Seeing red (and a cherry mess)

Red. Back in the eighties (because, yes, I am that old), I was big on red in my kitchen and bought everything in red. Somewhere along the line, it became untrendy and I stopped buying red things for my kitchen.

My current kitchen is white so anything can go with it and it can be a bit dull so over the last few years, bits of red things have been creeping back into my kitchen. I've started buying more red clothes too. Not everything is bright pillar box red - it started with a hand mixer that I won which I chose in Raspberry and then I acquired the stand mixer too (as you do). Then there was the knife block.

Now I have this.

Food not included

This is the chop2pot from a site for people like me, called Red Candy - everything is red or has some red in it. Heaven! I've lusted after something like this for a while - a chopping board that helps you transfer stuff to your pot, pan, or dish without spilling it everywhere. It's brilliant. It's easy to use and importantly for me, dishwasher safe. I think the larger one would be better for families but if like me, you are chopping things as you cook, it shouldn't be an issue. The only thing I haven't liked about it so far is that it got quite a few knife marks on it after a few uses so I will be interested to see how it fares after some hefty use from me. But other than that, I love it and the site - well, I'm going to have to be strong and resist going mad with the credit card. And red overkill is bad - perhaps that is where I went wrong in the eighties!

Really rubbish photo of a yummy dessert - it's nice, honest

Whilst we are on the red theme, Princes sent me some fruit fillings to try. Although it can be seen as a "lazy option", they are handy to have around if you want to make some fast puds. One of the fillings they sent to me was red cherry so I thought I'd make some cherry mess - a version of the traditional Eton mess but made with a can of red cherry filling. It's uber simple although if you want to be a true domestic goddess, you could make some meringues yourself first.

Cherry mess
Serves 4

Ingredients 
About 16 mini meringues (I used a tub of mini meringue shells from Asda)
300ml whipping or double cream
410g tin Princes Red Cherry fruit filling

1. Break up the meringues into a large bowl- don't break them up too small or they won't provide the crunch.

2. In another bowl, whip the cream until it has reached the soft peaks stage.

3. Open the tin of fruit filling and carefully spoon the cherries into the bowl of meringues leaving most of the juices behind in the tin.

4. Fold the cream into the meringue mixture carefully. Then fold all but a couple of tablespoons of the juice from the tin.

5. Finally, drizzle the last couple of tablespoons of the juice on top. Serve, trying not to drool.

The kids thought it wasn't sweet enough but I thought it was fine. If it's not sweet enough for you or you know you have a really sweet tooth, try adding a tablespoon of icing sugar to the cream.

(Red Candy kindly sent me the Chop2PotPlus and Princes some tins of their fruit fillings to try. I have not been paid further for writing this post and all opinions are mine.) 

Toyologist Review: Power Rangers Samurai Switch Morphin Figure and Power Rangers Samurai Disc Cycle

Why do I get them confused? Every time I go to say "Power Rangers", I say "Transformers". I mean, honestly! They are NOTHING alike but I've got them muddled in my head. Obviously, this is because I am A GIRL. I know nothing of these things. (We'll skip over the fact I am also too old for either to have been around when I was actually a girl.. cough) I am rubbish.

Monkey, however, being a boy and into all these things, knows the difference and laughs when I get it wrong. He can't even take pity on his own mother. Tut.

Silent Sunday

The Colour Red

This week's prompt from Tara for The Gallery at Sticky Fingers was the colour red, a theme for Halloween and again, there are prizes on offer of some Halloween face paints.

Monkey loves the colour red but strangely there are very few photos of him wearing it. There is one that I've featured in a previous week's Gallery. We bought new Halloween costumes a few days before the prompt was published and of course, we had gone for non-red options.

And then I found this picture, and thought I'd tell you the story behind it. It has no Halloween slant at all but it does feature some red.

This is the first picture I have of Missy Woo standing up, wearing her lovely red dress which sadly didn't fit her for that long. It took a long time to get to this point. She was a late developer (like her mother), preferring to talk (like her mother), and bum-shuffling instead of walking (you get the picture). She did learn to crawl after starting nursery one day a week so she had a mode of transport for all eventualities - crawling for real speed, and bum-shuffling for those times she wanted to carry something with her. Why on earth did she need to walk?

Despite my arm nearly dropping off carrying her as she was never the lightest of babies (yeah, that too), I was not bothered because I know I got there in the end (I can confirm I do not bum-shuffle anywhere). Her brother was a demon crawler and late walker, refusing to walk unaided until he was 18 months old. Missy Woo left it a bit longer. This picture was taken just 2 months before her second birthday and she had just started to walk. In other words, she was 22 months old. I got very bored of people if she was walking "yet" and was I worried? Answer - no. I could see she was developing in other ways, and I was not ready to sign her up for the baby Olympics. There are no prizes for coming first.

We bought her some shoes quite early and I seem to remember she helped to choose them because they were pink and oh yes, she had an opinion even then and wasn't afraid to express it (yeah, yeah - I know).

I think in the picture, she is more interested in Monkey's trainers (which are not red but he was very proud of them because they had flashing lights!). But this represents a major milestone in her life - upright and walking at last.

And, over two years down the line, does it show that she was a late walker? Does it heck!

(Why not pop over to The Gallery at Sticky Fingers to discover other entries and perhaps some blogs that are new to you?)