THINGS I MADE OR ATE THIS WEEKEND.... OR SILLY THINGS I DID

this is my dog grace - who has nothing to do with this post

but she does look kind of sad for me and my sillyness

So this post isn't as much about the food I ate but more about the stupid thing i did this weekend.
You see it all started out with a simple impromptu dinner invite by my mom to go somewhere for dinner as a family. We all said sure lets go and went off to Imhoff farm for pizzas at the Blue Water Cafe. Lovely restaurant and it serves wheat-free pizza too :) Now this restaurant has a great outdoor play area for kids with a large jungle gym built connecting onto a big tree and a slide coming down out of the tree to the ground. Kids love it and my daughter loves to go there and play while we sit at the outside tables and drink tea. Well anyway this was night time and we had all eaten our pizza inside and were getting ready to go when my sister in laws and my brothers had been walking around outside on the lawn and goofing about on the jungle gym (my husband included) So i come outside to see what they are doing and my one sister in law says - you so have to go down the slide it is so cool, and my brothers both agree, my husband too :) they are all telling me i need to go down as it so cool. Now I'm not great with heights and this is not your average length slide. Anyway I think what the heck if they can all do it so can I. So I proceed to climb the tree.....which I almost got stuck in with my very short legs (i'm 1.5 meters in height/ 4 foot 11 inches). I eventually get to the slide section of the tree and decide it's now or never so I just let go and think the quicker i do this the better - then I can say I've done it and I won't have to do it again cause the height I'm looking down from the slide is a bit daunting (i really don't like heights). So I let go and slide very fast in my woolen jacket till i thud to the bottom and twist my ankle as I land!!! OUCH!!!!
Now this is 10.15 at night - the staff of the restaurant are all packing up getting ready to go and I can't walk at all - I'm crying in pain and my husband and brother have to carry me to the car. The night then proceeded in paramedics seeing to me then driving to a couple of hospitals then x-rays and getting home after 1am.
I am now laughed at as Betty queen of the kiddie slide and I'm now stuck at home with a rather large tennis ball for a foot/ankle. It is rather painful - the upside is I don't have to do the dishes or the cooking :) no standing allow.

have a great week

THURSDAY AND BLOGGER INTERVIEW WITH SIMPLY-MEL B

So Today I have the pleasure of bringing you an interview by  the blogger Simply-Mel B. I so enjoy reading her blog about her life - about her kids and the sometimes the killer boots she buys or simply how she is taking a little holiday - she is quirky and fun to read but very real and sometimes says things I think but never have the courage to say :)

hope you enjoy her interview below

________________________________________________________

this is the pic Simply-Mel B sent me of herself :)

The city I live in ....feels like home. Nowhere else fits like Cape Town.

I love ....technology, funny people, dancing, seeing things through the eyes of my kids, shoes, lipgloss, nights in on the couch with my man.

My favorite food is .....my mom's macaroni cheese.

The Best thing I can cook .....I try not to think about cooking. Ever. Not even for this question.

My Staple food is ....coffee. :-)

My friends think I'm .... fun. Honest. Loyal. And I am. Although the fun part sometimes needs topping up.

I totally Rock at ....finding excuses to avoid Pick n Pay.

My style is....not nearly as rocking as my 5yr old daughters'. She regularly rebukes my look!

My blog is about ....me, myself and I. And the people I love. And the things they do and say. Its a commentary on my life. And each year is printed and bound into books for my family to keep.

If  I was a food I'd be …. sweet chilli sauce. Sweet with an occasional BITE!

My healthiest thing I eat is .... Pumpkin seeds.

I am 1 of 4 children

My obsession is...trying to keep the big things in focus and letting the little things go. Its about living and absorbing each day. Intentionally.

My parents discovered I was crazy when ....If they think I am crazy they are disguising it very very well...!

I've known I was different since....I told my best friend in Std 7 that she really did look fat in her favourite bubble skirt. In fact, I told her she looked like an overbaked meringue.

If i could take 3 things with me to a desert island ....Barry Hilton for comedy, Gerard Butler for,er, company and my laptop to tweet the experience.

My favourite read is....a magazine. I havent been able to really enjoy a novel since the Twilight Series. Sad but true. And I enjoy the variety of mags – the fact that I can read bits n pieces over weeks. In the car, in the bath, on the patio, in the loo. Novels tend to eat up my life – I can put them down!!

My mood is best ....when I get my own way. ;-)

My blog address is.....www.simply-melb.blogspot.com

My readers are....entertaining, thoughtful, loyal, honest, conversational, intelligent.

My full name is......not in the phone book.

My wish for 2010 .....to make it memorable.

