Stuffed Melon

 Stuffed Melon

You will need:
Melon, strawberries and jelly crystals



This is a great dessert to make for on those 'lovely' hot nights such as we are having at the moment.  You can do it with whatever flavour jelly you like but I prefer 'port wine' or such.  Heck you can even put a little bit of grog (booze, alcohol ) in the jelly but not too much, mind you.  The jelly doesn't seem to set as well if you over dose.  Better off saying 'one for the jelly, two for me' then.


1. You are going to start by cutting the top off your melon. It could be a cantelope or a honeydew.  Just as long as it is a melon where all the seeds are in the middle and can be removed, all is good. Who knows how many different melons there are in the world.  You might also need to cut a little off the bottom to keep it level.  So you have removed all the seeds and all that yukky stuff and next you are going to tip your melon upside down to let all the excess liquid drain out.  You can wipe it out with a CLEAN piece of paper towel also.

 2. Next you need to boil some water to make your jelly. You will need about one cup.  Make your jelly by adding packet of crystals to hot water and stir like crazy.  I don't add any cold water to make it up to the litre, or whatever ever it is, but leave it strong.  The strawberries won't stay in the melon when you cut it if your jelly is too watered down.  While your jelly is cooling you can wash your strawberries and then take out the hulls and halve. Stick as many  strawberries as you can in your hollowed melon.



3.  When your jelly is nice and cool you can pour it into your melon.  Fill it up as much as possible and then put the lid back on. This will stop the top of the melon from drying out.  Put the whole thing in the fridge to set for a few hours. 

 4. Once the jelly has set in your melon you can cut it how you wish.  Don't cut the pieces too small, however, as the jelly and strawberries then tend to topple out of the piece of melon.  That wasn't the idea now was it. Otherwise you could have just had a piece of melon with jelly and strawberries.  You could serve this with ice cream or cream but I prefer it just as it.  Of course that is also much more healthy but if you wish to have ice cream or cream............Yeah right!  I'm just not that into ice cream and or cream.  Give me a sorbet any time. 
This recipe was given to my older sister by her friend Jenny a long time ago.  I bet my sister has forgotten all about it.  Actually my older sister has probably forgotten alot of things.  She is soooo much older than me!  ENJOY

Would you like a chocolate with that wine?

I'm not quite sure where I got this idea, but it can make giving a bottle of wine look just a little more exciting, that is if you are not my sister.  Nothing excites her like a bottle of wine.  Thank goodness she doesn't know about my blog!  Yep, she's the same one that says I have too much time on my hands. LOL

This is a nice easy project and  you can do your grapes in
whatever colour cellophane you like.  I have used  Maltesers but you could use any round chocolate.  You will, however, then need to cut the size of your squares of paper accordingly.


What you need:
round chocolates
Thin wires of approximately 10cm
1 florist wire
 Florist tape
 Cellophane in colour of choice


Cut squares of cellophane big enough to wrap around your chocolates.  Because I am a little 'arty farty' I like to do a contrasting colour for a few of the grapes just to give the bunch a bit of a glow.  Minimum of chocolates I would cover would be twenty.  Any less than this and your bunch will look a little sad.  You need to wrap your wire tight enough to keep the paper together but not so tight that you won't be able to pull your chocolates out of the bunch one at a time.

 When you have covered all your chocolates you can start twisting the grapes together with the bits of wire that were left poking out.  Start from the bottom grape and work your way to the top where the main stem would be.



If you need to trim a little of the cellophane away from your wrapped chocolates, do so before attaching the chocolate to the bunch. When you have joined them all together, by twisting all the wires into one neat wire, you will need to attach the florist wire to this.  Then cover all the wire with florist tape.  This will make the join look a little neater.

Make a loop of the wire.  Make it big enough to fit around your wine bottle. With the left over wire you can make a tendril by twisting it in little loops.  As you can see on the top photos, I have also added a few artificial green leaves.  These are ivy leaves but if you could find grape leaves that would look even better.
Enjoy and maybe don't forget to tell the person you are giving this gift to that the grapes are edible.  I've been making these for a few years and my husband looked surprised when I said I needed to take a photo of the completed chocolate thingies.  Chocolate thingies????? What chocolate thingies????? They've got chocolates in them????  

Playing with food 3

 Rudolph Reindeer Candy Canes

These are cute, little things to make.  Quick and easy, just how we like it.  Of course you would not give them to really young children because of the choking hazard ( or maybe you would, depending what list they are on.  Only kidding.  As if I would do that! :-).
One of my painting students, Donna, gave me this idea a few years ago.  As usual I have changed it slightly because I wanted to keep it a little more realistic.   Everybody knows Rudolph doesn't have sparkly antlers! Hehehe.  Actually, maybe that should be Hohoho.

