So over the past weekend, I did help out a little bit with making some shortbreads!
Every Christmas we have certain little treats, shortbreads being one of them. We also make mince pies, and fudge. All very English things. We are boringly English. I am first generation Australian, but have very strong English roots.
For those who don’t know what those treats are, I’ll just post a couple of links below:
A mince pie is a sweet pie of English origin, filled with a mixture of dried fruits and spices called “mincemeat”, that is traditionally served during the Christmas season in much of the English-speaking world.
Oh so it seems Shortbread is actually a Scottish tradition.
Shortbread or shortie is a traditional Scottish biscuit usually made from one part white sugar, two parts butter, and three to four parts plain wheat flour. Unlike many other biscuits and baked goods, shortbread does not contain any leavening, such as baking powder or baking soda.
Well…For some you, you may absolutely hate it. My mum were going to go Christmas Shopping together this weekend.
Well, instead my Mum decided, instead of shopping. Too bring my Gran down from her home, to spend the day cooking with us, too make her famous shortbread for Christmas! Whether or not she’ll remember her recipe, is another question…But it’s kind of not the point. Like, I think it’s a much better idea than Christmas Shopping. She’ll forget and as soon as she gets back to her home, shell probably ring my Mum or Aunt 10 minutes later.
A HUGE part of both Halloween and Samhain is…the FOOD!
Here are some food, and a recipe with them that I have actually used over the years. Since I am not a confident cook, below are all the recipes that I actually have used. I’m going to also include my recommendations.
This is clearly the easiest dish to make, and also one of the yummiest. You just generally melt some marshmallows and chocolate buds together, and use the biscuits or sweet crackers to dip with. These days you can find vegan friendly marshmallows as well. So you can make two different dips, but one vegan friendly.
These are also pretty easy, because it’s just strawberries dipped in white chocolate, with little chocolate frosting for eyes. Of course though, if you’re running out of time though (sometimes the icing and the strawberries, kind of “melt” into each other), don’t worry about the eyes.
I have differed this recipe as few times. You can make the mousse yourself, or just buy the mousse (especially if you have a place that makes really nice mousse). You can put all sorts of animal lollies in it. I love getting frogs (which we have in Australia) sour worms. You can use any kind of biscuits for the Headstones, or none at all. One time I put gummy bears in the mousse, making it look like some buried them. There are body part lollies.
Again, this is one that you can differ to your tastes. I suggest using a sweet and/or salty, popcorn. I would also suggest just using white chocolate, rather than milk or dark chocolate. I just found that the white chocolate just made it taste a little sweeter. You can add whatever you want as well, I usually use just candy corn, white chocolate drizzled, icing sugar and sweet and salty popcorn. In the recipe, the author suggests that you can use pretzels, M&Ms, Reese’s pieces.
Now this is one of the harder recipes that I found to do, mainly because it a little fidgety. But they are a lot of fun to eat. Remember you don’t need to heat up the hotdogs in water, you wait until they are wrapped, and placed into the oven. They cook in the oven, with the dough wrapped around. Of course, you can choose whatever dip you want. The usual sauces and condiments go well with this recipe.
I love to drink too, all drinks…except jagerbombs and that horrible water, what’s it called, it’s got all bubbles in it…Oh, and that aniseed stuff. I have tried experiments over the years, but I cannot get drinks right.
I decided to post a few yummy Valentine’s Day treats! Mentioning that there is absolutely no shame in making these for yourself either ~.^
I think food that is for any kind of love, should be comforting you. However, comforting food CAN BE HEALTHTY. Sometimes I’ll show my body some love, with fruit or a healthy snack. Comfort and “love” food can be healthy and unhealthy.
The first one I’m going to show you is chocolate biscuits! Sounds boring, but my partner and I (luckily) both love the Subway cookies. There’s usually a “fight” for that last biscuit. So this recipe is a bit of a variation of those cookies.
