How To Eat a Boston Bun – in Exceptional Circumstances.

There is some back story here, and it goes like this. My sister V decided to go sugar free on the week days. This is good, this is great. Except if you have no real strategies in place… for when cravings and withdrawals hit. And for someone so organised, she missed that memo this week. Argh, I feel the pain. Anyway, this is a story about how to eat a Boston Bun (aka Sally Lun) in a the best and fastest way.

NOTE. This is a no judgement place. If you have never craved or needed food so badly that you will mainline a whole cake, well, I do feel sorry for you. You lucky hypothetical reader you.

So! Day 2.5 of the no sugar diet; minus good mood and plus headache and shakes, Sister V finds herself in the supermarket looking for coffee (I believe) and coming out with a whole Boston Bun which she proceeds to devour entire. As you do. Or maybe not you, but I certainly have. And this is where it gets awesome, because, here is a pic of how I normally (I mean, the once it has happened *cough*) would eat a whole bun.

I can see this ending badly… and I should have put makeup on before taking these photos. But hey. Here’s some honesty 😀

Not particularly easy, and also very messy.

I know, I know, so glamorous 😀

Sigh.

Now! Sister V’s genius!! YES! Step by step, in case anyone else ever has the need. This is a duty I feel I have, to share this with the … world? Anyway.

Step one: cut the top off the Boston Bun.

Step one! Slice the top off the bun!

Step Two: butter the bottom half. Yes – it’s cut all raggedy. In a hurry, remember? 😀

Step Two! Plenty of butter for you!

Step Three: add jam. Optional, of course. Usually I just add butter- but anything goes. This IS a no judgement zone 😀

Step Three! Now it’s as sweet as can be!

Step Four – and most important: put the top back on. UPSIDE DOWN.

Step Four! Messy face no more!

Step Five: eat! Eat it like a sandwich. Just get right in there 😀 And now you do not have to fear the coconut and icing in the eyebrows! Dignity is kept! Er… ok, maybe not. But hey. Lack of food for Ron (Later Ron) does count for a fair amount some days 😀

Step Five! something something something LIVE! (ok, ok. Sorry)

Thank you, Sister V, for this story and the how-to. You absolutely made my day yesterday. Love you!! 😀

Have an awesome, clever, and food remnant free day

Ami

Smash Cosmetics – swatches and review

It’s probably not a surprise to anyone if I say I love indie polishes. I mean, I make some. And own lots. And sort of want them all. But I also really like indie makeup… i.e. makeup ranges that are handmade by people, rather than large businesses and machines. Easier to get the cruelty free products in all the pretty colours, and usually for a really decent price too, even including shipping it all the way here!

One night strolling through Etsy I stumbled across a range of indie makeup from Smash Cosmetics, so went looking for reviews, and found a lot of favourable reviews. And thought I’d post my own reviews – the best way to know if they are a good product or not is to Google it, so doing my best to keep that out there! I bought a few full sized products from them, and also a Bloggers Pack – eg a VERY inexpensive sample pack, the reciprocal part being that I am a blogger, and will review their product. But of course, I do that anyway, bought or sent. A review happens. 😀 So, yay, I just asked them to surprise me with the products, and didn’t specify any products 🙂

So, swatches! There are two lipglosses, Vixen and Cranberry. Both are very dense in pigment, and go on nicely. I used a lipbrush, no primer or lip liner for all of these photos.

Vixen is much brighter than I could get it to show.

It looks almost neon pink red in real life! And can I just say that I hate taking selfies, and am really bad at them, and didn’t want to primp, so this is just me, wearing a bit of lipstick. I probably should have waited for a better day. Gah.

Cranberry is a metallic berry red /maroon…

Quite pretty!

Then the lipstick I bought, this is Deptford. It looks nothing like the photos, it is hard and doesn’t transfer the pigment well AT ALL, I think I’d quite like the colour (though shimmer and I don’t get on too well), and I’ll melt this down and add a bit of cocoa butter or similar and repour it, just so I can use it.