___________________________________

 
See wasn't that fun :) I so enjoy reading her stuff - hope you will to.
Have a fabulous thursday.
Tomorrow is break up day for my daughter - yay for sleeping late and easter around the corner :)

 

THINGS I MADE or ATE THIS WEEKEND @ The Grand Daddy Hotel and Sevruga at the V&A Waterfront

So in South Africa yesterday (monday) was a public holiday and it was also mine and my husbands wedding anniversary - so that is why i never did a post. We had a great time and stayed at the Grand Daddy hotel on sunday night and woke up there on our anniversary on monday. It was gorgeous and so nice. Being our anniversary there was a lovely bottle of champagne in our room on arrival.

 our room at the Grand Daddy hotel

We had such a lovely room with little balconies off our bedroom and bathroom looking out over Long Street.

We had supper at Sevruga at the V&A Waterfront which was so delicious - I am sooo going back there. I had the slow braised lamb on polenta with onions and gravy (R99) superb and my husband had the chef's choice black sushi plate (R280) containing 29 pieces of sushi - he says it was delicious. We had a great time and our waiter was attentive enough to look after us but elusive enough not to bug us so we could talk. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera along - but I did want all my attention to be on my husband as we chatted the night away recalling our 11 years together. We did have a beautiful candle lit table for 2 with crisp white table cloth and each others eyes to stare into. It was a great evening :) I will definately be back to try out more of the menu.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotels restaurant and then checked out and walked around Cape Town and looked through some of the little side streets... we ended up back on Long Street and settled for tea at Lola's Cafe where I had the most delicious and freshest Pineapple juice I have ever had. Although the place is a little shabby - it's menu looked very good and the place was very quirky - I am going back to have more fresh juice and to try out the vietnemese spring rolls

Lola's Cafe Long Street.

We then decided to go to several places but due to all the traffic and other people also out on the public holiday we ended up driving around in circles and down streets for way to long and so decided to eat a late lunch at a Primi closer to home. We eventually stopped at one in Claremont outside Cavendish and as we were walking along the pavement a piece of the wall/cement cladding came falling down right in front of us - luckily there was a tree and some branches took the brunt of the cement! It was crazy - we were a mere 3 - 5 meters from were it all fell down. My husband and I were in total shock and we just kept saying to each other that we were lucky to be alive!!! wow is all we could say! It was a huge crash and then a cloud of dust. It made me wonder how insane it must be when an entire building falls down like in 9-11 with the twin towers falling. We were so blessed to have been 3 second later than when that plaster/cement fell or we would have been under it - easily the sheet was the diameter of a car. After taking a few photos and calming our nerves we eventually had a wheat-free pizza at Primi Piatti and then headed home to fetch our daughter from grandma.
A beautiful weekend wouldn't you agree? and a huge wake up call :)












 

Aunty Jenny's Chocolate Cake

This chocolate cake is sooo moist and delicious i just love it! I ve been baking it since a teenager and got the recipe from my friends mom who we all called - Aunty Jenny. She was the best cook (still is a brilliant one) in our church. We loved to go eat at her house and it was always a treat to chat to her in her kitchen while she cooked :) This cake is always asked for by my husband whenever i ask him what cake he would like for his birthday or he'll ask for it sometimes when he just feels like something nice and baked and chocolatey. And so of course I used this as one of the cakes for my daughter's fancy tea party.

The basis of this cake is a good mayonaise -which sounds disgusting to be put in a chocolate cake! I have even had people refuse to try it because they heard mayo is in it! but once they do - there is no turning back and they come back for seconds. It is really that good.
It is better made with a normal (wheat) self raising flour but can be made with a wheat-free flour of  your choice. The cake itself keeps well in an airtight container for 5 or so days. And really is nearly as delicious on the 5th day as on the 1st!

AUNTY JENNY'S CHOCOLATE CAKE
2 cups self raising flour (or wheat free flour)
2/3 cup of cocoa
1 & 1/4 teaspoon bicarb
1 & 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 & 2/3 cup of sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla ess
1 cup (good quality mayonaise- like crosse and blackwell)
1 & 1/3 cup cold water

METHOD
Sift and combine the first 4 ingredients and set aside.
Beat sugar, eggs and vanilla on high speed for 3 minutes or until light and fluffy
Now beat in the Mayonaise slowly
Beating constantly add the flour mixture and the water alternatively - Beginning and ending with flour
Pour into 2 cake tins (roughly 22cm) greased and floured
Bake @ 180 degrees celcius for 30 - 35 min or until the sides start to pull away from the tin
Cool in tins for 10 min before turning out onto racks
Once cooled decorate as desired

Enjoy


Betty :)

Pro X Games and Computer Crash

So my computer crashed about 10 days ago and I have been trying to get everything back up and running ever since between doing mommy stuff - so hence the lack of posts!
so here's an update on some of the things that have been happening:

Mountain Bike Trials - they balance on things and do crazy tricks!