Well, French is love … Right? And you can put so much on them! Eggs, jam, cheese, avocado, ham and cheese. And now you can make gluten free croissants.
Seafood … Well, I wont post a link to this. I am sure you all have recipes or meals with seafood, that you love. I’m not a big fan of any type of Oyster myself, but I hear they are a aphrodisiac.
What foods and treats make you feel all warm and gooey inside?
Which meal is your favorite: breakfast, lunch, or dinner?
I love ALL my meals. There are some days where I look more forward to one more than the other. Like Christmas morning, even though we have a huge lunch. We have a really yummy breakfast, it changes from year to year. But we always have a nice breakfast, before we head off to my Aunts for the big lunch. No wonder, I always fall asleep, lol.
Who do you admire most in the world?
I probably admire my Great Grandfather the most. He passed when I was about 2/3 years old. Too this day though, he still influences me. Every now and then I find something that he was interested in, that I too am interested in. He loved taking his daughter (my Gran) to plays, loved Shakespeare and he loved the Ancient Greeks. Before he passed, he was trying to learn Greek, to travel and see the sites. We found a book full of scribblings of his. That was only in my 20’s that we found that.
With the obvious restrictions in place, what do you regret not doing in the last year?
Learning how to draw earlier. I’m starting to get that feeling that I’ve wasted a lot of the year. It’s been hard to motivate myself. I’ll have days where I’ll start something, but then, there’s always that excuse to stop.
How lucky are we that this year, Halloween is held on a actual weekend! Which is why I want to talk about the yummy treats that are some of our favs for Halloween! After all, what is Halloween without food. It’s just not a thing.
Now I am going to post a article from Delish.com, for all those people who are possibly actually celebrating Halloween this year and may need some easy ideas. But I want to talk about yours and mine, absolute favourites!
Some of these I would not call “easy” to make, lol. Be wary, some of them may actually give you a heart attack lol
Now, these may shock some…but I don’t actually like pumpkin…You know, the traditional food of Halloween…I like pumpkin soup, but mostly, I don’t like pumpkin.
I actually went to America, over a decade ago now. It wasn’t until I was in Australia, that I first tasted candy corn, and maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, do I LOVE it!
I still can remember my scariest nightmare. It was all in black and white. I was tiny *think Honey I shrunk the kids* and I was getting eating alive by a snail. Even to this day I always freak out a little bit when I see a snail,lol.
What food do you crave most often?
Lasagna, Lasagna….LASAGNA
What’s your grossest bug story?
Apart from killing mosquitoes, filled with my blood. I don’t think I really have any.
You know what, I don’t mind waiting at the Doctors. For some reason waiting at a Doctors seem to piss a lot of people off. If I’m at the Doctors to just get a prescription for a pill, I don’t mind waiting, because for all I know. The person that’s in with the Doctor, is getting some really BAD news. Bad news, that I am sure at some point in our lives, we will all have to wait for. Or they’re running late because earlier in the day they had to give bad news.
What Is In Your Fridge Right Now? (you’re not required to give a comprehensive list)
Food and Drinks…Hahahaha!lol….There is definitely left overs. A little chocolate, because when we put the heater on, it melts the chocolate. Definitely cider and coke…like coca cola…not coke coke,lol…There are lot of cans of sprite and 7up (lemonade). I usually like drinking them in the Summer, not Winter so much. So they tend to collect during Winter.
If You Could Only Speak One Word Today, What Would It Be?
Kindness.
Would You Rather Be Trapped In An Elevator Full Of Men With BO Or Three Soaked Dogs? (this is with the codicil that C-19 doesn’t exist)
THE DOGGIES! ALWAYS THE DOGGIES!
An Attitude of Gratitude
Please feel free to share something good about last week. This is NOT mandatory, it is just if you’d like to.
The new transfriend/people I have made this week on Twitter =D
Pancakes, waffles or French Toast as your breakfast favorite?
