Dear me, is that the time?!

I know. Time flies when you're having fun, so with that logic in mind it should still be November for me. I've had a weird December, and despite the fact that I did several blog-worthy things, I just haven't had the time nor the inspiration. Have no fear, readers dear, it wasn't you, it was me. Me and my short attention span.

I've spent this month getting used to the fact that I chose to be out of a regular job come next Monday. I will be a fulltime freelancer! It's so scary I might have another breakdown! I spent the past few weeks wondering if it really was the right decision, and I know it was, but it still feels weird. Who leaves their job to go do something that they don't even know will earn them enough to pay the bills?

But it is the right thing to do. I know this, because I might be nervous as hell and scared out of my mind of what might happen in the future, I'm also really excited and I can't wait to get started. But first... there's people to say goodbye to.

Tomorrow is my last day at work. I made apple pies for the occasion. Apple pies for everyone!


Okay, so they're just small ones. (and my sincerest apologies for the horrifying cellphone picture.. I forgot to take any pictures apart from this one!) I used this recipe from Zoom Yummy for the pastry, though I used my own 'recipe' for the filling: chopped Granny Smith apples, golden raisins, and tooooons of cinnamon and brown sugar. The pastry is good, though a bit.. crumbly for an apple pie, but they hold together well and they all came out of the tin without breaking. Yay! I still need to get some whipped cream and paper plates, but then they'll be all ready to serve to my wonderful coworkers whom I will miss very much.

I also crafted in the past month. I did! I made a shawlette that's quite squishy and still needs to be blocked (sigh) because I think it could use the few centimeters of extra length at the sides. They keep creeping upwards and falling out of my coat.

The only problem with it? It doesn't like having its picture taken.

No, I'm just joking, I haven't even tried taking its picture yet. I keep wanting to, and then putting it off because I still want to block it.

I did make some Christmas decorations for my presents this year. Just some simple snowflakes, I tied them onto my gifts with a crocheted chain. My mother was stoked because I told her I wasn't making any ornaments for them this year, and then I did! Heh. Crafty me. I used the image on the top of the blog as my Christmas card this year (that I only posted on Facebook, don't be mad if you didn't get a card from me, nobody did) because I thought that, even though it's still 10 degrees outside at the moment and this month has been the hottest December since 1971, we all deserve some snowflakes in our lives at this time of year, even if it is a small, yellow-ish, crocheted one. Just to set the mood for the season. Let's hope we get some flakes in January!

Knowing me, this is bound to be my last post of this year, so it might be a bit early, but I want to wish all of you a happy new year! And may 2012 be at least twice as good as 2011 has been. At least.

The weirdest thing I have ever baked

Really, without a doubt. The strangest, weirdest, oddest of oddities that ever came out of my oven.

Mochi.

Japanese snacks, made from a rice cake cut up into squares and dusted with potato starch, or, if you like your snacks to be on the sweet side, powdered sugar. This weekend, I'm off to a friend's house to watch tons of anime with a bunch of people, and, as is somewhat traditional for these marathon weekends, we bring snacks. I thought that it would be a lovely idea to bake something Asian, and my eye fell on these brightly coloured little morsels. They look so cute! And bitesized! And since I always bake either cake or cookies and these count more as candy than cookies, they were perfect!

It's a very simple process to make these, really. All you do is sift rice flour into a mixing bowl...

Behold, Mount St. Rice Flour!

*ahem*

You mix in a bunch of other stuff, like lots of sugar, coconut milk, water, and food colouring if you want. Then you mix it all together until it's a smooth, pinkish liquid-looking substance...

Correction, a really, horribly pink-looking substance...

And then bake it in an oven for 1 hour. After that, you pull it out, let it cool for an hour at least, turn it out on a cutting board sprinkled with a bit of potato starch or powdered sugar...

Cut it up in 1-inch squares, and dust them with powdered sugar or potato starch.

Done! Mochi!