It’s also supposed to be Vanilla flavoured… I don’t know about that, it does smell sweet, and like lipstick 😀

Then other lipsticks in the Blogger pacK:

Creamsicle: very strange light peach orange colour, fairly streaky, but very opaque… and, as you can see, doesn’t look good on me. BUT, and here’s the thing, I don’t want these colours because I think I’ll look ‘good’, I just want funky colours. Plus, you know, I LOVE making up costumes and things, and these will come in handy!

Mint: Slightly green teal, a bit more green than the photo shows. Slightly streaky and catches in the lines on my lips, but not as bad as Creamsicle.

Viola: Absolutely gorgeous. Goes on flawlessly, and has a really nice scent, floral and sweet. Also very flattering, which is really strange! I want a full sized lipstick of this one!

Another selfie, argh. I even think they’re worse than the too-close-for-comfort macro, because at least I can pretend they’re not MY lips, until I see them on my face. That’s a bit of a giveaway. Ah well. FOR SCIENCE!  (or at least, for public information) 😀

Head in the Clouds: very blue lipstick, sort of strange texture, like it has too much zinc in it? Slightly sticky, in between a lipgloss and lipstick, but a very funky colour. Again, for costumes probably 😀 Nice scent, too! More sweet, less floral than Viola.

Tweak. For a moment I thought the name was Twerk, but phew! It’s not! Dark teal blue.. this was hard to apply, didn’t want to spread out or warm up, so not as dense as the others, and took more work. Nice colour though, I like it, probably not for school and kindy drop offs though 😀

Now… the clear tube is Glitter Glue, an eye primer for glittery eyeshadows. I bought this one. 🙂 And also included in the Blogger Pack was a cream primer… I swatched the eyeshadows on my arm, and drew a line using both primers.. nothing at the top, then the cream primer, then the glitter glue towards the bottom of my arm, and just bisected those horizontal lines with the vertical primer/nothing lines.  And the verdict is, I LOVE the cream primer. I want a full size of that, too! Wow, just holds everything in place so well, pops all those colours.

Here are the eyeshadows!

From left to right:

*Ultramarine (one I bought) – put on as thickly as I could, it is also on the far right, put on in one thin line. Bit disappointed in the colour payoff, but it builds nicely on the lid 🙂

*Harlot: a nice earthenware type red / brown

*Hell: very red and sparkly

*Pulchritudinous: Although I don’t want to spell that one again, it’s my favourite of the bunch, over the cream primer especially it has an amazing copper shimmer.

*Hippopotomuses: cute name! pretty shimmery lilac/silver shadow

*Frankenstella: nice purple on the boundary of plum. Dense in the best way 🙂

Now, I’ve gone back to find the shop to post links, and everything has disappeared. I am not sure if they have taken a break, or gone forever, but I’m hoping for a break because I want the cream primer and Viola lipstick, and a full size eyeshadow or 3 from them! So, fingers crossed they’ll come back, and I’ll let you all know!

Have a colourful day

Ami 🙂

Kleancolor Lipglosses: Naughty Kiss and First Impression

Two of the Kleancolor lipgloss range – these are great 😀

And this is Naughty Kiss (I couldn’t resist the name! Hilarious!)

– a bronze coloured lipgloss with multicoloured shimmer – mostly pink and silver, but you have to look pretty hard to see anything apart from shine.

Blurry, sorry, but shows the shimmer colours!

And First Impression

– which is a light pink with iridescent and pink shimer- the shimmer is much more obvious in this one. Subtle, but pretty!

