIL all that much either so far - we'll see how this night goes and then we may do it again.

Oh crumbs I'm not baking dd2's cake - that's what the wonderful MegaJ supermarket does!

Thumb - Betty Crocker is some multinational company that pretends to be all homey and apple pie by calling itself after some imaginary old granny so everyone thinks it's made by said old granny in her kitchen. (busy lady).

She's good at cooking though! Better than me - or at least better than me here with the available ingredients.

Sorry you're feeling homesick. It's a bugger. Not much advice really, except it does get better.

thumb - our last couple of trips home it has been quite frightening how much the culture shock hit us - everything is so small (i know, such a cliche), and even the 'nice' shopping areas have tramps, broken windows, dirty streets etc. my parents live in the SE & it is so crowded & expensive. if we left here & went back, it would be a v hard adjustment to make.

having said that, i was horrifically homesick all summer, but once the green cards came through and we could travel, i felt ok again. for me it seems to be that i have to know i could get home if i had to.

dh hankers after new zealand, but for me that would be too far. a 12 hour journey home is 'doable', so long as i can afford the flights once a year.

we've been here just over two years, and it's only recently that it started to feel like home, not like i was visiting. now when we've been somewhere, i get that 'ahh, home' feeling, but even in the summer, i didn't really feel like that.

dh, however, has had no probs with adjusting. strange, isn't it, how people react differently.

I always preferred Dr Oetker to Betty Crocker! We're now in San Francisco which is a beautiful city. The dcs, however have not reacted very well to being away and bedtimes have been truly horrendous. It has not felt like a holiday at all and ds wants to go home because he misses his room! I will be pleased to get back on Sunday, but really not looking forward to a 10 hour drive from relatively mild weather to freezing! Hope everyone has a lovely weekend.