Now, trust me when I say that this is unlike anything you'd ever expect to come rolling out of an oven. When I cut the cake, I had to keep rubbing powdered sugar on my knife to ensure it wouldn't stick to the cake so bad that I couldn't move it at all. The texture, while described in the recipe as 'chewy and with a yummy rice flavour', reminded me an awful lot of cutting up raw meat or fish. It was kind of squishy and sticky. I dusted the pieces with powdered sugar but, perhaps because the cake hadn't cooled off completely, the first pieces were only covered on the top and bottom, and not on the cut sides, where it had melted a bit.

Eating one was a weird experience as well. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but the texture reminded me the most of gummy bears, only with a weird taste to go with it.

I don't know whether they are supposed to turn out like this. This was the first time I have ever tried anything like it, and since I didn't even know what they would taste like, I simply chose to just go for it and see how they turn out. They look fairly similar to the ones in the pictures of the recipe so maybe I did it all okay, but because of the weird texture, I am somewhat unsure.

I did not change anything to the recipe apart from using powdered sugar to dust them with, so if you still want to give it a try after reading this, go! And report back here. I love to see if yours turned out as... unusual as mine!

And when I opened my eyes.. Everything was orange!

You know how sometimes during the Fall you can go for a walk, and walk through perfectly normal streets when all of a sudden -BAM- you're in a leafy orange wonderland?

Oh, I love that. I'm a big fan of the colder seasons and although I do get giddy as a small child whenever it snows, Autumn must be my absolute favourite. My parents used to take me along on long walks through the forest when I was younger and I was really looking forward to going on such a trip, so I rang them up. The day we planned on going was one of those misty, unbelievably cold days we had last week, but we decided to go for it anyway. I'm so glad we did. The fog was thick as pea soup when we left the house, but quickly made way for sunshine and some actual warmth.

Naturally, I couldn't go without my camera, so I made some pictures. Hope you like them!

This right here is my main problem whenever I go into the woods. I come across paths like this one and just have to go and find out where it leads. I can get lost so easily when there's something pretty luring me away...

The fog may have cleared for the most part, but it left its traces everywhere. Made the whole forest gorgeous. (and look, bokeh! ooooh..)


We even encountered some wildlife: a wild photographer! Otherwise known as my sister, who is just as triggerhappy with her camera as I am.

The only time I like spiders is when their webs get moist from foggy weather.


Can't go for a walk in the woods without stumbling across heaps of these babies. Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head...

We were somewhat disappointed that the chestnut season was already over. Or at least, it was in this bit of forest. The leaves were covering everything, making it exceptionally hard to see if there were any left on the ground, but the few we found were all hollow and gross. We did find a handful of edible beech nuts though. They were delicious.


Remember what I said about alluring forest paths?

Sometimes they end like this.

Lifechanging decisions

I've got some important news to share with all of you. No, I'm not pregnant. Just want to get that out of the way first.

I've decided, after several months of thinking and deliberating and discussing and bouncing ideas off of the BF... That come January 2012, I will be a fulltime freelance translator. I've quit my job at the bookshop, the 29th of December will be my last workday there.

It is, quite possibly, the scariest, most influential decision I have made in the past, oh, two decades, maybe. (that was a joke. I'm 23. Haha.) It took me months to realise that trying to freelance in my spare time while working 15 hours a week wasn't going to work: I was passing up jobs, not taking chances, purely because I had those 15 hours a week to fall back on. If I want to really be a translator, build a career on this, then I have to take this leap. And it's a giant leap, and I'm still mid-air at the moment, but I've already left my safe haven and am soaring, and we'll just have to see how I'll land. I'll stop now before this analogy takes a nosedive.

(Sorry. Couldn't help myself.)

So. Now you all know what's been gnawing at me for the past few months! I guess all that's left is some shameless self-promotion!

If you're looking for a translator (Dutch-English or English-Dutch), an editor or a writer, visit my website, www.stefanieweber.nl, and send me an email!

