Wow, just wow

Today this site hit a personal record.  We had a fantastic page view spike.  It was a amazing -when I check yesterday I had all of three page views. Today page views have hit 51 and the has not even ended.  I don't what's going on, but I think I like it!

Thanks for that :)

Orgran

Orgran egg replacer is a natural alternative to eggs.  It can be used in cakes, muffins meringues ect. the list goes on.  I can't say it's an ideal substitute for eggs, however it mimics the addition of eggs quite nicely for a powder that is made primarily of potatoes.  I have found it improves the texture of my gluten-free recipes nearly as well as eggs with the horrible after affects of having the eggs themselves.  It's no worse the substituting soy milk for cows milk.

Orgran no egg can be found in most health food stores, and if you haven't tried it I suggest looking it up.

Home made soap

This is what happens when I get bored; I make stuff. :)  This is my first completely successful batch of soap.  To the left is an example of one that has just come out of the mould.  It is free from unnatural colours and fragrances and made from Virgin olive oil, water and 100% pure lavender oil.  It smells so nice.

Then problem is I now have too many so I'm attempting to offload some on ebay.

Making soaps seems almost theraputic in some ways.  It was fairly okay except I wasn't as careful when mixing the caustic soda as I should have been.  Got myself a mouthful of the gases that came off the water.  The irony is when I did the first batch I didn't have that problem because I was right next to a large open window when I mixed the soda with the water.  The second batch I mixed in the kitchen with a open window and an open door but the ventilation in the kitchen is no where near as good as in my bedroom clearly.  However, I choose to mix the soda with the water in the kitchen so I didn't damage any of my things if it spilt.  Will just have to give up and wait for my mask to get here.

Working too hard

It has been a bust few weeks.  I've have finally getting enough work to have monies again.  Of course, that meant last week I was getting to many hours.  Now my knee is a little crippled as a result of over working the connective tissue in and around the knee joint.  I'm having trouble getting up and down from a seated position and Forget trying to get up from my mattress on the floor - once I finally manage it I'm staying up.  Thankfully, the knee isn't to bad to walk on.

Despite this I've been having to continue work this week, because as it's not landing me hospital or a wheelchair, I have to keep working for monies.  This sentiment has continued on my days off.  On my days off of work, I take advantage of the time at home and do my chores.  Yesterday I was flitting between home and the laundrette to get my double duvet clean and partially dry while trying to wash clothes in my twin tub at home and get my room vacuumed.  This was barely a dent in my chores list unfortunately as when i was having long days at work last week, things just kept building up.  I still have a lot to do, and as with anything that requires cleaning , by the time I've finished one lot of chores other chores need to be done again.

Got to love working for a living.  I have what is diagnosed at Chronic Widespread Pain Syndrome (A Diagnosis I've never sure I trust as accurate and fully believe it may change in the future).  Every extra hour I spend cleaning at work or in the home has an impact on my physical pain levels.  Even trying to take it easy doesn't help because any form of movement whether it's walking or just sitting at a desk (this still require muscle movement as they fight to keep you in an upright position) will have an effect on the levels of pain felt.  The irony is, I've tried the other alternative of doing as little as possible and it doesn't work either - you still find pain crops up, so I just get on with it when I can. :)

Cocoa Patisserie Cafe, Brighton, UK

Cocoa Patisserie Cafe produces some of the most visually beautiful pastries and tarts in Brighton and Hove. I first came across the pastries in the Brighton and Hove food festival a year or two ago.  I remember the pastry I bought quite vividly as it stuck in my mind as being very yummy and unusual in that the caramel was salted (a taste I had not come across before.)  The Salted carmel shortbread tart can be seen in the image below, it is the second from the right.


                  My grandmother was in town the other day and I was stuck with somewhere to go for lunch, so I decided that we would try the Cocoa cafe, being that it is in a quite central locale.  You could quite literally step off the train and go there for lunch.  Lunch ended up being quite an enjoyable experience.

The cafe is very nicely decorated with the companies cocoa theme colours and features nice wooden furniture that was surprisingly comfortable to be seated at.  This was a nice change.  Each table was decorated with a fresh cut yellow rose and our tea came served in lovely china teapots with matching tea cups.

For my lunch I ordered a Char-grilled chicken Caesar salad, mostly because I'm supposable on a health kick. :)  However salad is always a good test of any kitchens food hygiene as it features fresh vegetables that go off very quickly if kept in poor conditions.  Much to my delight the salad was crisp and fresh, this is always a bonus.  It was also beautifully presented, I could really tell that the chef was a first artist when it came to food.  It's no wonder he's won awards.  The chicken was grilled just right and the parmensan cheese came in a caramelised section (An absolutely yummy way of eating cheese).  My one concern was the the salad leaves were drenched in olive oil which tasted good but made for an oily meal.  However it was a very nice meal all round and as you can tell from the photos of the pastries it was very hard to resist having a yummy yummy desert.

The desert are what make cocoa worth the visit.  They are as tasty as they look.  I would highly recommend trying them if you are in Brighton :)