Pretty darn good brownie recipe

Today we remembered our friend and work colleague, Amanda, who was tragically killed one year ago.  Our Amanda loved chocolate so late-ish Wednesday evening I decided that what we needed for morning tea was a very decadent chocolate brownie.  This recipe is essentially the brownie published by Stephanie Alexander in her "The Cook's Companion".

Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees C.  Line the bottom of a medium sized baking dish with baking paper and grease the sides of the dish. 

Melt 180g of butter in a bowl over simmering water and add 3/4C decent cocoa (I used the TradeAid brand).  Break up a big block of (250g) Whittakers 50 % dark chocolate and add to the butter and cocoa.  Stir until melted and smooth.  Remove from the heat and cool.

In a separate bowl lightly beat 4 eggs.  Whisk the eggs quickly into the chocolate mix and then stir in 1 and 1/4 C sugar and a dash of good vanilla.  I also added some chopped walnuts at this stage.  Maybe 1/4 to 1/2 C?

Add 100g sifted standard flour and gently fold in to the mixture.

Pour into the baking dish and bake (without fan-assist) for 20-25 min or until just firm.

Heading into the end of the year again...

 It's been a frenetic Spring!  Padfoot has had lot's of birthdays to attend - including his own.  Boogie stepped up the intensity of her ballet with her first exam (pre-primary class exam).

 She also did her first ballet competition which required extra lessons and lot's of practice.  She's absolutely loving it and got second equal in her classical dance.

 She was very proud of her silver medal and wore it more or less solidly for a week and a half.  Padfoot tried some special dance moves as well...

Around the birthday season Boogie, Margie and I went to the World of Wearable Arts show, as did Raywin and Roger.  We also had  a family trip to the NZSO's show Tall Tales and Tangos, which included Peter and the Wolf.  Padfoot was a little apprehensive about the wolf, but was proud of himself afterwards, that he wasn't scared.

 

As the weather warms up we've been able to move out into the garden a bit more.  Both kids have enjoyed helping - although I think Padfoot just likes wearing my gumboots...

Halloween was awful weather so we had a bit of a party at home.  No trick or treaters this year!

We also went up to Tretham for the Guy Fawkes fireworks fantastica display.  This was a beautiful evening and the kids ran around and danced to the band and had a very late night.

Boogie had her school disco last Friday and I got out the sewing machine to sew the Oscar night themed costume.  The sewing machine stopped working and so a kind friend lent me hers in my hour of need, to finish the Oscar (literally) costume.

There's been a few surprises in the garden.  A lovely Solomon's Seal lily, a very pretty little Aquilegia, lots of blue bells, a couple of good clumps of Chatman Island lilies and a crazy number of other lilies have come up in the weirdest place - right where we were intending to dig a drain!  There is only one rose bush (apart from some carpet roses) which is rather nice growing up through a small maple.

Until next time...

A break in the winter weather

There haven't been too many surprises in the new garden yet (I kinda expected a lot more Spring bulbs to pop up), but this was one of them - a lovely Japonica.  

All the trees are starting to burst there buds, all except the large magnolia and the rhododendrons!  I'm still waiting to see what colours they will be.

We've had a busy time of birthday parties for the last couple of months, that will culminate with Padfoot's birthday later in August. 

We also had the ballet recital.  This year was Beatrix Potter, in which Boogie was a duckling in the Jemima  Puddleduck number.  This year seemed so much more relaxed than last year.  Good fun!

Swimming continues...

...and Boogies room got a sofa bed for when the grandparents stay.  She has now decided that her room is too much like a lounge and has moved herself onto her brothers top bunk.

We also had a lovely walk last Sunday, in the unseasonal weather, up to the waterfall at Percy's reserve.

Much to the amusement of me, Andrew took the kids into this cave (that I refused to enter), and got to the end and decided to switch on the torch app on his phone.  Of course, the ceiling of the cave was covered in cave wetas.  Yikes! See http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevex2/4429071100/

Wild Wellington Weather

We fared fairly well during the rather decent storm in the last 24 h.  About 7.30 pm last night Andrew had to go outside and tie down the trampoline so it didn't end up down on State Highway 2!