We'll go back to our regularly scheduled nonsense next post. I've got a WIP on the hook, and some cooking malarkey to show you, and a forest trip that I took a ton of pictures of that deserves its own post, so stay tuned!

Cold

It's getting colder. I love love love it when it gets colder. Not just because colder weather means snuggling up on the couch with a blankie and a hot mug of coco is now not frowned upon as much as when I do it mid-summer.

This happens a lot when it gets colder. And when this happens, the whole world seems to go quiet. And that's something we kind of need, every once in a while.

(sounds gloomy, I know, but it's true! I've got important news to share but it will have to wait until after the weekend. Sorry!)

Deliciousness and gorgeousness, all stuffed in one cake

I did something today... that was absolutely nuts. I made almond milk! (ha, see, nuts! I crack me up.)

Almond milk is the easiest thing to make, if you don't take into account the fact that you have to let your almonds sit in water for a whole night. It's rough. I know. But as your almonds are soaking, think of the following: nutty, delicious, tasting like almonds, gorgeous when cold.. Almond milk!

But when my almond milk was all done, I wanted to use it. You know, because it's milk! So I made the following cake.

Hmmm.. Oh, if you think that looks good, you should smell it! Divine! Divine I tell you! And so easy. It's an easy apple/cinnamon/almond cake. It would be an even better cake if I hadn't used up all my almonds to make the milk and had some left over to chop up and add to the cake, but hey. You can't have 'em all.

The cake is lovely and moist, tastes slightly of almond and somewhat more of cinnamon, but that's tweakable.

Gorgeous though, isn't it? Sweet, juicy bits of apple, accompanied by those lovely little flecks of cinnamon...

There's only one thing you can do now. Make this! Make it for your loved ones, your next door neighbour, your teacher, or better yet, make this for yourself!


Cinnamon Apple Almond cake
------------------------------------

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 cup almond milk (I used this recipe from See You In the Morning)
1 apple, chopped in reasonably small bits
2 tbsp cinnamon sugar

Preheat your oven to 175 C.
Combine the apple chunks and the cinnamon sugar in a bowl and make sure the sugar covers the apples well. Set aside.
Butter and flour your cake tin.
Cream the butter and the sugar.
Add the eggs and vanilla extract and mix to combine.
In a different bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, salt and baking powder.
In alternating turns, add the flour mixture and the almond milk until all is incorporated.
Add the cinnamonsugar-covered apples.
Pour your cake batter into your prepared cake tin and pop it in the oven. Bake for approximately 45 minutes or until a wooden pick comes out clean.
Let the cake rest for a few minutes in its tin before you turn the cake out on a plate or board.

Enjoy!

Monkeys. With feathers.

(apologies in advance for the somewhat crappy photos. There's something wrong with my camera. Something horrible. That makes every picture I take come out pixelated, grainy and unpretty. I did what I could... But this seems beyond my expertise. (I probably messed with some settings or something... Knowing me, I fiddled with a button and now I can't get it to be as before...) )


Who let the birds out? We, we, we, we, we! They've been enjoying some time out of the cage in the living room and oh boy, are they having fun with it! Their favourite spot seems to be in the chains of our dining table lamp, but the bar between the lamps is not a bad spot to sit either. They're slowly but surely coming closer to us as well. Where they would fly off towards the highest point in the room they could find before, they now happily hop around on the table, even with us sitting right next to it, and even enjoyed a bit of dipping their beaks in a bowl of water not 30 cm. from where I was sitting! Not bathing, yet. Though it was close.

We're trying to teach them to step up, hence the big stick in the picture they're eyeballing there, which will allow us to train them better and eventually might even get them hand-tame (fingers crossed), and so far they think it's a great game to fly up on the stick, allow us to cart them around for a little while, and fly off again. Last week, they totally got into it and would jump on my stick from long distances, flying to it from the cage when I was on the other side of the room, getting really close to my hand... (this picture is from last week, by the way. As you can see, Anzu enjoyed a bit of bathing, and hadn't dried up completely yet. His tummy is all wet..)

