Great little animation videos!!!

I usually don't add any videos to my posts by these are just so funny and simplistic that I could not keep myself from sharing it with all of you! Enjoy the show:

I have not forgotten my Blog!!

Sorry everyone for the long silence, but things are just hectic at the moment. Finally managed to download some pictures to the web. As you can see here I am and I am getting bigger and bigger by the minute! So we finally have are own house and how I missed my own things and my bed and my space after two years on the road. We are still unpacking boxes and the house still looks like we just moved in but we are slowly getting there. I have not started to arrange the baby room yet so it will probably be ready when the baby is 15 years old or something hahaha!!

For the rest I am healthy and the little one too, he is so strong that he kicks and leaves me sore for a couple of days but I am not complaining the midwife said is a very good sign that he is active. Rob and I are starting our labour and parent classes on the end of the month and I cant believe there is only 13 weeks to go it is sooooo scary. I am learning how to drive and that is scary too not only for me but everyone else on the road! It took sometime for the Internet to get connected that is why the long silence and also with the new house, learning how to drive and having some social life there were not enough hours on the day to update my blog. Will put more pictures up soon don't worry...the four slide shows that I have added bellow are of The Move, Zoo Trip with Tania and the kids, Making Proggy With Grandma and Belly Pics. I hope you enjoy...the proggy one and the belly picture were taken today. I miss everyone very much and I promise not to neglect my blog for so long!!!! Have fun...

Luca's Quilt in Progress

I was waiting till I moved to my new home to start Luca's quilt which I promised him he would receive for Christmas but my mother in law just gave me the extra push I needed to start. I reached for the stars for inspiration on this one and I already had all the fabric tones that I wanted to use, just got some extra material from my mother in law. I started by washing all the fabric that I was going to use seeing it was kept in boxes for half a year. When I hanged all the fat quarters outside to dry I realised that this quilt will be very very special. I am sure Luca's will love it and use well in his new home in France. After some color matching and some cutting I kept all pieces separate for each star. It does make the whole process easier and I am thankful for Tiiu's tip on this one. So I hope you all enjoy the small slide show of the progress so far and hopefully soon I will be able to post the end result! Enjoy.

Craving for Eclairs!!!

I was really craving for Eclairs for a couple of days so I went in search of an easy and good recipe so I could make them at home. Eclairs are a french chocolate pastry that are light in texture but very rich in flavour. Eclair actually means lightning in french and it was given this name because of its beautiful glaze. Not much is known about the origins of this famous pastry but its birth place is France. There are some who speculate that Eclairs were first made by a famous royal pastry chef called Marie-Antoine Carême (royal life must have been sweet with this chef around the royal kitchen!). Also oxford English Dictionary traces the term "eclair" in the English language to 1861. The first known recipe for eclairs appeared in the Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Mrs. D.A. Lincoln, published in 1884.

Well that was a bit of culinary history for all of you who actually are interested but of course eating the eclairs is more important and fun! After some research and changing the recipe to suit what I wanted, I managed to make them and they were delicious! Very decadent dessert that takes some time to make but it is sure to impress your guests and your tummy. Here is the recipe with pictures so you can try it at home! Enjoy...I am sure you will!

Preparation Time: 1 hour Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Eclair Dough:
2/3 cup Milk
2/3 cup Water
4 oz (113 grams) Butter
1 cup Flour
5 Eggs
2 tsp.Granulated Sugar
Pinch of Salt

Chocolate Cream Filling:
6 oz.(170 grams) Unsweetened dark chocolate powder (cocoa)
1 cup Milk
4 Egg Yolks
1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
1/4 cup Flour

3 tbs. Tia Maria or Amaretto liquor
2 tbs brewed coffee

Chocolate Icing:
5 oz.(141 grams) Dark Chocolate Bar
2 oz.(56 grams) Butter
1/4 cup Water

How to make Eclair Dough:

Preheat oven to 425°F (218 C).
1. In a pot, mix water, milk, butter, sugar, and salt. Bring to a boil.
2. Once butter has completely melted, take off flame, and slowly pour in flour, stirring constantly (sometimes this will be enough to make the dough drier and start to unstick to the sides of the pot if that happens you wont need to put it back on the flame as step 3 tells you).
3. Put pot back on flame and continue to work it with a wooden spoon. Continue stirring and kneading with spoon until the dough dries out and stops sticking to the sides of the pot.
4. Take off flame and wait a little till dough cools down (if you put the eggs when the dough is too hot it will make the eggs cook too fast and you will have some scramble eggs in your eclair dough!). Add eggs, one at a time, stirring energetically.
5. Fill a icing piping bag with the eclair batter. Butter a baking sheet. Squeeze out "finger-sized eclairs" onto baking sheet, well-spaced. This will make 20 small eclairs but if you like making them bigger please take into account that you probably will get 12 eclairs or even less.
6. Bake for 10 minutes. Then turn oven down to 385°F (196 C) and bake another 10-12 minutes with the oven door open. Now this bit is up to you to keep an eye on the progress of your eclairs, I left the oven closed for a little longer and on the last 5 minutes I opened the oven door. This is all up to your judgment and how hot your oven gets. But the oven needs to be hot so the eclairs can rise.
7. When they are done take them out of the oven and let them cool while you make the filling.

Chocolate Filling:
1. Add the cocoa powder and milk in a pot, and bring to light boil, remove and let it cool.
2. In a bowl, whisk yolks and sugar until it whitens.
3. Slowly add flour, stirring.
4. Slowly add chocolate milk and the coffee stirring until homogeneous.
5. Put back in pot, bring to light boil, stirring constantly, until cream thickens and becomes smooth. If your cream becomes lumpy don't panic, just add some more coffee or milk whisk it till it gets smooth again.
6. Add the liquor and while waiting it too cool off place a piece if glad rap on the top of the filling so it doesn't get a crusty.
7. When cream cools off (and eclairs have cooled off as well), you can begin filling the eclairs: Use your icing piping bag to inject the filling into the eclairs.



Icing:
Now be careful not to eat all of them before you put the chocolate icing on them it really pays off to wait till they are done!
1. Finely chop chocolate and place in a heatproof bowl that fits snuggly in a saucepan.
2. Once melted add butter.
3.Remove from heat and remove bowl from saucepan . Add the water and whisk thoroughly. It should look shiny and creamy!
3. Now dip the top of your eclairs (face down of course) into the chocolate icing and place them on a tray to cool. Voilà your eclairs are ready to eat! I love to eat them cold that is why I put mine in the fridge to be nice and cool. Enjoy!