What you will need:
Candy cane
One brown pipe cleaner, cut in half and the one half cut in half again
Google eyes ( wonder if I get extra points for mentioning them?)
Red pompom
Tacky glue or a glue gun, which is much quicker.  Just watch your fingers if using the latter  otherwise you'll have fingers to match Rudolph's nose and it hurts like ..... ummm, it's nasty.







Wrap bigger piece of pipe cleaner and twist at the top of the cane.

Twist the two smaller pieces to the large pipe cleaner you have just attached, one on either side. You can bend them a little to make it look a little more realistic.

 Glue on those GOOGLE eyes.  (more points?) If you are just using normal tacky glue (that's the clear one that looks like ahhhh mmmmm snot, by the way) these might take a little time to stick so don't go jiggling that candy cane around right away.  Your deer might end up looking like, oh dear, Marty Feldman.

Glue on pompom nose, and 'Klaar is Kees!' All done.  You can add some curling ribbon around the neck (see the top photos ) and I put on a little bell.

An interesting thing, I think I heard a few years ago, about the candy cane was that it was actually made to convey the message of salvation.  It's a cane or hook to symbolise the 'Good Shepherd' Jesus and the red was to symbolise the blood which washes white as snow. (the white) A perfect reminder what the birth of Christ really means, I think.

Playing with food 2

Plum Puddings

 Okay, so these little treats have been around for sooooo long I don't even remember where they came from.  They started life with glace cherries and mint leaves but as I am not a fan of the cherries I thought using Jols would more suit me.  Also being an artist I like the fact that I can give the berries a colour variation. It makes the little puddings look more interesting. 

It took me all of 15 minutes to make these twelve little puddings.  Okay, okay there are only 11 on the tray now.  I did have to try one.  I just couldn't say 'Hey make these.  They taste great.' and not have tried one myself!

 

You will need 

A packet of Choc Royals

Mint leaves

White Melts

Jols

Cut your mint leaves in little strips.

You'll also need to take the Jols and Choc Royals out of the packaging.  It makes it so much easier to decorate with them and on them if you do so.  Yes that probably sounded a little sarcastic but my point is that these things couldn't be any easier. :-)

Gently melt 'Melts'.  Stir in between zaps in the microwave.  Quite often you will find that they are melted enough when you give them a stir.  I'm really good at stirring.

 Place a little melted 'white chocolate' (suspicious white substance that is meant to pass for chocolate) on the Choc Royal and let it dribble a little down the sides.  This is meant to simulate the cream that usually accompanies plum puddings. Place your leaves on the 'cream' leaving a little room in the centre for the berries. (see first photo) If you want to add layers of berries you can put a little white melt on the bottom of your Jol and just stick it on top.
How cute would these look arranged with some little angels to gaurd them.  Somehow I think the angels won't be able to save them either. 
 Enjoy

Elf Slipper Serviettes

Elf Slipper Seviettes




A dear friend of my beautiful Mum taught me how to make these lovely little Christmas serviettes. Mrs King
was her name and she had me grinding my own flour to make bread.  She had me making my own washing powder. She taught me how to sew.  The first thing I sewed with her she said I sewed as crooked as a dog's hind leg.  I later very much regretted that she taught me so well because when I painted my Christmas scene this year it would have been soooooo much more natural if where I sewed the sheets together I would have sewn them together crooked!  My lovely Mum and Mrs King are bothe gone now.  How lovely it would be to have Mum and Dad back for awhile.  I would loved for them to have gotten to see my beautiful little twin granddaughters.

These little slippers look great on the Christmas table with a Ferrero Rocher in them.  The gold paper really suits the theme but you could put in some other little treat. Enjoy.  I think I can do them with my eyes closed now.  I've already made about 150 so far in the last few weeks.

Playing with my food 1

Time for another blog otherwise I'm sure all of my two followers will be saying "How much creativity can one blonde head contain?  Obvi0usly not much because she has only posted one idea!". You know, even blonde people can get busy.

I got the idea for these cute little edibles from my friend Colleen many moons ago.  I will give you the simple version ( the one I used before I lost my self control ) first.  These are really quick to make even if you are more blonde than myself.

'Sing choirs of angels '

You will need:  marshmellows, Koolmints, mint leaves and white melts (Yuk.  They're not even chocolate)

Cut your mint leaves in half as shown in the photo.
Gently melt white 'whatevers' in a microwave safe jug. Do this at half power and stir after each zap.
Once melted, place a little whatever on top of marshmellow and stick on Koolmint.
Then put a little of the white melt on the sugared side of cut mint leaf and stick to the marshmellow.  Stick down near the base of the marshmellow because it helps to support the little angel.
Now that wasn't too hard was it?

