Summer sale now on!

We all know someone who has a birthday coming soon, or someone that is due to move house or someone that is about to have a baby. Well now you can stop worrying about what to buy them as Velvet Antlers now has 20% off all hampers! We can deliver to their home or you can surprise them at work with a hamper full of tasty treats and the beauty of it is, that not only are they currently on sale, they can’t fail to enjoy their lovely present – who doesn’t like good food?! And do you know things just get better and better as we are accepting delivery dates on sale prices right up until 30th August 2008 so you can buy them now at their sale price and not have to worry about forgetting that all important birthday. Genius.

Yummy Coconut Macaroons

Last night a couple of people told me that they had made gingerbread and lemon icing after I had out the recipe up on here. Inspired that people were going into the kitchen and knocking out some fantastic home-baked goods after reading about it on a blog, here is the recipe for the tasty coconut macaroons that I made for last nights party that seemed to go down well (again, courtesy of my second favourite domestic goddess, Nigella.)

2 large egg whites
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
100g caster sugar
30g ground almonds
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 170°C/gas mark 3.

Beat the egg whites until just frothy and add the cream of tartar. Beat until soft peaks are formed then add the caster sugar a teaspoon at a time until it’s finished. This is extremely good endurance training for your forearms – it takes ages.

Fold in the almonds, salt, vanilla and coconut. Shape into 8-10 wee domes, pop them on a lined baking sheet; stick them in the oven for about 20 minutes until they are turning golden brown, cool on a wire rack and hey presto! Yummy coconut macaroons.

And in case you were wondering, Mr MacLeod is my most favourite domestic goddess.

Fort William wall opening night

Last night saw the official opening of Alan Kimber’s new bouldering wall at Calluna, Fort William. For the past couple of months, Dave has been setting all the problems on the wall, built by Scott Muir. I even had a shot myself of setting some problems but we don’t have a telly at Chez MacLeod and the lure of the flat screen in the kitchen of the wall was too great most nights and ended up watching Taggart/Eastenders/Bear Grylls para-motoring about the place instead of unpacking holds.

Insert your own comedy caption in the comments!

Tom utilising his visualisation techniques.

The motley crew that made it happen - Scott, Alan and Dave.
Visualising a full brass band?

The entire Extreme Dream team came over from Aviemore for the opening and I’m amazed to say we staggered home at half twelve and most of them were still bouldering strong. That’s keen.

It’s great that there is finally a decent wall in Fort William itself and I’m pretty sure that there is going to be a brilliant scene there.