Tomorrow, they'll get to enjoy some more time out of the cage. Who knows, maybe they'll get even closer to us then! Or won't, and eat the curtains. Or the table. Who knows what kind of monkey business they'll get into?

I mean...

With a face like this, you know you can expect anything.

Autumn sun

I love it.



How's that for an opening? I love it! I love it enough that it makes me run around like a loon, snapping pictures and thrashing through piles of leaves (in open shoes, which, and I may be stating the obvious here, is not such a great idea. Bugs in my shoes.. *shudder*).



I had a busy week last week, with my graduation ceremony on Wednesday, a shopping trip for said graduation ceremony on Monday, and Blizzcon 2011 on Friday and Saturday. Not that I was actually there, although I would have loved to go (26.000 fellow gaming geeks, geeking out over stuff that only fellow gaming geeks can geek out over... I would love it!), but we spent our Friday and Saturday night in front of the computer screen, watching the livestream.



Sunday, I was spent, but couldn't go back to sleep after the birds woke me up at 11 am because they were HUUUUNGRY, so I headed out the door and went for a walk in the park. The weather was gorgeous, albeit a bit cold, so I walked for about an hour and a half snapping pictures left, right and centre.



Today, I got up to... the same type of weather! Lovely! Because it was earlier, the light was even more gorgeous. So, in this post, I give you... the top 6 of a total of 104 photos. Yeah, I know, 104. Sheesh.

Comfort Breakfast

I know people are always harping on about the wonderful world that is Nutella and banana (which, by the way, really is disgusting, I mean, come on, bananas will still taste like bananas no matter how much chocolate spread, sprinkles, brown sugar or rum you add to it), but have you ever tried Nutella and apple? Really, it's the most amazing combination ever! I sometimes chop up an apple in half-moon slices and scoop up the Nutella from a bowl (hmmm..) but trust me. Make this for breakfast when you need it, and you'll have a great day no matter how shitty it started.

Hmmmm... I bet it would taste even better on toast, with the Nutella going slightly runny from the heat and the apples soaking up the heat a bit and, of course, the Nutella..


Hmmm.


(p.s. I am fidgeting with my blog's look once again. I feel a new banner coming up someday soon, it's been bugging me for a while now, and I'm trying to get the sizing of the pictures right. Now, my screen is HUMONGOUS, (because yay, big screens means awesome gaming experience) so if you have a smaller screen than a 23 inch widescreen, puretty purlease with sugar on top, let me know how these pictures look on your screen. Too big? Falling off the bottom? Getting eaten alive by pictsies? I WANT TO KNOW!)

weekend

This weekend we...

Let the birds out of their cage for the first time. Well, the first time on purpose, that is. They got out by accident last week and had some nasty encounters with the windows. This time, we decided to let them out and keep a close eye on them. They were scared, at first. Especially when only one of the two had found its way out of the cage and couldn't find its buddy. But giving it time, and keeping calm, we managed to get both birds out and after a while, they were chasing each other through the air like nobody's business! Getting them back in the cage when it was their bedtime was a mess, however... It took us over an hour to catch both and get them in.

We're getting a new, big cage next week, which can open at the top and is much bigger, and has a large door so we can let them out and they can actually get in when they want to. We also hung up some curtains to shield off one part of the living room when we want, so we can let them out in a smaller area. Less chasing for us. Yay!

And sorting through the stash of a dear old lady. She never threw anything away... And this is only half of what was in the giant bag her daughter gave me. We believed that was all the stash she had left, but she's keeping an eye out for more because with my grandma, you never know. I also took the pillow back with me. It seemed so strange to do this, but the BF told me it would be good: it bears good memories. And it was something between my grandma and me. I don't know. I just know that it makes me smile when I see it, even though I still am picking off cat hairs any time I pick it up.