Okay, so this is what I came up with when I lost my self control.

What you will need for these beautiful angels:
I think Aldi should be giving me a percentage of sales if these little things literally take off :-)
Pfeffernusse, Fruit Jelly Slices and Marshmellows (all from Aldi's)
Koolmints
White melts
Rice paper

Gently melt white whatevers in microwave safe jug.  Do this at half power in short bursts.  Stir after each time in the microwave. Once the melts are melted put a little on the pfeffernusse and stick the marshmellow to it.  This is a nice sturdy base for your little creation.  Place a little more of the melt on top of the marshmellow and stick on your koolmint.         

Next we are going

to cut a little wedge

shape out of the fruit jelly

slice. This then gets

stuck on at the bottom

                    of the marshmellow.                    

Put  a little red

food colouring

in the lid of it's bottle

and do the same with the black. 
Use a tooth pick to draw
on the eyelids and the mouth.

                 

Cut a small rectangle of rice paper and fold it in half. Put a little of the melted white melts on the front of the

marshmellow. No they aren't boobs! Stick your rice paper book to the blobs of melt making sure that 

the melt covers a little of the book. These will look like hands.

                      
So hopefully by this time
your melts have started
to thicken a little.  If so,
you can put little blobs
on the angels little head.
If you don't allow the
white 'chocolate' to thicken it will just roll off the Koolmint. Your little
treasure is now done so
get ready to make a choir.
JOY TO THE WORLD
THE LORD IS COME!
                         

How much creativity can one blonde head hold

My sister says I have too much time on my hands, I'm on Facebook too much. She is probably right. One thing I DO know, I have far too much creativity and useless information going on in this blonde head of mine. Okay, so it's a little grey but there is too much in there none the less. Time to start blogging, I am thinking. Let's get some creative ideas out there. These are not all my ideas but things that I have picked up along the way. Some things I have, let's say, enhanced a little just because I like to see how far I can take things.
Because Christmas is just around the corner and it is my favorite time of year I am going to start with some Christmas projects. My first project is dedicated to my friend Edith in the Netherlands. I hope you have as much fun making these 'snowball candles' as I did. (Veel geluk ermee. Als je het niet snapt laat me maar weten. )
Snowball Candles:

What you will need

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheap round candles. Colored ones are fine but you will find that you need to cover with more wax to disguise color. Also keep in mind that once you start burning your candle the color underneath will become visible. If you can't find any round candles you can use normal ones but will have to put more whipped wax around the middle until you get the desired shape.
Standard white or household paraffin wax candles. As an indication, I used 16 candles to make 2 small snowballs and 3 large ones.
Wick
Tray covered with baking paper
Fork, scissors and an old pan

 

 1. Remove wicks from round candles. These will need to be replaced with new longer wicks due to the fact that when you add another layer of wax over your ball candle, the original ones will be too short. You may need to make the holes in the candle slightly larger with a skewer, or such, before you thread your new wick, which you have knotted on one end, through.

2. Break long candles in half and place in a pan to gently melt on the stove. You can remove the pieces of wick as the candles begin to melt. Once melted remove pan from stove and allow wax to cool.

 3. Once the wax starts to turn a little white again you can start whipping it with a fork. Scrap the sides of the pan down as you go. When the wax looks somewhat like scrambled eggs you can start putting little amounts on your round candle.

HANDY HINT. If the wax is still oozing through your fork it is still too hot. Just keep whipping until it gets a skittle cooler. Also start putting your wax on ( wax off :-D that's a smiley face for everyone who said that) from the base of your candle. Work your way up to the wick.

4. Once a ball is complete allow it to set and then trim the wick. You can add another layer of wax if you want larger snowballs. Trim your wicks after this stage then. You can make your snowballs totally round by allowing them to dry and then turning them over and by adding some wax to the base.  I like to keep mine flat because they are more stable.  Round ones would be good if you were placing them into beads or such.

HINT if you are a little on the slow side just reheat your wax a little and start whipping it again.

HINT. IF YOU KEEP ANY OF YOUR CANDLES IN THE FREEZER THEY TEND TO BURN LONGER. DON'T ASK ME WHY. I'M NOT A SCIENTIST. I JUST REMEMBER SOMEONE TELLING ME SO. AAAAAAAHHHHHH ONE USELESS BIT OF INFO OUT OF MY HEAD,