pink stuff

I’m blogging over at the Pink Heart Society today. Come and say hello – because I bet you’ve had the feeling I describe there…

Spent yesterday baking with the kids. (Dear diet buddies – don’t read this paragraph. I was Bad Kate yesterday.) Madam’s godmother bought her this wonderful set of cookery cards for Christmas, and I’ve been promising the kids a baking session for a while. So they curled up on the sofa together, worked their way through the cards and discussed what they wanted to do, then presented me with a pile of the ones they wanted to make. We made a list of the extra ingredients we needed and hit the shops, starting with marzipan and red food colouring. The recipe card was for marzipan toadstools, but Son felt the texture and pronounced it ‘like clay’ – he went straight into animator mode. So they made a token toadstool, then did mice and pigs and cats and a Supermario thingy. And then we made choc chip muffins….

They are both desperate to make raspberry ice cream later in the week (continuing the pink theme…) Sure, we can do it by hand… but I would dearly love a proper ice cream maker. One of those posh Gaggia ones (this is the main reason why DH says I’m not allowed in Lakeland or any other decent kitchen shop without proper supervision and/or handing my credit card over to him first). Have also seen good reviews of the Cuisinart machine, too.

Yeah, yeah. It’s expensive. And DH and I are trying to break our ice cream habit. There was a stage where I was buying four litres of ice cream a week – two litres of vanilla and various pots of Haagen Dasz/Ben & Jerry’s. We have improved. Admittedly if I made my own it’d all be low fat and premium stuff, but… in terms of both calories and cash, I can’t justify this right now. Unless maybe I ask all the family (including DH) to club together for Christmas and my next birthday combined… (The Modern Heat girls are going for an ice cream in London next month. Guess whose suggestion that was? *g*)