Next week, I will hopefully get somewhere with celebrating those 100 posts of mine. Stay tuned!

Not a happy post

This was supposed to be a happy post. It's number 100! I was planning on getting stuff ready for a celebration and a giveaway. But instead, I've got little to post and little planning got done. This monday, my grandmother passed away at the age of 89. She was a great lady, she was sweet, she was funny, she was wonderful and I loved her dearly. She was my yarn-buddy: throughout her life, she had been the co-owner of a chain of yarn shops in and around Amsterdam, has tought knitting and crocheting classes, and when I told her in 2009 that I learned to crochet she was so excited that she gave me all her yarn that she no longer wanted or could use. Most of my stash: grandma's yarn. When I picked up knitting again after her trying to teach me at least 5 times in the past and never getting it right, and told her on the phone, she kept telling me how amazing she thought it was. Whenever I showed her an FO, she'd inspect it just so she could tell me my stitches were perfect, or my sewing up was great. The past 2 years, our connection was strengthened by our mutual love for yarn.

Tomorrow, we're going to say our last goodbyes and I thought it only appropriate to make something to send along with her. I crocheted a little rose. I hope she likes it.

Bye, grandma.

Cakey goodness!

Cake in all types, shapes and forms! Or, well, actually, the same cake, only in 3 different stages.

I decided that I had to make a cake for my sister's birthday. But not just any cake: a Nutella cake. Oh yes. A simple cake, with Nutella swirls, with a strawberry jam filling, covered in a Nutella buttercream, and topped with whole strawberries.

That one. My photoshop skills aren't as madly l33t as I would have hoped, but you get the point. And that point is Nutella-coloured.

Naturally, I had this all planned out days before her birthday and got a bit restless, creatively, so I decided to make a little keychain for her to remember this cake by. (Hoping, of course, that the cake would be something she'd want to remember..) The cake went 3d!

And then... It was time for her birthday party. Having never done a cake like this before, I was a bit nervous about the outcome... And because my sister and her friend wanted to help, it didn't exactly turn out the way I wanted to (that's what you get when 3 people try to get cake batter into 2 tins and add Nutella in there somewhere... That's right, a mess.) and because my parents have a silly oven that gets way hotter than the temperature you set it to, I managed to burn one of the two slightly. Hrmph.

Thankfully, a lot can be fixed by simply using a sharp knife. (that's not a universal truth, by the way. just to be clear. I doesn't go for relationship problems, for instance.) I cut the crust off, took off the bottom, and it was basically good to go! Plus, a lot can be hidden underneath a nice, thick layer of Nutella buttercream.

The final result: absurdly sweet. Gorgeously Nutella-ey. I hope. I didn't have a single bite due to a massive headache which sent me home after dinner, before the cake was brought out, so I still have to check in with my sister to see if it was actually any good. But the components, the cake, the Nutella frosting, the strawberries, the jam... they were all very tasty.

It was a fun little project to try my hands on, as well. Since I had never made buttercream frosting before, I didn't know what the right consistency was supposed to be like, but I think it could have been thinner. I had a bit of a rough time getting it to stay on the cake when spreading it, as you can see by the holes and unevenness of the frosting. This may have been my rookie roots showing, though. I didn't read up on how frosting is supposed to 'work'. But it was tasty, so that's a win in my book! My sister was very pleased as well, so that's another win! And I'll just make sure to read up beforehand next time I try my hand at a cake like this. Because I will be making something like this again, for sure!

All that baking can't be good for one's diet.

It's September again! And in our family, that means... birthdays. I think I can safely say that not a day goes by in September without it being the birthday of someone I know. Thankfully, most of those people are not my direct relatives so there's less pressure to buy them gifts or make them things. However, 3 of those people are my brother, mother and sister.

