Let the softball games begin!

Last year Rob and I were very warmly welcomed on to the Tornados softball team. We really enjoyed playing and had so much fun with the people, it made us more active and gave us yet another excuse to visite the pub. The Tornados ended the 2011 season with only one win and were relegated to a lower league but despite such poor stats, everyone decided to come back this year and we're all at it again.

We've already had three games and true to last years form we have 0 wins and 3 loses! However, we are having fun and team losses don't mean that individual players having played well or the games weren't good. Our team lost our star pitcher and we are struggling to fill the place. Everything else is top notch and we are looking good, so hopefully individual successes can come together for a win soon. My coach keeps pushing a positive mental attitude, good, if not cheesy, advice which I often scoff but have been trying to take on board nonetheless. 

Speaking of individual successes... Rob and I have started out with a very decent season indeed! In two games Rob beaned the ball out of the park for a home run and a grand slam! He's had two amazing catches in centre-right field and has even had a quick go at pitching! 

My first two games were both nerve-wrecking displays of incompetence, but then, after one practice, I showed up to the third game with a positive mental attitude and a new batting stance. The game was intense with an opposition that was both obnoxious and overly-competitive, a dangerous mixture that leads me to constant shouting, goading and over-excitement, my three best personality traits!

I was put in as catcher and I made a few great catches and aided in one or two outs. My fielding also involved a shouting match with a batter about how close I could stand to the batter and I was knocked over by a runner quite heavily which almost lead to an all-out brawl! I was very fired-up and cheered (shouted) throughout the game at full capacity. When it came to batting I was three for three, three hits, three at base... the best I've done since I started playing, the new stance really help. The final score, or the fact that we lost on the 'mercy rule' doesn't really matter, I had a good game and people had a good time! 

All this hard playing and shouted ended up with me being voted 'Babe Ruth' (MVP) at the pub after the game. Something I found surprising and flattering, I've never been MVP at anything! One of my fellow teammates voted for me because I was a 'The voice of Britain!' referring to my loud cheering. I felt great about the game and also felt a tad bit more British at the same time. Here, here!!! 

A ballot for me declaring me 'The voice of Britain!', a very proud moment! 

Piñata Cookies!

As mentioned before, this year we celebrated Cinco de Mayo with a lot of lovely Mexican food, flan and these amazing piñata cookies.

My adapted version of piñata cookies!

A colleague found this recipe for me and I had to try them. The recipe is deceptive, the cookies end up HUGE (This recipe only made 9 or 10 full cookies) and it is extremely difficult to cut the middle cookie out without breaking the edges. There is also a lot of wasted cookie edges, but you can always just eat them, cause they are delicious! However, the end result is completely worth all the intricate work, they are super fun!

Original cookies, web photo

Here a few tips to explain the differences in my cookies and the original, both pictured on this post. The original recipe calls for cookies cut out in a traditional donkey shape but I was not able to find a donkey-shaped cookie cutter on such short notice so I used a flower shape. Also, the food colouring I used ended up a lot lighter than the originals. I think they use 'gel paste' I don't know what this is and couldn't find any so I just used normal food colouring, however I had to use a lot of it, about 4-5 teaspoons per batch of dough. I also only used five colours as black was not necessary for my flowers. Finally, the original recipe fills the cookies with mini M&Ms, again, hard to find in the UK on short notice so I used small little crispy white, dark and milk chocolate bits that are normally used for decorating cupcakes. They worked well and considering the size of these cookies worked well  as they are a lot lighter and more manageable to eat then a bunch of M&Ms, the crunch is also quite a nice contrast.

Filled with chocolate crispies.

Cinco de Mayo with Bridge and sugar!!

I'm writing this a few weeks late but it's simply because two things have happened... softball season started and work has been crazy!

Cinco de Mayo is not really one of the major holiday's on the Scott-Clark calendar but this year it was on a Saturday and also overlapped with a pre scheduled dinner party/bridge night so I thought I'd make an occasion of it. We spent the whole day shopping for the necessary accessories and ingredients then came home and baked our little socks off!

Dinner was Quorn tacos, which didn't turn our as good as the chilli or bolognese that I have made in the past, I will make sure and post the recipe for this as soon as I perfect it. However, the desserts, of which there were two, came out amazing and were a real success.

Rob made a vanilla flan, with jersey milk, fresh eggs and vanilla beans from the Dubai Spice Market, while I attempted the impossible... piñata cookies! Please follow the link to see the recipe, they deserve their own post.

Unfortunately, like everything he does, Rob completely ad-libbed his flan and I don't have a recipe to share, though hopefully he can put one up here soon because, as you can see, it really was impressive!

After we were sufficiently stuffed with tacos, flan and cookies, we spent the rest of the evening playing Bridge. We taught our fourth friend how to play and we are certainly starting to gather up a large group of bridge players... you might say we are starting a club, some sort of bridge club <can you sense the sarcasm>? 

However, bridge is going to have to cool off for a bit, maybe not every weekend now, as softball season has officially started! You check out how the season is going here.