Knowledge (the 5yo version)

So my 5 year old told my husband that she knows a LOT - more than he does, in fact. He asked her what she knows, and here is the comprehensive list:

1. Dragons are not real.
2. The husband can have a ring or not.
3. We don't have to bath every day.
4. We must always wear sunscreen.
5. Fruit and vegetables are healthy.
6. Sweets are unhealthy.
7. Children should not drink beer.
8. We must not give mommy a hard time.
9. We must not touch fire.
10. We should not always play with the same toy.
11. We must wash our hands.
12. When we swim, we should close our eyes.
13. We must have a patio.
14. When it is cold we must wear a scarf and jacket.
15. Water is important.

There you have it!

Junipa's

The best husband in the world took me out for an early birthday celebration dinner (the actual event is on Monday, we went out Thursday night). We went to a small little bistro in Bryanston called Junipa's. And I fell in love.

They do artisan breads, roast their own coffee, and when you order a cappucino you get a cat design in the foam. I had a lovely salad with crispy duck and sour cherries, which was awesome, although the carpaccio salad with blue cheese might have been even better (I scrounged a taste from H's plate). Then a pasta Alfredo for me, pizza with slow roast lamb and olives for H, followed by chocolate brownies. Wow. Their artisan breads are made from a starter that is - get this - 8 years old.

This morning I drove past there again, and bought a sourdough loaf and some croissants, and having tasted it I'm happy to sacrifice the dream of losing weight. I'm in a little bubble of baking happiness. I can't believe this kind of food is available 10 minutes from my home and I never knew!

Plants vs zombies - the birthday

So the theme for my youngest's second birthday was based on the coolest PC game ever. Not that she plays it, obviously, but if I'm in front of the PC, she generally demands "I want zombies! I want zombies!" until I play a level while she sits on my lap. And since I try to reflect their preferences in the theme for the birthdays, she got a plants vs zombies birthday.

The cupcake-cake:

The birthday girl:

And her friend eating a zombie (she'll obviously be a major defense factor in the zombie apocalypse):

My girls

As I write this, the most wonderful girls in the whole world are playing next to me, pretending to be dogs. They're conversing entirely in versions of "woof woof". Except that the baby adds a "braaaaaaains" in between every now and then. She's a plants vs zombies fan.

(Watch this space for her birthday cupcakes).

Anyway, I haven't showed you any pictures of them, so let me just show off for a moment:

Starting off with some old pics, but we had them done professionally so I really like them. The baby was about 2 weeks old here, the older had turned 3 less than 2 months earlier.

That's me and the little one (H), and obviously this one too:

Big sister J, very much a girly girl. She loves pretty dresses and flowers and so on. Look at the Justin Bieber hairstyle! (Yeah. It works on 3 year old girls).

The family. At the back left is my father in law, then the best husband in the world, and then his brother. In front is J on my mother in law's lap, and then me with H. See how tired I am?

Fast forward about 7 months and we have these:

Amazing how quickly they grow up - J almost more than H. 

And then in April of this year (so again about 8 months later):

The two sisters just love each other. I mean, they fight and everything, but they really love each other.

Yes. I am the most blessed mommy in the world.

Apricot jam

I'm going to let you in on a little secret, one that will help you score many, many points with your friends.

Ready? Here it is: Apricot jam is UNBELIEVABLY easy to make. No, really.

In short:
1. Buy some apricots. Halve them and take out the pips.
2. Weigh them.
3. Mix with an equal weight of white sugar.
4. Let stand overnight.
5. Heat slowly until the sugar is dissolved.
6. Turn up the heat and boil until you have jam.

Voila!

If you'd like a slower walk-through, here goes:

Here I've just halved the apricots. The very first time I was involved in making apricot jam (I was a teenager, and just helped a friend's mom halve the fruit), I was told that leaving a few pips in somehow adds to the flavour; I have absolutely no idea if that's true but I've been doing it ever since.

Added the sugar. My official recipe says to let it stand for a few hours, but after a few hours it still looked pretty much the same, except the sugar was a little wet. So I left it overnight the way I usually do, and this is what you get:

The sugar and apricot juice do their little hanky-panky overnight and turn into this lovely syrup. Awesome.

At this point, I lit the stove and promptly forgot about the camera, so the next few steps will have to be pictureless. Sorry.

Anyway, keep the heat really low until the sugar is dissolved. I think it will turn into toffee or something otherwise; I've never tried boiling the jam before the sugar dissolves because I don't want to waste a batch of apricot awesomeness - although if you try it, let me know what happens. This took about an hour, probably, over very low heat. I stirred it every 5-10 minutes, more frequently towards the end. 

You can tell that the sugar is totally dissolved by watching the syrup on your spoon very carefully, and also running your finger through it; if you feel any grains whatsoever you have to keep going.

Once it's ready, turn up the heat. You want a steady boil but not too hectic. In this last batch my heat was a little high at one point and a droplet jumped all the way from the pot onto my arm which at that point was a good half a metre away. Ouch. Also you run the risk of it burning at the bottom if the heat is too much.

The apricots will slowly disintegrate into the sugary syrup, and the syrup will turn from a sugar syrup into a fruity jam. Keep watching what it does on the back of your spoon when you stir; for the first 20-30 minutes probably it will be just syrupy, and then you'll start to see some texture and thickness. When you think it is starting to look like jam, pour a teaspoon full onto a saucer and let it cool for 5 seconds or so. Then run your finger through it. You'll be able to tell immediately if it's too runny to spread on bread or scones - if so, keep boiling for another 5 minutes and try again.

Then when you're ready, pour into some sterilised bottles and voila! I love apricot jam.

A few extra pointers:

1. Try to use apricots that aren't fully ripe yet - something about the pectin levels in greenish apricots helps with the jam process. But they shouldn't be green in colour, just firm.
2. If you add the pips, remove them during the cooking process. It doesn't really matter all that much when, but when you're in the quick boil stage and you find a pip in your spoon, just put it aside. To be 100% sure, maybe count them as you put them in to be sure they're all out. Although you will see them in the bottling phase, unless your bottles are huge.
3. I like apricot jam to be medium thickness. A sign of a great jam is supposed to be that it's really light in colour and fine, but I like the thickness of a slightly longer boil. Just boil until it reaches your preference - if that's a deep dark colour, keep going and enjoy.
4. In terms of volume, the batch I made today was basically 2 kg of apricots and 2 kg of sugar, and I got 6.5 bottles of jam, total volume around 1.2 litres.

I did it!

I completed my first 10k run/walk in 1:37 - yes, very slow. But I did it! I probably ran about 4km of the 10, maybe a little more. Last year I walked the whole way, so this is a massive improvement.

Tinkerbell cake

I was on leave for the last two days, to prepare for my oldest's birthday party tomorrow. Here's the cake:

The figurine on top is store-bought and not edible, but the rest of it I made myself and it's all edible. I'm pretty happy with the result.

The other side:

Some of the flower detail:

It's 8pm now, 14 hours before the party starts. It's raining cats and dogs outside, so we may very well be in trouble. At least we'll have cake!