I didn't plan for this to happen, however, all three of them got something baked or cooked for their birthday. (and I say 'got', even though my sister technically hasn't received hers yet. More on this later.) First, my brother. He turned 26 this year and in an act of childlike defiance of his age, decided that he wanted to make a rainbow cake for his birthday party. Yes. A rainbow cake.



Of course, he decided this without having a clue on how this would actually work. So, I decided to give him a hand. On a stormy Saturday afternoon, I came over to his house and, while fending of nosy cats that were desparate to find out what was going on in that kitchen and whether it was something they could steal and eat or not, we made a massive, multi-coloured, striped monstrosity-slash-rainbow cake.

(With faces on the side. Does anyone else see faces in this cake? It freaked us out a bit when we took it out of the oven...)

Which he later topped off with lemon-flavoured frosting and Skittles. Yes, he really turned 26, not 6. It was a bright, multi-coloured, sugary mess but it was a big hit at the party!

The monday after this sugarfest was my mother's birthday. I decided to throw her a special birthday dinner based on English pub-meals since she loves the UK, loves pubs, and we have such great memories from last year's holiday where we spent a week with the eight of us in a lovely, lovely inn in the south-west of England and really enjoyed the big, homely dinners we had there. So I decided to invade their kitchen for the day and make a big dinner! I was going to make:
- tomato soup with fresh herbs
- breaded garlic mushrooms
- 2 different types of meat pies (chicken and leek and curry-beef)
- fish and chips
- mushy peas
- and sticky toffee pudding for dessert.

A bit much? A bit much. There were supposed to be eight or ten of us in total, but as always, things did not go as planned so my sister ran off halfway through dinner because she had driving lessons, my brother ran off halfway through to pick up his girlfriend from the train station, and my planning was less than perfect so I ended up still working on dessert while people were already coming in for coffee and cake. Dessert ended up just being served out on the table and people could grab one if they wanted.

This was the only picture I could take. I didn't have the time! I was rushing through the house, running in and out of the kitchen... I guess my planning wasn't as good as it could be. I should have started earlier, or made some stuff in advance. But the end result was absolutely wonderful and my mother was baffled that I had made everything from scratch, including the pastry for the meat pies and the caramel sauce for the sticky toffee pudding! (that was exciting to make, by the way. I had never melted sugar before, and it took quite a bit longer than I had anticipated, but the end result was the hit of the evening. My brother was speechless. It takes a lot for him to be speechless.)

Lastly, my sister's birthday. It was her birthday yesterday, but with a sick BF we decided not to go over for dinner and I emailed her part of her birthday gift.

Cake? Yep! It's still a surprise what kind of cake it will be, but she's going to love it, I'm sure. I'll tell you all about it when it's done and she's received her other gifts!

Oh all right, one more sneak peek then. But that's all I'm giving you!
Kind of a giveaway, really, isn't it? But you'll just have to wait until after Saturday to find out what kind of cake it really is! Stay tuned!

We're a real family now!

It has been a dream of mine to own a pet of my own. I grew up with two cats in the house, have always had rabbits until I moved out of the house, the BF grew up with parrots... So to live in our own house, with just the two of us, without any pets.. It took some getting used to. And there was also the eczema issue, which means that any pet that leaves hairs behind is a no-go for me. In other words: pets were out of the question.

This Monday, I lamented the lack of animal companions in our household out loud and declared: "I want a pet! Any pet! Even a fish. You know what? I want a fish. I'll take a goldfish!" The BF, ever the enabling one, said he'd give me a goldfish if that was what I wanted. So off to the pet shop we went! Since it's a small pet shop, we heard the chirps of birds as soon as we came in and, since we couldn't find the fish tanks immediately, wandered down the aisles towards the bird cages. And promptly fell in love. With two little lovebirds.

Actually, no, I should rephrase. We fell in love with all 4 of the lovebirds they had at the shop. We just couldn't take all of them home! So after some deliberation, and some planning, and some measuring and researching possible tables we could put a bird cage on, and some q&a with the nice lady from the pet shop, and some more q&a, and some back and forthing, and a trip to Ikea on Tuesday evening after work, and a trip to the pet shop on Wednesday during lunch time...