These are thin lipglosses – scented sort of like lollies? They are soft and slippery, not sticky, and wear off moderately quick. However, they are excellent for that quick touch up, or to keep in a pocket, bag, or car for when the need to have shiny shiny lips arises. And at $2 each, that’s a great deal 🙂

They do have mineral oil as their main ingredient, and I do believe that that’s the ingredient that lips get ‘addicted to’ – so when you stop using it, your lips can dry out and crack. Most lip glosses (and many balms!!!) have this as their main ingredient; what I tend to do is make sure I have balms with natural oils or waxes around, and alternate what I use. That way I’m eating less petroleum products (nom nom!) and also hopefully not getting as dependant on the mineral oil.

I think you can also get the Kleancolor lipglosses and lipsticks from Beauty Joint (.com) – I have one of their lipsticks and it’s very nice, recommend those to -especially for such a low price, and with no animal testing 🙂

Have a great day!

Varieties of eggs my chickens lay…

Just for fun!

A half dozen eggs in a carton…

7 eggs in my egg collecting basket. The large brownest one is a Rhode Island Red egg.

Yesterdays egg haul

I have 4 green egg laying chickens now (no green pigs for ham, though). I love the subtle differences in colours for each of them – Brave, who was born last summer to Tyra and Fabio (so half mixed breed, half Hamburg) as a distinctly more olive hue.

See? Naomi lays the largest green eggs, and Tyra lays slightly bluer ones.

Then we have this Rhode Island Red and a Light Sussex egg – they’re a good size 6 and a half, smooth and light tan with a pinkish tinge. By the way, I do NOT have a terrible skin disease of the hands, I have been using PVA glue in the caravan – and it made a mess 😀

Here is Tyra’s blueish green egg, and the one next to it is Brianna – Karla (Hyline) cross Fabio (Hamburg). I’m VERY excited about this, because this is a good size egg, not quite the size of a normal Hyline / Shaver egg but close, and she’s a much healthier bird. So crossing them can work! yay! Can’t wait to see a Hyline cross Orpington chicken…

 

And these two – the round, super white egg is from Bill, our Blue Andalusian. I’m not sure who has laid the long and pointy one, but it made me laugh :D. I know if I was laying eggs every day I’d prefer them to be this shape!

Have a great day!

 

 

I Had Some Dreams, They Were Dragons In My Coffee…

Now I’ll have that song in my head alll day. You too? Oh, goodie 😀

My husband made me a coffee, and whenever we make each other a coffee we attempt to draw pictures with the milk froth. Often it’s  a heart. Or a floating pumice raft *. Something simple. So, imagine my astonishment when he brought in this cup of art!

In case it is only me that sees it, I see the dragon along the left, from top (head) to bottom (shoulders) and the flames are spewing up to the top right. 🙂

Ok, he didn’t do it on purpose. And he wouldn’t be able to replicate it, and I wouldn’t even try. But isn’t it a perfect head/ neck/shoulders/ of a dragon breathing fire? Stunning! Small moments of happiness and entertainment in our lives, shared with you (possibly to your annoyance, sorry about that!) via the wonders of blogging technology 😀

*just blob white foam in random spots on top of the froth. You’re welcome. 😉

Trying to cut down on my coffee … again.

To at least no more than 3 cups a day.

Do-able? Hope so! 😀

Homekill chicken update

Thank you, Roaster the Rooster.

You were most delicious.

I slow cooked him in the crockpot over crunched up tin foil – which makes them crispy, but gives a slight rotisserie flavour – with stuffing and rosemary under the skin (3.5 hours on HIGH). It was definitely denser and more filling than regular supermarket chicken, which I was expecting due to his very active life. He also had the longest leg bones (and biggest drumstick meat!) I’ve EVER seen.

This is my meal – I have the white meat, Mr Husband has the red. Jack Spratt, anyone? 😀

I’m feeling pretty happy about this, all considered – what we didn’t eat the dog did (basically just some picked over pieces my kids dropped: sorry pooch, but you do have your own food), and she had the raw chicken neck. I’m about to freeze the carcass to make stock with, later. Feeling all River Cottage here tonight! Yay!

