Old-fashioned Cherry Cake Recipe

I tried many cherry cake recipes and frequently ended up with the cherries at the base instead of suspended in the cake. However, I find Delia Smith's Old-Fashioned Cherry Cake recipe to be the best. My whole family love it....and it does not last long...that's how tasty it is! Try and find out for yourself!

Ingredients:

225g butter at room temperature

225 caster sugar

4 large eggs, lighly beaten

225 plain flour

half a teaspoon baking powder

250g glace cherries,quartered

110g ground almonds

a few drops of almond essence

2 level tablespoons demerara sugar

1 tablespoon milk

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 180 degrees Celsius.

Need round cake tin, 8 inches in diameter and 4 inches deep.

Line the base and sides of the tin with greaseproof paper or baking parchment, then grease the paper.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light,pale and fluffy. Now gradually beat in the whisked egg a little at a time. Then sift the flour and baking powder together, carefully fold this into the creamed mixture using a wooden spoon. Toss the quartered cherries in together with the ground almonds, and carefully fold these into the cake, adding one or two drops of almond essence and the milk. Now spoon the cake mix into the prepared tin, level off to top with the back of a spoon, then sprinkle with the demerara sugar.

Bake the cake in the centre of the over for 1 hour, cover with foil and continue cooking for a further 30 minutes, or until the cake has shrunk away from the side of the tin and the centre is springy to touch. Cool the cake in the tin for 15 minutes before turning it out on to a wire rack to cool. Store in a tin.

                                

Sony Playstation Move

Last weekend, outside Sainsburys supermarket two salesman were promoting the PS Move. We all had a go on the PS Move and my two boys were instantly glued to the motion sensored game and were very reluctant to leave. I tried table tennis and lost...not surprised because I am never good at PS3 games or any sort of electronic games. To be honest I quite enjoyed playing the game using PS move. I must say the PS Move does provide great accuracy, movement and action. What an experience?
When my boys asked what are my thoughts on the PS Move, I just shrugged and answered unethusiastically, "Well! Alright I suppose!"  Had to lie. Because I know my boys, if I had agreed with them on how wonderful and brilliant the PS Move is, they would have definitely pestered me into buying the starter pack there and then. At that time, the starter pack came with a light blue hooded top with PS Move logo...hmm...I rather have a game any day! The starter pack comes with a few games, however they are only demos! The question is, Will I buy the PS Move? Definitely! This would make an ideal Christmas gift! My eldest could not wait for Christmas, so he used his savings(pocket money) to purchase the PS Move starter pack at Argos for £43.19. Now we are all having a great time on the PS Move....what an amazing way to play and keep yourself in good shape! Please find below a brief video clip on table tennis.

       Get hold of all the essentials to begin your PlayStation Move experience.

• Includes one PlayStation Move motion controller, one PlayStation Eye camera and a Blu-ray Disc sampler featuring nine dynamic demos.
• Try your hand at an exciting range of demos, such as TV Superstars, Sports Champions and Beat Sketcher - all compatible with PlayStation Move.
• Become part of the action in a completely new way to play on PlayStation 3.

Sony Dvd Player

A few weeks ago our Sony dvd player suddenly ceased to work. Prior to this event, the dvd player had been working perfectly without any trouble. Shouldn't crumble..it had been keeping us entertained for nearly seven years. It was insured, unfortunately we did not extent the insurance policy....matter of fact, should have done it. Will not make this mistake again! Now we got a brand new Sony dvd player with a usb slot and YES! It is insured! Why the usb slot? A couple of years ago we decided to download movies from the internet. The process of burning them onto a DVD-R or DVD-RW was time consuming and costly. Furthermore, disks frequently got scratched and damaged with young children around. So we started using usb flash drives to store movies and it worked out cheaper, less storage space and movies were transferred to the flash drive in seconds.  Flash drives can be used on PS3. Lately the fan on our PS3 seem to come on quickly and the noise lingers on for a while, stops, then starts again. This buzzing sound is so annoying and unbearable. Now we can watch movies in absolute tranquility! Thanks to Sony dvd player DVP-NS728H!  It offers many special features and produces a very high standard picture quality at affordable price.

       Features DVP-NS728H

• HDMI™ High Definition Multimedia Interface
• 1080p Upscaling Video Output through HDMI™ Connection
• USB drive for access to movies, photos and music
• BRAVIA™ Sync
• PhotoTV HD
• Precision Drive 3 Mechanism for fast, stable and accurate playback
• Playback of DVD-RW/-R /-R DL (VR mode w/o CPRM)
• DivX® Playback
• Fast / Slow Playback with Sound
• TV Virtual Surround (TVS)
• Quick Set-up
• Available in Black

