Tuesday 24 March 2009

The Future's Bright, The Future's Orange...

Lots of orange things around me today. On Saturday my friend Kate gave me some unwanted wool, including some orange acrylic yarn.Then on Sunday the primula plant I received at Church was a lovely orangey yellow colour.

IM003312 - Copy Tina's blog recently mentioned the Knit-A-Square website and so I decided to use the yarn to make some square for that good cause. They are happy to accept squares in wool or acrylic, and the instructions for producing and posting them are very clear.

It really didn't take very long on the 6mm needles to produce three 8" squares - in fact about an hour per square [got two done last night whilst enjoying Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox in 'Lewis' which I had recorded the night before]

lewis fox whately The other orange thing today was the coconut and orange cake I made this morning. From my ancient trusty Be-Ro book of course. The recipe suggests topping the cake with Orange Glace icing and toasted coconut, but I just left it plain.

The coconut in the mix means it keeps beautifully moist. Not that it will last long in the tin! I am in school for 2 days this week, so Bob will need a snack or two to keep him going.

IM003314 - Copy COCONUT AND ORANGE CAKE

200g S.R. flour

100g soft margarine

100g soft brown sugar

75g desiccated coconut

1 egg

3 tbsp milk

rind and juice of an orange

Preheat oven to 170°C. Combine all ingredients to make sponge in usual way. Bake in 7" cake tin for about 70 minutes. Cool briefly in tin, then turn out onto wire rack.

When I returned home yesterday at around 8pm, having taken Steph to the station, I was astounded by how many stars I could see. The night sky was truly beautiful, sparkling and twinkling stars against the inky blackness. Standing on our drive, and looking up, I could see Orion so clearly.

orion

Orion is one of the few constellations I can confidently identify. We have been reading through Amos in our daily quiet time recently, and the other day read this passage...

He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns blackness into dawn, and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out over the face of the land—
the LORD is his name.

As we sing with the children at church

He made the stars to shine
He made the rolling sea
He made the mountains high
And He made me.
And this is why I love him:
For me He bled and died
The Lord of all creation
Became the crucified.

That telecommunications company may want us to believe the future is orange - but all I know is that my future is safe in His Hands!

4 comments:

  1. The cake looks yummy. I quite fancy making that...aand I too have an ancient Be-Ro recipe book, I wonder if this recipe is in it.

    I loved the bags in your previous post, that's a clever idea. We do daffs in our church, the little uns love to give out flowers on Mothering Sunday don't they and it's jolly nice to receive them!

    PS. Loved Lewis the other night. Very good (if slightly far fetched).

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  2. I upped the coconut content slightly, and lowered the oven temperature from the original.

    We found the flowers last better in the bags and the children have more of a feelintg of involvement.

    Lewis WAS a bit far fetched, you are right. It must be hard to keep coming up with novel plots. Rather bizarre to see L Fox playing opposite his Dad James though! Will they have Billie Piper as the murder victim next, do you think??

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  3. Hi Ang
    Just read your recipe and thought I would mention that whenever I make a cake with desicated coconut in it I always soak the coconut in milk for about half an hour before adding it to the mixture - makes the coconut plumper which is nice!
    I also enjoyed Lewis!
    Gwen

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  4. Gwen - that IS a good idea!! I shall make a note in my Bero book beside the recipe! Thanks

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