We are now the proud owners of two gorgeous little lovebirds!

Meet Anzu and Al'ar! Geeky names for geeky pet-owners. These little pretties are 3 months old, just the right age so we can still train them and let them get used to being handled by people. They're currently slowly but surely getting used to the cage and their new surroundings after a scary trip home in a tiny, tiny cardboard box and have been chirping and chattering away quite loudly already (sorry, neighbours) but they're quiet and more relaxed at the moment. Expect more updates with gorgeous bird pictures! But not now. Now it's time to admire these two gorgeous birds some more!

I got myself a new toy

It's a great toy! It allows me to make GIANT, BIG, HUGE treats. And dinner.

See? That was dinner. Meat pies as big as my fist! (am I the only one who can't look at 'meat pie' without thinking 'there's a smutty joke in here somewhere'? I am? Oh.) These were really good, and so unbelievably filling that we had one each and couldn't eat another bite! There's two in the freezer right now, for when we're not in the mood to cook. (I made them using this recipe, but they did turn out quite salty, though we think that may be my fault since I used concentraded beef stock in jellyform (it was a new product, I was curious, and in the commercial, it wiggled when they took it out of the package. Really, it couldn't be helped.) and used 2 instead of just 1.) For the pie crust I used this recipe and tutorial from The Pioneer Woman, which is an excellent tutorial and recipe! I only used butter for the crust, because I don't think lard in any type or form is used in Holland. I may be mistaken, though.)


The only downside of my new toy, though?
It's handwash only. Sigh...

Sweetfest: rocky road!

Does that sound nasty? It sounds nasty, doesn't it. That should totally be the name of a candyshop-related porn.

Anyway, on to the good stuff! While on holiday, the BF and I discovered the joys of Rocky Road. Big, chocolatey treats filled with nuts, dried fruit, and tons of marshmellows... What's not to love? And it sounded so unbelievably easy, too! So I made rocky road today. And you can make it too! Let's get started, shall we? You need...

Marshmellows. About 100 grams, but feel free to eyeball this a bit. It's not about absolute measurements. Doesn't that look tasty though? And painfully sweet? It's even shaped like a heart!

Raisins! Again, eyeball away. This is about 200 grams and I used a whole lot of these (not all), because I like raisins. Who doesn't? (Seriously, who doesn't? Because I don't think we can be friends anymore if you don't like raisins.)

Peanuts! Ooooh, peanuts! I used about 100 grams. Now, obviously, if you don't like peanuts or can't eat peanuts because your head will swell up and turn ten shades of purple if you do, by all means, leave them out. I don't care about them too much. Not as much as I care about the raisins. (you can also substitute these with cornflakes or other types of nuts.)

Chocolate! Hmmm, chocolate. I used 200 grams of milk and 300 grams of dark chocolate, chopped up into bits. (I love chopping chocolate, preferably with the biggest knife I can find. Makes me feel like a warrior. A chocolate warrior.)

I melted the chocolate au-bain-marie (just because I wanted to, you can melt it in the microwave if you want. Put it in a microwave-safe bowl and nuke it at 30 second intervals, stirring between rounds, until all the chocolate is completely melted.).

Once all the chocolate was completely melted, I dumped in all the tasty treats. Oooo, Mount St. Tastytreats!

Take this as a lesson, kids. Never build on a swamp. Especially if it's made of chocolate, and what you built is actually a loose mass of peanuts, raisins and marsmellows.

This concoction went into an aluminium foil-lined, rectangular baking dish and then into the fridge for a couple of hours. Or actually, about one hour. The BF got impatient.

So we took it out, lifted it out of the dish and peeled off the foil. Then we cut it into small bits.

Hmmm.. Pretty!

Pretty!

And pretty tasty, too!

Definitely an easy and delicious thing to make when you're in the mood for something sweet!