Truth Universally Acknowledged

The title of this blog is an obvious reference to my favourite author, Jane Austen. My other great inspiration is Ella Fitzgerald. I intend this site to be general musings about things which interest me, and hopefully you as well.

Name:
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

I'm a girl in her twenties living in New Zealand - of Irish and Scottish descent. I'm married to a wonderful guy and we live in a tiny house in the suburbs with a menagerie of soft toys and model aircraft. My main occupations at the moment are attempting to become and author and surviving my day job... wish me luck!


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Browse stuff I like at Amazon.co.uk.


The Truth Universally Acknowledged Resource Centre (US)

Browse stuff I like at Amazon.com.

Tuesday, 28 March 2006

Dinner Party Menu

These two recipes helped me throw a successful dinner party a few weeks back. I also served crackers, brie, cammembert and rosemary & garlic chips as an entree, and espresso truffles with coffee.

The Mains: Cannelloni by Food in a Minute

Ingredients
1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 tsp minced garlic
250 g Wattie's Frozen Chopped Spinach, defrosted and drained
250g container Tararua Cottage Cheese with Tomato and Basil
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 cup grated parmesan or tasty cheddar cheese
420g can Wattie's Condensed Tomato Soup with Diced Tomatoes
1/3-1/2 cup water
125 g packet dried cannelloni tubes
1/4 cup fresh breadcrumbs

Method
1. Heat a dash of oil in a frying pan and cook the onion and garlic until soft. Stir in the prepared Wattie's Chopped Spinach and set aside to cool.

2. Stir in the Tararua Cottage Cheese with Tomato and Basil, tomato paste and half the grated cheese. Season with pepper.

3. Combine the Wattie's Condensed Tomato Soup with Diced Tomatoes and water. Pour half into the base of a lasagne-style dish.

4. Fill the cannelloni shells with the cottage cheese filling and place the cannelloni on top of the soup. Pour over the remaining tomato soup mixture to cover. Mix the remaining Parmesan cheese with the fresh breadcrumbs and sprinkle over the soup.

5. Bake at 190°C for 25-30 minutes until the cannelloni is tender. This amount serves about 4. I doubled it and gave each person 3 tubes.



The Dessert: Banana Butterscotch Pudding by Bill Grainger

125 g (1 cup) plain (all-purpose) flour
a pinch of salt
120 g (1/2 cup) caster (superfine) sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 banana, mashed
200ml milk
85 g (3 oz) unsalted butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
vanilla ice cream to serve
Topping
140g (3/4 cup) soft brown sugar
1/4 cup golden syrup
250 ml (1 cup) boiling water

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F/Gas 4). Sift the flour, salt, sugar, baking and powder into a bowl. Add the banana milk, butter, egg and vanilla extract and whisk together until well combined. Pour into a greased 2.5 L baking dish.

To make the topping, place the brown sugar, golden syrup and water in a small pot and bring to a boil. Pour the boiling mixture carefully over the pudding, then bake for 30 - 40 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Apparently it serves 4 but I quite happily dished up 7 servings.

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Thursday, 23 March 2006

Bad attitudes

So, the NZ athletes aren’t bringing home as many medals from the Commonwealth Games as we thought they might. I turn on the TV, and members of the public are berating them.

“We just don’t seem to have that winning attitude, like Australia”

“They’re just not trying hard enough”

Excuse me, People-who-were-dawdling-around-somewhere-long-enough-to-talk-to-a-TV-crew, but when was the last time you put all your heart and soul into training and did well enough to represent your country? How dare these non-athletes dare to criticise the efforts of our team. Of course they want to win. Of course they are trying their best. As if they would go to compete thinking, “you know, I’m just going to go with the flow, and I don’t care about winning for my country”.

On the Aussie issue – there’s no point making the comparison. Not only is their country far bigger than ours in terms of geography and population, the sporting infrastructure is far more advanced. There’s no way we should expect to measure up to their standards. And our standards should not be measured on some medal tally predictions. It should be measured on the pride of our athletes, competing for NZ and reaching their personal potential. Let’s support them as best we can, no matter where they end up finishing.

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Tuesday, 14 March 2006

Tyranny of words

Writers, do you ever start to hate words that you just can’t help using over and over again? Last week I finished polishing my synopsis and draft letter for my submission. This week all I am doing is referencing a plethora of thesauri as I strive to cut down on the usage of these words which seem to pour forth from me at alarmingly frequent intervals. Last night it was “comfort” and it’s derivatives: uncomfortable, comfortable, discomfort, etc etc. I couldn’t believe how many times I’ve used it in my manuscript. And I have a list of about 15 other offending words. Pleasant, easy, glad, anxious, amiable…. where will it all end? If it takes me about 5 hours to fix each word throughout my script, I’m going to be here all year.

I’m getting quite impatient to submit the darn thing. Feedback from friends hasn’t been as comprehensive as I had hoped, and I just kinda want to get it out there to see what happens. The other option I have is to apply for the Writer in Libraries programme which runs May-July (the deadline for applications is this Friday). This is a one-on-one mentoring opportunity. Do I still want to be working on my novel in July though? NO! My goal is to send if off by Easter.

P.S. It’s our second wedding anniversary on the 20th. We’re taking Monday and Tuesday off, and spending a long weekend in the Rotorua region. There’s a jazz festival on Saturday, so that should be cool. Can’t wait for Friday afternoon.

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Tuesday, 7 March 2006

Too much supermarket shopping dulls the mind

On Saturday my husband and I popped into the supermarket on our way home from the beach. As usual we mainly picked out the items that were 'on special', and made our way to the checkout. The lines were horrendous, and after waiting for a few minutes I left hubby with the trolley and went to find some extra items 'on special'. When I came back to the trolley, my husband had his cellphone to his ear. I approached and meant to say "Are you on the phone?"

What I said - completely by accident - was, "Are you on special?"