Saturday ramblings

So today.  I planned to do some Christmas baking, but best laid plans and all, went waaaay way astray!  There was a huge sale at Betta Electrical the last couple of days and with our oven limping along the last few years we decided to buy one.   Not what I wanted.  I want a hot plate section into the bench, etc.  This is basically just a stand alone like we had before.  But until we decide to rip the kitchen out and put in a new one, which has always been the master plan, this great deal of an oven is a stop gap measure, mainly due to safety reasons.

So it was due to come on Monday, but we got a phone call, they're bringing it around today.  Eeeeek!   Mike decides he can put it in himself, it's a one hour job.  Darn male testosterone.

So he gets the old one out, urrrrgh.  I set about cleaning the space, which turned into cleaning the cupboards, which turned into cleaning the splash back and rearranging the spice jars, and you name it.  Mike in the meantime tells me he needed more copper tubing for the back, the old one connected to the gas at the bottom, this one connects in the middle of the back.  Off he goes to the hardware store.

Well it became a trial getting this darn stove in.  Do I dare mention that this one hour job turned into four hours?  Do I even mention that we have a plumber who lives next door that we could have asked to pop in to help?  Do I dare even contemplate mentioning the amount of swear words that passed by Mike's lips???

By this stage I was ready for a camp oven, anything really, so that I could do my baking.

But he got it in finally and it's working perfectly.  Thanks honey.

Recently a friend of mine from our DD team, Chrissy, had a pic on instagram of a cuppa with a piece of tablet.  Fancy that I said to Mike, something called tablet.  He went all goggle eyed "TABLET!!!!!!"  Apparently it is a Scottish delicacy, a crumbly hardish type fudge if you will, not hard that you will break your teeth, but hard as in you bite and it crumbles off and dissolves in your mouth.  Sounds amazing huh?

Here's the recipe:
http://www.scotlands-enchanting-kingdom.com/microwave-tablet.html

So I made some this afternoon.  Some sort of chain reaction occurred as the whole thing turned from liquid to crumbly stuff in one second.  I squished it into the pan but nope, didn't work.  Binned!

Tried it again, this time I didn't cook it for as long as we have a higher wattage microwave than in the recipe.  Better.  It stayed a thick liquid consistency, but it doesn't seem to have set.  It's set on the top but the underneath is still very soft.  Not sure if it's meant to go in the fridge, but it is now.  The plan was to give it away to family.  Errrr apparently Mike has his eye on this batch and he's keeping it!

We had a birthday in the house yesterday and it was such a lovely evening, we went into Warrnambool to Reunion Bar for a meal and three of the four kids (sans Wes) came as well.  So nice.

Afterwards Tabby decided we needed dessert.  A new icecream place had opened, kind of like Cold Rock, but I think it was called Frosty something or other.  Pick your iceceam, pick the accompaniments and they fold them all together.  Lets just say my chocolate obsession icecream with crushed up mint slice biscuit folded into it was pretty darn awesome.   Not sure that Mike's rum and raisin iceceam really matched with Turkish delight but he voted it pretty incredible.

Being that he didn't have a cake, I got him a small single cake from up at the local cafe today, so he could have a candle in it tonight, one day late.  Caramel macadamia nut cheesecake.  Oh heck!

This post has really been all about the food hasn't it?  ha!

He was pretty chugged with his Life Proof case for his iPhone.  Here's a pic he took of me taking a pic of him showing it.  Nutter.

I did go running this morning, 8.5 kilometres, skirted around town and then up to the newsagents for the paper.  It was one of those mornings when the moons aligned, everything was working, my legs, my breathing, a beautiful morning for it.