One of these days

Elephant or goldfish Loolie Boots sent me a mail today about BirthdayAlarm.com - what a great idea. You all may be hearing from me yet...

Trackback, hah?! For what it's worth I have added trackback to my blog. My service provider, Haloscan.com, got their answer to the question "What is TrackBack?" at Wikipedia.com:
Trackback
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia at� ar f�il i nGaeilge chomh maith.
Trackback is a system implemented by Movable Type that alerts and allows a blogger to see who has blogged about posts on his or her blog. The system works by sending a ping between the blogs, and therefore providing the alert.
Trackback typically appears below a blog entry and shows a summary of what has been written on the target blog, together with a URL and the name of the blog.
Useful and relevant links
http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2003/03/what_is_trackback_part_one.shtml http://www.cruftbox.com/cruft/docs/trackback.html

The Carrot and the Slapstick I did it. I made a perfect looking carrot cake for my mum's Knighthood Party tonight. I know the old adage that the proof of the pudding is in the eating but there's a new adage that says 50% of appetite is in the eyes (or something...?!). This may not seem like such a feat but I did not recount the carrot cake making shenanigans of a fortnight ago. We were expecting a number of lunch guests over the weekend and I had obtained the best carrot cake recipe from Mileelers. It all started after I had shredded the carrots in the food processor. I could not get the jug off the machine, no matter what I did. So I had a good strong hold of the jug handle and I was straining it upwards. Suddenly it became detached from the processor. The shredded carrots flew up in the air. I swear this happened in slow motion. The shredded carrots landed on my shoulder and then slithered on to the floor. Luckily I had more carrots. That was the first thing that went wrong. I will not catalogue the rest. Suffice it to say that I swore a lot but thankfully ended up with a delicious one tiered cake. Anyway here is the recipe for the amazing cake.

Image from toothpastefordinner.com. Check out Crayon smell as well.

Classic Carrot Cake

Must be prepared 24 hours in advance in case everything goes wrong and you have to fall back on Chocolate Fudge Cake, always a winner. A food processor is invaluable for this recipe: it can be done without it but make sure you have an afternoon free to grate all those carrots! Also it is worth investing in a decent set of cup measures: one of ours has snapped and it is a royal pain in the ass.

• 1 1/4 cups of salad oil


• 1 cup brown sugar, packed


• 1 cup granulated sugar


• 4 eggs


• 1 cup of all purpose/ plain flour


• 1 cup less 1 tbsp of wholewheat flour


• 1 tsp salt


• 2 tsp soda


• 2 tsp baking powder


• 2 tsp ground cinnamon


• 3 cups finely shredded raw carrots, packed


• 8 1/2 oz of crushed pineapple, drained


• 1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts (optional)

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting - the best bit!

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened (a large packet of Philadelphia)


• 1/4 cup butter, softened


• 2 cups icing sugar


• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract


• 1 tbsp grated lemon rind (or just grate the rind of a lemon...)

Grease and line two 9 inch cake tins. It is just really the bases of the tins that need to be lined with greasproof paper. Heat the oven to 350C/ 180F/ GM 4.
In a large bowl blend together the salad oil and brown and granulated sugars. Add eggs one at at tine, beating well until blended.
In another bowl sift together(if you could be bothered...) both flours, salt, soda, baking powder, and cinnamon. Add the flour mixture, about 1/3 at a time, to the oil mixture, beating just enough to blend. Fold the carrots and then the pineapple into the batter. Add nuts if desired.
Pour the batter into the 2 tins that you prepared earlier. Bake for 35 - 40 mins or until a toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean. If they are on 2 different shelves in oven swap them over after 20 mins.
Cool the cakes on a rack for 10 minutes and then turn onto rack and allow to cool completely.
Frost with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting and allow to rest for a day, if not previously stored, to improve flavour.

To prepare frosting put all the ingredients into a bowl and beat with an electric beater. You can do this in three stages but it works just as well this way with an electric beater!

Unfrosted the cakes may be wrapped in clingfilm and refigerated for 5- 6 days or forzen for 2 -3 months. If frosted the cakes can be stored in the fridge up to a week.
Yummmmmmmm!

Surprise, surprise Must be read with a French accent, it being Semaine Internationale de la Francophonie. En ennyway where was I? Ah yes. I had a surprise visit yesterday lunchtime from Monsiuer NeoSuperVital. He brought good company, a great gift for the child and copies of both of his releases. I have only managed to listen to Use What You Got but so far I am very impressed. By the way, vous avez noticed how I threw in the ol' bit of francais there, oui?
After NeoSuperVital left I got to thinking about all these creative people I know doing what they want to do and I had a brief but very indulgent moment of self-pity. But then Garman squawked at me and reminded me to finish changing his nappy and bring him for a walk.

L� 'le P�draig shona dhaoibh Hope you all have fun.

Dame Lizzy to you The biggest family news of the month is that my mother is being honoured with the French equivalent of a knighthood, Un chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques. This Friday we will all be cheering her on at a ceremony in the Belgian Embassy. She'll get a medal (see right) and hopefully we'll get some ferrero rocher. Well done Mummy!

One of these days indeed We were in the solicitors' office today, signing for our house! However it'll be about 3 or 4 months before we will get to move in because the current owner is inheriting it and there are some tax implications so the Revenue Commissioner blah blah blah zzzzzzzzz. We're a little disappointed that it's not happening sooner but it's definitely happening.

Crazy House As we are in house crazy mode we are off to the Spring House and Garden Exhibition tomorrow in the RDS. I am reserving judgement.

This space I told you to watch it and here it is. Garman the Wonder Child is sleeping thorugh the night. Hallelujah. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for his mother. Let's just say I have a lot more compassion for dairy cows than I did 5 months ago...
Our space The house buying saga has stepped up: a trip to our solicitor to sign something is on the cards. Soon, my lovely, soon.
Not very illuminating We got into the swing of things and headed into Merrion Sq yesterday to check out the Luminarium which is part of the St. Patricks Festival (festival if you don't mind). It was shut because it was too windy. I was disappointed.