1) Last weekend we went to the Pro-X Games and had a very hot and interesting time there spending all day from early in the morning till late after supper there Saturday and almost as long on the Sunday. So all of the weekend was spent in a sandy forest/sandy land kind of area trying to stay out of the sun and free of dirt but still enjoy watching all the extreme sports  - it was really cool.

There was lots more to see like: skate boarding, bmxing, motocross, FMX, and bands...

It was great fun to watch and it was a good excuse to sit around and eat picknik food that i had made. Even though it was really hot and dusty I still enjoyed the excuse to do nothing :) so blissful.

Since then I have cooked, baked cleaned and cleaned and run around like a chicken without a head. And I haven't even gotten to this current weekend we just had yet.... anyway hope you had fun the last two weeks.
Posting will commence as normal from today - which means hap hazard and odd as usual :)

Betty 

Tuesday Interview - Questions and Answers with LANA LOU STYLE

Today is my 50th Post YAY!!! :)  And I also have the priviledge of putting up the answers I got of  Lana's from Lanalou Style's blogger Interview. I so enjoyed getting to know a little bit more about her. She has a gorgeous blog that is definately worth a visit, especially if you are into decor :)
I hope you enjoy reading her answers.

I did. :)
____________________________________

The city I live in ...is amazing; beauty, style and nature all in one!

 I Love .... colour

My favorite food is .....sushi especially salmon roses

The Best thing I can cook ..... is cupcakes, I know, not exactly challenging but I do decorate them beautifully!

My Staple food is .... boring Shredded Bran cereal for breakfast

My friends think I'm .... a creative genius ;)

I totally Rock at .... putting together storyboards!

My style is.... a little bit of everything, but more feminine and pretty than edgy and cool

My blog is about .... things that inspire me, interiors, decor, fashion, photography and Cape Town!

If I was a food I'd be a ... a delicious creme brulee

My healthiest thing I eat is .... hot water with lemon in the mornings

 I am 1 of .... 3 children

 My obsession is... discovering cool new places in CT to photograph

My parents discovered I was crazy when .... um sadly I'm not so crazy

I known I was different since.... I didn't want to be a doctor, lawyer or have a high powered job

If i could take 3 things with me to a desert island .... a never-ending book by Marion Keyes, my camera and a bikini

I live in..... Cape Town

My favourite read is.... livingetc, it's my favourite magazine at the moment

My mood is best ....when I'm being creative or out in nature

My blog address is.....www.lanaloustyle.blogspot.com

My readers are....the best, they make my day!

My full name is......Lana Louise Kenney hence lanalou style

My wish for 2010 .....is to be happy, inspired, motivated and free!

_____________________________________________________

See now wasn't that nice :)
for those of you local to Cape Town it is always nice to find another Cape Town blogger :) and for the rest of the bloggersphere it is always nice to find a good blog to read and get inspired by.
have a great tueday

Betty
(pic of lana supplied by herself on my request)

THINGS I MADE OR ATE THIS WEEKEND

 Seeing as though my brownies flopped this weekend

 I though I would put up a pic of this cake i made last weekend for a ladies tea party :)

This weekend was...... WINDY!!! staying in a little town next to the sea has it's advantages and disadvantages. One of them being - when the sea is rough the wind blows ALOT! While the rest of Cape Town was having glorious weather - we were having sand blasting, hair knotting wind!!!
But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy my weekend - just thought you would like to know :) so you can relate. So everything you read below imagine it with WIND!!!

Friday evening - I had lovely wheat-free pizza from Primi Piatti with Being brazen while watching a DVD (and yes the guys were there to - so no girly movies) I tried to make brownies to take with - they flopped *?!!?!* but took them with anyway.

Saturday - I went to the market again! (thats because i go every saturday to do my grocery shopping) pest aside free veggies etc... then had coffee with my husband and daughter in noordhoek (a little village 7 minutes drive away) and then relaxed at home, in the evening we went for a drive and ended up at a local pizza place and had some more wheat-free pizza! Wind blew the whole time......remember!!!

Sunday - relaxed outside in a sort of sheltered spot from the wind, walked to out local store to buy milk etc.... then slept abit at home and picked on various things the whole day - eventually musted up the will power to make some hot chips and salad for us adults and some spaghetti and cheese sauce for my daughter (her favorite at the moment!) Watched a DVD with the husband.

so quite a relaxing (even if it was windy) weekend.

Hope you had a good one, did you do anything fun or eat anything good? :)