Such frivolities this week my dear readers!

• We put up our fishmas tree last weekend :D Now our goldfish can celebrate with us.
• Last weekend the house also smelt wonderfully of Cinder toffee, sugar and syrup. Yom!
• Oo OO, on SUNDAY we got an offer accepted on the most piece of shit house in existence, it’s totally amazing though and we got it for dirt cheap. Now the scary part of working out finances, talking to banks and figuring out legal jargon is really taking up our time. Oh well, it’s still ah-maze-ong.
• Saw The Mighty Boosh on Tuesday evening, they were deliciously funny. Had some reservations because season 3 was only so-so, but the live show was ace…
• Some more cute little chickens have been talking about finestimaginary on their blogs, it’s fabulous!
• I have been looking at kitchens, wood floors, paint!, wallpaper, vinyl decals… Sooo much fun!
• My bestie is coming back from HongKong for a week over Xmas! Much excitement!
• other things of note: cooking shows; watching heroes; loads of duvets; mince pies! I’m turning into one :/ ; christmas shopping; christmas markets.

Oh my, I am completely entranced by these weird shoes…

You can find them asos.com. I’m thinking that this kind of shoe might be just the thing to great my fear of heels. Whilst I’d still benefit from the added height, the weird heel structure would make it feel like I was wearing flat. So I’d be able to train my arch into being STRONG at the heel-height, thus making it easier for me to progress to normal heels! Or maybe I just want to be a space age vixen and wear ridico shoes.

Meet the Christmas Salmon. Adam’s mum gave us this amazing old christmas ornament, made from glass (you know, like the baubles that turn into shards and stab your hands in the decoration box). It’s fucking amazing, a christmas fish! Who would have thought! We’ve put it on the pink tree that lives next to the goldfish (Terry and Neil), so they can celebrate their own Fishmas.

This is what we put on top of the Fishmas tree, the Fishmas Woodpecker!

So, you picked up the nachos, got the chili cooking and even boiled up some rice… but oh no! You forgot to pick up a jar of salsa! What to do! Well, I’m sure you have these simple store cupboard and weekly shop items to make a tasty 5 minute salsa fresca!

What you’ll need (to serve 3 people):

2 Ripe medium sized tomatoes
3 Spring onions (or more/less to taste)
A tablespoon of chopped jalapeno peppers (the pickled kind)
A handful of coriander
A splash of lime juice (fresh is best)
Chopped/minced garlic (to taste)
Your favourite tomato based hot sauce
Salt & Pepper

It’s super easy to make, too. Chop up the tomatoes, spring onions and coriander, combine them in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients and voila! a tasty salsa fresca for all!

Alongside this you might want to serve a deliciously easy guacamole. Here’s what you’ll need:

1/2 ripe Avocados (like, squidgy!)
3 spring onions
Chopped jalepenos (it’s always best to use regular unpickled chillis, but they’re not always to hand so these will do!)
Chopped/minced garlic (to taste)
handful of corriander
splash of lime juice
and if you want, although not entirely neccessary, you can throw in 1 chopped up fresh tomato. Also for a smoother texture you can add a couple of spoon fulls of sour cream.
Salt & pepper to taste

Mash up the avocado coarsley, add the chopped up spring onions. Combine with all the other ingredients, and that’s it. Enjoy!

Woah guys we just made this monster of a batch of Cinder Toffee, it’s really something you should try. And super easy to boot! Following a recipe by the Goddess herself, Nigella Lawson, this recipe is so super fun to make. I’d even say it would be great to do with kids… if it didn’t involve magma hot liquid sugar…

For a batch the size that we made, which by weight is probably very little, but by volume would fill a large 1kg quality street/celebrations/rose’s tin (you know, the kind you get around this time of year!), you will need…

400g of Caster sugar
8 Table spoons (or 1/2 cup, 125ml) of Golden syrup
2 Table spoons of Bicarbonate of Soda

The process is extreeeeeemely simple. Start off by putting your sugar and syrup in a heavy based saucepan (make sure you use an oversized one!), mix these together as best you can (it doesn’t really work when it’s cold, so it’s best to keep mixing throughout the simmering). Place over a lowish heat, everything will melt into a lava type substance that bubbles and boils… don’t freakin’ touch this. Ok, so when it’s all lovely and golden (think… autumn) turn off the heat. Put the bicarb in and whisk it. Ready? READY? It turns into a fucking sugar monster, swear down. Yeh, see now why I told you to use a huge pan? We kinda didn’t. Que me running around the kitchen screaming ‘OMG Adam it’s still growing’… funtimes. Righto, now you should pour this into either a greased up tin (again, you may need a big big sized one, or two.. just have a couple ready incase) or some greased up greasproof paper that you’ve shoved into a dish of some kind (please grease this, else the paper sticks, and it takes you ages to peel that bastard off). Ah! Now leave it 1ish hours or until it’s gone cold and hard. Take it out and bash it up a bit, making super sticky hands but gorgeous lumps of cindery goodness. Voila!

Cinder toffee block snapped in half, how cool does this look?