Purple Realm

Food. A necessity of life. You have to eat to live... And some live to eat. Whatever your personal philosophy on food, you cannot deny the importance it has in our lives.
Whether you a little or a lot, it's good to enjoy what you do eat. A good dish feeds not only our bellies, but our souls. It warms our smiles and our stomachs.
I've taken it upon myself to detail one particular cuisine that has been apparent to me, once every month.
Why?
Because I need something to fucking post about, now don't I?

October's Cuisine:

I was sick of using so much stuff for a traditional English Bread And Butter pudding.
Bread and butter pudding is a very British thing - it's not overly sweet, and it's very filling. I never liked it as a child, but now it brings a full stomach and comfort to a budget and cold weather. Designed to feed a lot, way too much for just Mik and I. Too big portions, a lot of waste. So, I invented:

Individual bread and butter puddings.

(Makes 2 individual puddings)

You will need:
1 and a half slices of thick white bread
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
One egg
250ml milk
4 teaspoons raisins
2 teaspoons white sugar
2 teaspoons brown sugar
A sprinkling of cinnamon (optional)

You'll need two large muffin moulds for this, or something similar, like large souffle dishes. I use silicone muffin things but I'll refer to them as "dishes".

First, crack the egg into a jug. Add the milk and the white sugar and whisk thoroughly. Set the jug aside.

Now butter your bread on both sides, and cut up into a few chunks and strips.

It's not exact, you'll need to tear and sort of jigsaw it together later.

Now put one layer of bread into each of your dishes. One big square and a few little chunks around the sides is good - you do need to leave some gaps.


Sprinkle one teaspoon of raisins over the first layer of each pudding.


Now put another layer of bread straight on top of each, remembering to fill, yet leave, some gaps...


And another teaspoon of raisins on top of that layer, too...


Now take your jug of milk/egg/white sugar, and carefully pour half of the mixture over one pudding, half over the other. Depending on the size of the dishes you'll need more or less milk - that's okay. Wait a minute for the bread to soak up the mixture a little first before you discard any leftover though.

Once you've done that, sprinkle a teaspoon of brown sugar on each one... (And add your cinnamon if you want it)


And bake for around 35 minutes at 160 degrees celsius. They'll rise a lot, and may spill a little, but don't worry!


Now, the best way to eat these is upside down - the top is crisp and sweet, and many people like that part the most. You can only really do this easily with silicone dishes though, you simply turn it upside down onto a plate and it comes straight out.

Well, the response to this competition was higher than any so far.
To all who entered - Darko, Rosie, Clint, Lydell, Tim, Kitty, Moe, Carol, Mart and David, (Hope I've not forgotten anyone) thank you all for taking the time to create something funny. I hope everyone has enjoyed it. I know I did!

It was hard to pick a winner from 18 images.
So I got each image as a saved page in Opera Mini, and decided on my favourite few. That wasn't too hard, it was choosing from the final cut that was difficult.
It took a lot of time, and finally I got down to two.

Thing is, I really just can't choose between them...
So, there are two winners this time!
One's a motivational, one's a LOLcat, and they're both fantastic.
The winning pictures are as follows: David's entry:
and this one of Kitty's:

Congratulations, both of you. Thank you for making me smile. I'm gonna need your details and I'll get your little prizes off to you sometime this year . (Sorry, we've got a bit of a backlog here.)

Again, thank you everyone for entering!

A few weeks ago I finally managed to complete a set of Kinder Toys. A small set, but the first nonetheless.



Fluffy baby dinosaurs, freshly hatched from shiny eggs. I'm not that fond of these, but I was really happy to get that little yellow one!



They're actually pretty cute now I think about it

The other day, I was browsing around the photos I've uploaded to Ovi for use on my blog. Luckily, I upload things I think I'll use as soon as I've taken them - resetting my phone deleted all my photos and I forgot to back them up.

Anyway, as I was saying, I was taking a look at the stuff I'd uploaded and I came across a few shots I'd forgotten to share. At the time I got all weepy, but now they make me smile.
Here they are:


^ Poppy was lazing about on Grum's chair, and I decided to run my finger along the arm of the chair... Which interested her majorly. I was her favourite thing to hunt at this stage .


^ She was in the middle of washing, I went up to her and held up my camera, called her name and pressed to take the photo as I did it, and got this shot .

I can't believe I'd forgotten to share these with you lot - they're so funny to me