Brag post… involves homekill chicken and fudge photos…

I am so proud of my husband today! We’ve talked about killing our own chickens before, but never got around to it. Well, today he did it!

Lets clarify something first…  this was a rooster I have had since he was 5 days old. I bought his mum with 10 chicks at foot – they were all so cute and fuzzy. They’ve had a great time here; she’s an awesome mum and they all made it to adulthood. This particular guy was part Orpington, and he was big. I’ve been getting rid of the roosters to good homes when I can, but then last week I saw this rooster attack a hen. Now, I won’t have a mean animal around. Definitely not a mean rooster. So, at that point I mentioned to Mr Husband that maybe we could try to kill and eat him.

And he did. If anyone is brave enough, the rooster in question was the one peeking at me over the deck in a previous photo post, here.

This is what he looks like now..

I sense a slow cooked chicken meal in our future…

Ok, some people may be grossed out by this, and I apologise. But I am SO proud of Mr Husband for doing this: he killed him quickly and cleanly, there was no fuss or struggle – rooster didnt know what was happening . He had a great life here, free-ranging and doing great things, and now he won’t be picking on my other chickens any more. It is HARD to kill something. Its very hard to look a living creature in the eye, and make the decision to turn it into a dead creature. Still, we will not waste any of the chicken, and I do really feel that this is a much more ethical way to get meat than picking up a pack of horribly mistreated and awfully killed styrofoam packaged semi-food from a supermarket, and pretending it wasn’t an animal to start with. I also think it SHOULD be hard to kill them: that act should always have weight – life and death should never be cheap.

And then, just when I thought I couldn’t be prouder of hubby (he not only killed but dressed and prepared the rooster, too), I see him making fudge on top of our fireplace, and teaching (safely) our eldest son how to do it. Cute!

Please ignore the mess!

Have a great weekend!

Stressed Cow Soup

Warning. Next week I *may* go AWOL. I will try my best not to, but I’m making some temporary lifestyle changes that may cause me to be unbearable to be around, in which case I’ll slink off stage left for a little while.

Image from http://free.clipartof.com/details/49-Free-Cartoon-Cow-Clip-Art

I’ll avoid gory details, but long story short- earlier this year I attempted the Dukan diet. It worked, yes, for both weeks I did it, but.. it also seems to have exacerbated a family tendancy towards IBS to a degree that I cannot live with. So I’ve researched, and read, and thought, and come to the conclusion that I need to go on a Elimination diet to give my poor abused insides a chance to heal. Basically I’m avoiding anything that could cause problems, which normally leaves people meat, fish, veges and fruit – however I’ve stopped eating red meat and chicken, and also have to avoid certain fruits and veges (because they could cause problems) so I have very little left that I can eat. For three weeks.

And so… I made this soup. It’s silverbeet (chard), celery, tomatoes (which technically shouldn’t be in there), corn, and carrot. And some spices. I blended it all up, because… surely the less chewing the better. And I made almost 8 litres of it, to freeze and reheat later. And.. here’s a photo. I’ve decided to call it Stressed Cow Soup. I bet you can guess why…

Om. Nom. Nom.

Without coffee, sugar, and normal food I may go a bit insane. In which case you won’t hear from me until I’ve got that under control. I’m NOT looking forward to these three weeks. I AM looking forward to finding out the foods I should avoid, and giving myself a chance to heal. I’ll be starting on Monday, wish me luck! 😀

April 23: Vegetable

Photo-A-Day April: Vegetable

Small, but mighty. Like two of my cousins. *wink*

Making up for lost time, I think I’m on top of it now! These are some of the Hungarian Peppers Mr Husband has grown in his vege garden this year. As I’m half Hungarian he loves to find things that have “Hungarian” in the name – then pass judgement on it. So far we know that wiring looms in the car made in Hungary are to be avoided at all cost, and Hungarian Peppers are extremely good. Very spicy, very tasty.