A little late with this re-blog, though it is still 2 days new!
Eli @Coach Daddy found me through one of Eric’s share post and has asked bloggers, his friends, strangers, and a few strange blogger friends to respond to a prompt by telling a story in 6 words. He does this on a monthly basis.
For this month’s prompt, he asked this very question: What is the best adventure you’ve ever been on?
Credit: Coach Daddy Blog
Who doesn’t love a great adventure?
Sometimes, they’re set in the wilderness, or the big city, or even in a galaxy far, far away. Other times, they happen in the tortilla aisle at the local Aldi. No matter. Adventure can find us anywhere, and they leave behind a great story, at least.
The question came from one of my favorite sites, Q4KIDZ.com. They post daily questions to share with your kids and get some interesting conversation started. You should definitely check it out.
View original post here and make sure you pick out your favourites! My contribution is #14; favourite from the list are these:
Nothing moves my mojo more than sinking my teeth into a fluffy, light and airy butterless cake in the form of a chiffon.
Split the batter 2 ways: Chocolate and OrangeMarble itCut it!
You won’t need a special occasion for this; although you can make any occasion special with just slices of chiffon to go with your coffee or tea time. The beauty of baking is that it is so very therapeutic.
Marbled Chiffon Cake
2017-05-27 05:12:22
Serves 8
A light, fluffy and moist chiffon cake with no butter. Only marbled with chocolate and orange flavour to perk up the taste buds.
7 large eggs, separated plus 1 additional egg white
2 1/4 cups (225 grams) sifted cake flour
1 1/2 cups (300 grams) superfine white (castor) sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (120 ml) vegetable oil or safflower oil
3/4 cup (180 ml) low-fat milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (use to stabilise whipping of egg whites and allow them to reach maximum volume)
4 tbsp cocoa powder
1 navel orange juice, skin grated
Instructions
Separate the eggs and place the whites in one bowl and the yolks in another.
Cover with plastic wrap and bring them to room temperature (about 30 minutes).
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C and have ready a 10 inch (25 cm) two piece tube pan (ungreased).
In the bowl of your electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, place the flour, sugar (minus 3 tablespoons or 42 grams), baking powder, and salt. Beat until combined.
Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the egg yolks, oil, milk and vanilla extract. Beat about one minute or until smooth.
In a separate bowl, with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue to beat until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the remaining 3 tablespoons (42 grams) of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.
Split the batter equally - one for the chocolate, the other for the orange flavour.
Add in cocoa powder to one of the bowls and mix well. Then, with a large rubber spatula, gently fold the egg whites into the batter just until blended (being careful not to deflate the batter).
For the other bowl, mix in the orange juice and grated orange skin. Then fold in egg whites into the batter gently.
To layer, pour the mixed batter (with egg whites folded in) one colour on top of the other until all the batter is used up into the ungreased tube pan.
Bake for about 55 to 60 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. (When lightly pressed the cake will spring back).
Important: Immediately upon removing the cake from the oven invert the pan and place on a bottle or flat surface so it is suspended over the counter.
Let the cake cool completely before removing from pan (about 1 1/2 – 2 hours).
To remove the cake from the pan, run a long metal spatula around the inside of the tube pan and center core. Invert onto a greased wire rack. (I used an already detacheable mould for easy removal of the cake)
Notes
Make sure that the eggs are at room temperature before whisking. For the egg whites, be very careful to keep only whites to make sure that they stiffen up.
The cake can be stored in an airtight container for a few days at room temperature or for about a week in the refrigerator. This cake can also be frozen for a couple of months.
The start of a very long summer vacation has begun. It started before mid-day last Friday and the kids are over the moon because school is now officially out.
This means that the kids have absolutely nothing to do for a whole six weeks. Whole.SIX.Weeks! That’s a long time of play, play, play all day. That’s just brutal!
Then, they get to be bored shitless out of their skulls and because they have too much time on their hands, there’ll be extra mayhem by the end of the 3rd week.
This would often marked with the both of them constantly in each other’s way as they make a sport out of annoying the hell out of each other.Because they can.
We’ve already seen the signs and it’s only going to get worse as each day goes by.
For us parents, the work day continues with business as usual. It’s also the most expensive months since the kids would rake up full day of daycare hours as parents would have to be at work.
Our respite comes in the form of parents in their kind offer to take in the kids for a few days and spoil them rotten.
For us that means monetary savings from the daycare, a little sanity check of not having to rush to the daycare to pick them up in time as well as a few days of peace and quiet before (their) bedtime and during (their) waking hours into breakfast.
In the weekends, the chaos would be ours. Because, while at their grams, the 2 monkeys would decidedly be the prefect role model as the most well-behaved kids in town. Then suddenly, all hell will break loose the moment they see us walk through the door to bring them home.
It happens all the time.
So predictable they are that I can virtually see the fights unfolding right before my eyes. In fact, it started already this morning.
Although, the advantage was ours: they were swiftly dropped off at the daycare, allowing us to shirk our parenting responsibilities to a few other adults.
But maybe, just maybe…this time, the weekends would be different. They both are a little older now and perhaps they’ll tone down on being disruptive. They’ll miss us so much that they WILL behave. Maybe they would learn to clean up better too!
Well, a mother could hope, no! After all, don’t we all need a little distraction?
