Karl headed off to Scotland on Saturday morning, so I set about doing some housework, catching up on The Block and doing laundry. For those of you who don’t know what The Block is, it is a reality TV show where 4 couples compete in renovating 4 dilapidated properties, which go to auction in the final episode. Naturally there are challenges and competitions to win things along the way. You should never start watching these things, as once you do you inevitably want to see who wins.
In the afternoon I walked into town, stopping of course to look at the tulips in the Botanic Gardens.
Tulips – spring is here
I was heading to a ‘talk and tea’ event at the City Art Gallery organised for Friends of the gallery. This is the last weekend of the Gregory Crewdson exhibition, and two of the gallery’s curators gave an interesting talk about Crewdson and his work. I had seen the exhibition a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it, so it was good to see it again, this time with a bit of background. After the talk, there was tea, and I had a very light and tasty cheese scone, while hearing about some forthcoming exhibitions, and how nothing was damaged in the recent earthquakes. In fact, the only thing that had fallen over was one book in the book shop!
Free poster of the exhibition
Today, Sunday, is a glorious sunny day with temperatures back up to 17C. I took yet another stroll through the Botanic Gardens to town to the library this time, and have otherwise been enjoying the sun on the terrace – and baking chocolate chocolate chip muffins. Recipe here, adapted from Australian Women’s Weekly again :
You need: 375g self-raising flour, 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, 25g cocoa powder, 100g soft brown sugar, 125 g melted butter, 2 beaten eggs, 250ml milk and at least 140g chocolate chips. The ones you get here for baking are nice and small.
Grease a 12 hole muffin pan. Sift all the dry ingredients into a bowl, add chocolate chips, stir in butter, eggs and milk. Pour into the prepared tin, and bake for around 20 minutes at 200-210C. Couldn’t be simpler!
Chocolate muffins with chocolate chips
Not nearly as sophisticated as my apricot tart the other day, and also not sure why the ones in the row second from the left are smaller than the rest, but there you have it.
Muffins piled up on a plate
Thistles and Kiwis 