Without question, waffles. I love them all mind you, but if I had to chose, it’d be waffles. I wouldn’t be able to tell you why though. I like that just that little bit more though.
Do you think a person’s name influences the person they become?
I think to some extent it does. When you think about the amount of celebrities who change their name, that we know them by. So on some level it does. I also think they we feel not a social pressure, but a certain type of pressure to be like what you were named after. Myself, I was named after Lauren Bacall. Sometimes I feel I need to be a bit more cooler…At least I’m not named Karen at this time!
Would things get better or worse if humans focused on what was going well rather than what’s going wrong?
I do believe it would go better if we focused on more things that were going well. It just does your brain good. But not like the way Trump does it. He thinks everything he does, goes well. Don’t do “going well” like Trump.
Is math(s) something that humans created or something we discovered? Is looking at reality mathematically an accurate representation of how things work?
Maybe both?lol. I think it’s kind of hard to explain, as I would not call myself “mathematical” at all,lol. It does to an extent, it also depends though…Oh god, this is complicated in my mind. I know that I think maths does accurately represent how a lot of things work, but not everything…lol. As an example, they say music and maths are very similar. So somebody who can do maths well, can also play music. HOWEVER, does that mean that someone who can do maths, also represent how and why music makes us feel how we feel when we listen to a song that makes us feel … Oh dear god, I thought…ed!lol
GRATITUDE
What are you grateful for right now? I realize it’s difficult to be very positive right now, unless one is being positive that things are pretty awful. Let’s spread the joy in gratitude!!
I am honestly grateful for the Blogging community, especially the people who read mine! I had to go away and you’re all still here! Still communicating with me, although at the moment it can feel somewhat of an overabundance of communication is happening right now. It’s good and positive communication. Even this question is positive. Despite knowing that it’s not a great time, the question asks us to think of something positive and so you do. So I ask anyone who may not do the questions this week, to read this and any other blogger whose done the questions this week and think of something joyful and positive!
My Dad was definitely more stricter than my mum. But also, let me put it this way. When my parents separated my brother never got told off for anything. NOW, my parents blame the other one for how my brother turned out. My brother isn’t a bad person, but like he’s bad with money, as an example. He never did chores, he technically didn’t pass High School, but he is as smart as! Yet, he’d get pocket money ALL the time. Because he was popular too, he’d get extra money to go out. I learnt how to save so I could go out. So now he has a very bad relationship with money. He’s two years younger than me and it’s honestly only been this year, when he’s borrowed money, he pays it back. That might be because, as well, he got a huge amount of it for a job he did this year.
I personally hold both my parents responsible. My Dad wasn’t there for us physically, but that was his choice. He was always “sick”… or hung over. We may have been with our Mum 95% of the time, but my Dad, he’s a parent too. Technically my Dad was the stricter parent, but how can you be strict with people you are never around?
What Wastes The Most Time In Your Day To Day Life?
Probably my computer gaming time. If I have something that needs something done, I can end up playing a computer game for literal hours.
Do They Bury People With Their Braces* On? (* “braces” in this scenario are those metal bits they put on people to straighten their teeth. I realize “braces” are also some item of clothing that I believe men wear to keep their socks up or something. I’m talking about the teeth option).
I’d assume they would, if you die with them on? Honestly, I’ve never been to a funeral where there has been an open casket. I’ve never had to identify a body, or known someone whose died with braces. I’m only assuming they would, because that’d how most of their departed ones would know them?
Why Does A Round Pizza Come In A Square Box?
I did hear that it’s because bins are square, well they are in Australia. And because everything is mostly in a rectangle or square shape. It’s just easier. I just don’t know how true it is,lol
Gratitude: Share something you are grateful for right now. I know that’s a tough question. It helps to share those bright bits with folks though, because many of us are seeing through an increasingly dark glass.
I am actually grateful for a lot of things. It was like I was saying to my mum the other day. It’s hard to be sad when there are so many who love and who loved you.
Lolsys Library 