I know for the most part that society dictates that if you are over the age of say …25, one has to act like an adult and behave properly. After all, who wants to do business or carry on an adult conversation with someone that asks “Have you ever wanted to live in a tree?” (wouldn’t it be fun?). My attempts at being adult or sophisticated are foiled for the most part by my innate clumsiness. Recently I was at a fancy media dinner by myself and I was nervously negotiating the vegetables that sat in the centre of the table. I had bought a new dress for it and thought that I was carrying the charade off very well.

“Would you like some vegetables?” I asked the man next to me.

“Umm… your sleeve is in the sauce” the man said to me looking alarmed. And there it was, the cuff sitting in the glistening sauce. People were dabbing at me and I felt as if I were a toddler that had spilled my cup of formula.  I felt as chic as a bag of Cheetos.

I first heard of these from my dining companion Laura aka baking Wonder Woman. She mentioned that I should make a Snickers Rocky Road in passing and unable to hear the sentence that followed thereafter that I asked her to back up. A what rocky road? I haven’t eaten a Snickers bar for about ten years and from memory there were nuts, caramel and nougat. It wasn’t bad and it was the one I preferred to its sister product the tooth achingly sweet Mars bar. I asked her to email me her recipe but well of course I couldn’t wait. When we went shopping I saw Snickers bars on sale for $1 each and shoved six into the trolley and bought some roasted unsalted peanuts and chocolate and I had the makings of an adventure.

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I scared you there for a minute Dear Reader didn’t I? Don’t worry I haven’t gone over all healthy on you although I do have my moments and post Christmas is my inevitable moment. The time where I scramble to find healthy ways to make food in a kind of schizophrenic but well intentioned bid at losing any kilos that Christmas hath giveth (although alternating it with a rich cheesecake the other day might not be the smartest idea…).

Mr NQN asked me why I was making healthy food but then going out for pizza, pasta and ribs and I answered him that it was a carefully balanced and orchestrated way of eating that he simply wouldn’t understand. Ahem. But look  isn’t that a famous sportsperson over there*?

*subject changing, I do it often.

One meal that I just love but is not considered a low fat or low calorie affair is the afternoon tea. It is usually seen as a chance to legally eat copious amounts of cupcakes, cakes and pastries in the tiresome lull between lunch and dinner. I received a book in the mail called “The Complete Food Makeover” from ABC books which lo and behold held an afternoon tea section! Curious to try out a few recipes I reasoned that I should invite the girls over so I sent out an invitation to some lovely lasses for a New Year’s Resolution friendly afternoon tea. I raided my darling friend The Second Wife’s teacup and teapot and travel spoon collection-if a friend lends you her precious Limoges Legle tea set you know she’s a great friend!

I made a range of things including Portuguese custard tarts (not from the book) using reduced fat puff pastry and skim milk instead of full butter and cream, chocolate truffles, blackberry matchsticks, chocolate and banana muffins, scones, profiteroles, little stuffed sandwich rolls,  iced Turkish apple tea, Pimms and lemonade and caramel black tea.

After trying half a dozen recipes from the book everyone assembled liked the taste of most of them except for the chocolate banana cupcakes which were in Sisko’s words “Just not right-like the banana and chocolate are battling each other”. And I made the brownies but didn’t even serve them as they were as hard as a rock. The author likes to use raw sugar which as most bakers know, does not cream well and remains as hard, crunchy crystals.

My favourite tea cosy-I actually bought this as a gift for Queen Viv but couldn’t bear to part with it. I’m so mean!

I also tried the book’s recipe for faux cream which is made by whipping up a chilled tin of evaporated milk but there were no instructions saying that this had to be used straight away or it would dissolve and break down-in fact it told us that the cream kept its volume which it didn’t. I made it the day before and stored it in an airtight container and found a strange, half deflated holey creation in the fridge. I passed on serving this as it tended to dissolve on contact with spoons and heat (it was a hot weekend).

Flowers from Queen Viv

The favourites were the chocolate truffles, Portuguese custard tarts, matchsticks and the heart shaped scones. I found the recipes a bit hit and miss and some recipes were just not very good-not only did the chocolate banana muffins taste “funny” the recipe also said that it made 24 muffins. Using my standard muffin tray I could only make a meagre 6.5 muffins!  Quantities seem a little odd in many of the recipes that I tried. On the plus side there are some clever ideas for saving fat-I thought that splitting the baked puff pastry rectangles in two and using each half to sandwich the ricotta cream and berry was very clever and a way to lower the fat. And the ricotta cream is a nice substitute for cream and the faux cream is interesting and perhaps quite good if you want to use it straight away.

A gift from Myriam

Besides the food, every now and then you need to have a sports free zone, a chance to get together with the gals and discuss the important things in life. Who bought what shoes, which celebrity has new boobs and conjure up new and bizarre dinner party ideas. Vive la girlfriends!

So tell me Dear Reader, are you trying to eat healthier at the moment? If you are, how is it going?

Chocolate truffles

These chocolate truffles don’t use any chocolate itself but cocoa powder and are a ground up mixture of dried dates , sultanas and coconut and almond meal. They’re very quick to make and are about half the calories of a regular truffle. Although they aren’t going to match a luxurious hand made truffle they are very good at satisfying a sugary, chocolatey craving and had Mr NQN baying for an invite to the afternoon tea. I told him no unless he wore a dress.

Approximately 35 calories, 1g fat each

Makes 40 truffles

Adapted from The Complete Food Makeover  Click here to read the full story