 We had most of a Kowhai tree blow down, so we'll probably have to take it down completely.  The house (roof) seems to be standing up OK to the 180 kmph winds.  The Hutt river level is up again from what it has been for the last 3-4 days and there is a lot of big debris carried along.

 Most of the schools in the Hutt are closed because of the weather and Andrew couldn't get to work in town because of road closures.  Luckily, we didn't lose power so we can all be at home keeping warm and well.  Boogie requested pumpkin soup for lunch so that was made early this morning and is ready to go and  I've got some bread brewing.  The kids are keeping Andrew occupied doing jigsaws.

All in all, we are just going to have a big weekend of tidying up the yard.  I'm glad I didn't wash the windows last weekend.

The serious catch up

As we head towards mid-winter Cafe Bell is well and truly due for an update!  Following our return to the bottom of the North Island we found the garden had flourished in our absence - including a great abundance of potatoes in the compost heap.  These beauties kept us in potatoes for a good couple of months.  

Andrew managed to get a couple of ocean swims in to the end of the summer.  His favourite event, the Eastbourne wharf to wharf was on a particularly chilly day.  Boogie still wanted to get in the water, but she only lasted perhaps 5 min.

We also took a weekend back up in Auckland in March so Andrew could do the King of the Bays swim.

At about this time we went to an open home on a big old house further down the Hutt valley in Tirohanga and decided to put in an offer.  After a bit of negotiation we'd bought a house and needed to sell ours!  This meant we had to very quickly finish our renovations to get it on the market.  Andrew and I had a week of late nights painting and decorating, cleaning and tidying and de-cluttering!  We had a very good real estate agent and plenty of open home and sold in eight days. 

In the midst of all this activity we had Boogie's sixth birthday which past with a fairly low-key princess ice cream party.

We also had a long weekend up in Rotorua, trout fishing with the grandparents.  I was feeling a bit exhausted by this point in the year and spent the weekend pretty quietly.

 I understand that Padfoot caught the fish but he was not that keen to have his photo taken.  We also went for a fabulous short and easy walk along the Kaituna river...

...and took the kids to Agridome.  We saw the famous sheep show and watch the dog round up sheep.  We took the farm tour and fed the alpacas and ate lots of feijoas (are we really in NZ and not somewhere in South America?).

A couple of weeks after getting back from Rotorua we arrived at settlement/moving day.  We had the grandparents down to help us with the packing and check out the new digs.









Moving started off a bit slow with lots of waiting around for the settlement on both properties to go through.  Eventually we got moving proper about 3 pm and the movers were probably finished unloading the truck at Tirohanga by about 8.30 pm.

The new home is quite different from the house in Taita, perched on the side of the Tirohanga hill above the Hutt river with views down the valley towards Eastbourne.  It's got some flat lawn out to the side which does fit the tramp without blocking the view but makes for some exciting bouncing for the kids.  It's in zone for Boogies school and walking distance to the train station for Andrew.  The house is in reasonable condition considering it's age (approx. 1910) but will need a bit of work to make it suit us - and it's twice the size of the Taita house.

Since moving we've been fairly quiet.  Boogie and I went for a high tea at Sweetpea in Petone for her teacher only day.  Very very nice!

Padfoot has started gym with the daycare at Hutt Gymnastics and Boogie has started chess lessons.  They are both still doing well at swimming.  Padfoot has a lot of energy at the moment and has a slightly worrying obsession with putting his pants on his head.

A couple of weekends ago we had a day trip up to Southwoods car museum.  It's a fabulous museum and we got to see a couple of exhibits that had family significance for Andrew.  This car (below) was the car that Andrew's grandad learnt to drive in and the boat was driven by Andrew's mums uncle.

We also went slightly further up the coast to visit Waikanae beach.  All good fun - especially with Angelina ballerina mouseling ears.