Panasonic Lumix FS30 Digital Camera

Search Amazon.com for panasonic lumix

   LUMIX Compact Digital Camera


   8x Optical Zoom Lens and Up to 16.9x Extra Optical Zoom


   28mm Wide-angle LUMIX DC VARIO Lens and 14.1-megapixel CCD


   iA (Intelligent Auto) Mode with Advanced Scene Detection


  Seamless Operation with Quick Start-up Time and Sonic Speed AF


  HD Movie Recording (1,280 x 720 pixels at 30 fps in Motion JPEG Format)


  2.7-inch 230,000-dot High-resolution Intelligent LCD


  Li-ion Battery (rechargeable)


This Lumix digital camera allows you to take great quality pictures with ease.  Its a perfect camera to capture those pricelesss moments in your life and to treasure those beautiful digital photos forever. Quality product from Panasonic at affordable price. I recently purchased this Panasonic Lumix FS30 and I am absolutely pleased with my choice - higly recommendable!!! Here are some pictures taken with my camera.....PANASONIC LUMIX FS30.

How to grow lemon grass

Lemon grass(cymbopogon citratus) is a grass like herb with citrus flavour. It is perennial and it grows in clumps. It grows in warm and tropical climate regions. The lower portion of the stalk can be used fresh, dried and powdered. Lemon grasses are commonly used in many Indian, Indonesian, Malaysian, Sri Lankan and Thai savoury dishes.

A few months ago, my husband came across a gardening magazine "Grow it" and he purchased it for me, as he knew I often used lemon grass in my cooking. As it turned out, one of its contents showed how to grow exotic herbs and spices, including lemon grass. It looked so easy and I had to give it a go. So I did do it and was very pleased with the outcome. Below are pictures of my lemon grass:

Had to bring in the potted lemon grass from the greenhouse because of the change in weather.

Here are a few simple steps to grow lemon grass:
1. Buy fresh lemon grass stems from Tesco, Asda or Sainsbury and place the bulbous ends in a jar of water. Place the jar on a sunny windowsill for a few weeks until the roots have developed properly. Water in the jar need to be changed weekly.

2. Once a good root system has developed, trim off the top and plant each stem in a pot filled with soil-based compost, such as John Innes No.2. Water regularly and keep the pot on the windowsill or the greenhouse.

3. Apply liquid fertiliser every two weeks. Transfer the plant into a larger pot as it grows. Keep the compost just moist in winter.
                                                       Enjoy growing lemon grass!


   


Search Amazon.com for lemon grass

Bristol Chinese Supermarkets

Students coming from abroad, especially from the Far East to study in Bristol, UK may find it difficult to get hold of certain type of food products, mainly found in shops or supermarkets in their own countries. However, major supermarkets like Tesco, Asda & Sainsbury do stock foreign goods but only a limited selection. So here are the names and addresses of Chinese Supermarkets found in Bristol to get some of your favourite goodies! Maggi Noddles....Milo.....even durians!!!!

1. Kin Yip Hon(Chinese) Supermarket
16a - 16b, St Thomas Street,
Bristol
BS1 6JJ


2. Wai Yee Hong Chinese Supermarket
Eastgate Oriental City
Eastgate Road
Bristol
BS5 6XX
This supermarket offers online shopping direct to your door! UK delivery only.

3. Teoh's Chinese Supermarket
28 - 34, Lower Ashley Road
St Agnes,
Bristol
BS2 9NP

Against Homophobia Books

SHOULD WE ALLOW OUR CHILDREN TO BE EXPOSED TO HOMOPHOBIA BOOKS

I am not an anti-homosexual person and I sincerely have nothing against them. But introducing the existence of homosexual relationship towards very young children is unspeakable. To portray them in story books at primary school and giving them the false notion of normality is beyond intolerable.
I for one do not wish my children as young as 5 to be reading story books relating to the same gender living together happily ever after as a family. This is not the fairy tale I remember and neither will my children. Children perceive “Family” as parents consisting of mum a female figure and dad a male figure and themselves. This is the only concept of family that has been accepted from the beginning of mankind. Not only that, it goes against the teachings and beliefs of Christian religion & the Muslims. Basically breaking the most fundamental rule of marriage and family. A mockery of the institution of marriage and family. What angers me most is why the Christians have not opposed to this is OUTRAGEOUS!!! Pilot scheme.
Recently Muslim parents at Easton, Bristol demanded homophobia books to be removed from the school shelves. This led to Bristol City Council to withdraw the books. The council had said that the books were intended to help prevent homophobic bullying. Where are the statistics to prove this kind of bullying is occurring in primary schools? What about all the other type of bullying mainly Racism.
Why haven’t we (the Christians) shown any resentment towards this issue.
We sent our children to school to learn academic subjects NOT sexual relationships of modern society.
Homosexual issues should NEVER ever enter the field of EDUCATION at primary school level. Any gay rights awareness should be done somewhere else! Somewhere far away as possible!! BAN HOMOPHOBIA BOOKS FOREVER!! WE CERTAINLY DO NOT WANT TO CREATE A NATION OF POOFS!!