Happy HUMP Day!

Woo hoo for Wednesday! It was relatively uneventful...what I consider to be typical nowadays-meaning that the majority of my conversations were with Murphy as he helped me get some chores done around the house. Later, he wanted to go for a walk so we spent the early afternoon strolling around the neighborhood.  It was then I realized that just by merely walking around the streets of my neighborhood I could cross off an item from my bucket list! "What" you may ask, "is so interesting about taking the dog for a walk?"   Well, my warm weathered fall friends allow me to show you...

 

Its fall y'all! And in Scotland that means LEAVE CHANGE COLORS!! YAAAAY!   I get to see leaves change colors in the fall! And not just brown and fall to the ground! They are starting to turn yellow, orange, and red!

They are just starting to change - I will be sure that I take more pictures so we can see them transition.

 

Amazing view from the bridge!

 

 

Murphy is leading me home from the "post" box.  Right across the bridge is our townhouse.

More trees on the way to the gym

In the gym parking lot

 

When Murphs and I got home I found myself enjoying a total British afternoon!  I turned a perfectly good grilled cheese sandwich into a Cheese and Tomato Toastee.  If you said tomato and not TOE-MAH-TOE...you pronounced it wrong, therefore I do not believe you understand the deliciousness of this sandwich.  Allow me to show you...

Delish!!  Of course the one I had a restaurant was not as good.  When they serve a sandwich with cheese here it is hard, crusty, grated cheddar cheese.  Not the melted deliciousness shown above!

 

Since we have moved over, I have burnt countless meal-even the simple ones, 3 batches of cookies, and several loafs of bread.  I swear I have an oven that works like a double sided mirror.  Sometimes it works perfectly and other times it burns food in 2 minutes.  One batch of cookies was ruined because Puffin turned the first knob to the left...which is the broiler.  An honest mistake seeing as how the oven doesn't have any words on it! Just weird symbols! All the other ruined food was because the oven gets frickin hotter than it says it does and someone likes to laugh at me as I stand there cursing at my chicken!!

 

 

I found a recipe for Earl Grey cupcakes that came out very tasty.  Did you know that tea is not just for drinking??   Despite the issues with all three batches of cookies I've made since being here,  I decided to give baking another shot.  Now I am a pretty good cook-not baker.  They are NOT the same thing for one simple reason...CHEMISTRY.   I guess God was trying to even the playing field amongst all the other wives in the world (JK :p) no matter how many times I ruin baked goods because I add this, substitute that, omit that, or eyeball it- I never seem to learn my lesson.

 

 

However, the baking turned out to be a success-kinda...only because it wasn't the oven that messed me up, and I DID stick to the list of ingredients in the recipe.  It was my American measuring devices and poor math skills that proved to be a challenge.  Did you know that 120g of flour is more cups that 140g of sugar?!!?  That one stumped me for a few minutes, lol!

   

 

I traded in my state of the art KitchenAid stand mixer for this new tool with all its glorious attachments that I LOVE cleaning. And by tool I don't just mean an object to get things done.

 

I chiseled away at this hunk-a-hunk brick-o-butter that does NOT have the handy measurements labeled on it! womp womp

 

THIS took me SEVERAL trips to the grocery store to find.  SIMPLE baking soda....would you EVER have thought that THIS is called something different?

If you said yes to the above question, we can no longer be friends.  

 

 

 

It was all good until the cakes were cooled.  Then, my measuring devices failed me and the icing came out chalky...maybe you bakers can tell me why.  I am pretty sure its because I made a mistake converting the g to cups/tsp/tbsp.  The final product is tasty, but too ugly to be shown.  I will be giving in and buying different measuring utensils this weekend!

 

Just when I thought the oven and I were getting along, she went and pulled a fast one on me!  There has GOT to be something wrong with it.  I don't think I have burnt food since I was 10!  Tonight, when we got home from the gym I turned it on to 50c to warm up dinner.  10 minutes later, everything was burnt!!  50c is 130F...There is NO WAY 130F for 10 minutes could do THIS-

 

Meatloaf with burnt sweet potato and beet crisps...it's ok-don't feel bad for laughing.  Being the resourceful person I am I turned that into this...

I am actually a pretty good cook, so this burning food thing is really crushing my ego - at least now I can add "least burnt scavenging" to my list of proficiencies!