Baking

And then I panicked with the courgette (zucchini)

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Baking, British, comedy, Culture, food, Humor, Humour, Mellennial, Mental Health, Mermaid, Swindon, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , , ,

Hello, present-day Alice here. I found this post deep in my draft archives, 2021 deep. On one hand I have no idea why it never got posted, and on the other hand I have every idea.

While some things have changed since this was first drafted (notably the fact I was very much single in 2021), you’ll be pleased to know the cooking skills are still as horrific now as they were then. I did it then, and I have no doubt I’d do it all over again if given half the chance…and a courgette.

So, that in mind, enjoy. AEB

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You know how when someone says they’re a fat person in a skinny person’s body, you nod along? Well, I am that person, the one who doesn’t understand how she’s not yet stuck in a doorway.

I honestly think the only reason I’m still a healthy weight is be because I’m a slave in the Matrix, and the aliens are milking me for battery juice. (It’s a normal thought process to have, right?)

Take this evening and my portion control when it comes to this mass-produced Quorn Spaghetti Bolognese:

(FYI, not a vegetarian, just trying to do my bit for the planet…and stop Paul McCartney coming after me.)

And yes, there are also frozen vegetables in there, but let’s not dwell on the lengths I go to to ‘stodge-out’ a meal.

The thing is, it was a perfectly normal* (*Alice’s version of normal) meal. But then I had this courgette. And the courgette was on the turn (it was a little bit squidgy), but it was something Mumma B had given to me, so I was determined to not let it go to waste. But the mince-stuff was already cooked and rapidly burning.

Basically, I panicked.

I hurry-sliced the courgette, coated it in black pepper, drowned it in olive oil and then threw it in the oven. I don’t know why, I just did. And even as I type this, I am very much aware this is an Alice-world problem.

Anyway, about ten minutes later (Married at First Sight was on and I may have got distracted), I retrieved the cooked-baked mush that was once a courgette and dolloped it onto my dinner plate. By now the pasta was stodgy and the mince mostly burnt on the bottom of the pan. To add to this, I didn’t quite feel satisfied that the first picture illustrated the large portion of food I had on my plate. So what did I do?

Yes, that’s right, I compared it to the size of a teabag.

This, this is what I do for content. Jeeze.

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What is going on with Jus-Rol’s cinnamon swirls?

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Baking, British, comedy, food, Humor, Humour, Review, Uncategorized , , , , , ,

After battling a mouthful of disappointment, I just wanted to highlight how much of a travesty Jus-Rol‘s cinnamon swirls rebrand is.

In the simplest of terms, it’s awful.

For those less aware of its previous incarnations, Jus-Rol’s cinnamon swirls is a ready-to-bake product. What it offers to the market is something straightforward and quick, providing the same results of freshy made pastry, without the time and stress needed to make a batch from scratch.

To quote Jus-Rol’s website:

“Jus-Rol’s ready to bake Cinnamon Swirls are a perfectly easy way to bake your family a tasty morning treat at home. Just shape, bake and enjoy warm from the oven. The aroma will fill your kitchen with joy as they bake up.”

https://www.jusrol.co.uk/products/cinnamon-swirls

Making Jus-Rol cinnamon swirls was easy. You took it out of the tube, split the cylinder of pre-filled pastry into six and then whacked it into the oven, cooking for a defined period of time and icing once cooled.

Now the process is several steps longer and ten times worse. Instead of one pot for icing sugar, now you get two, one for the icing sugar and one for the “cinnamon filling” which looks more like chocolate spread and smells of nothing.

Even if we park the creation of needless plastic packaging, it is hard to overlook the messy complexity created by the introduction this modest little pot. Once the filling is smeared across a flat rectangle of raw pastry, the consumer then has to roll the pastry and only then cutting it into six.

Thanks to this step, the cinnamon goes absolutely everywhere. Some pieces were left drowning in brown paste, others with barely a scrap inside. Some swirls were trying to uncurl and others kept oozing.

Turns out whacking them into the oven doesn’t help much either. Cast your mind back to the picture on the Jus-Rol box and compare it to what we got.

While we can all laugh at mis-shaped pastries, it doesn’t compare to how they used to look with the old recipe.

Turns out I’m not the only one disappointed by Jus-Rol’s change in manufacturing. With an average rating of 1.1 at the time of writing, Tesco’s customers are less than impressed.

And the feedback on Jul-Rol’s Facebook page is comical.

Here’s hoping Jus-Rol listen to this feedback on and tossing aside whichever team of dingbats thought it was a good idea to implement cost-cutting, planet harming, changes to a classic.

Have you also experienced this frustration? Drop a comment below and/or contact Jus-Rol’s customer service team via their website, Jus-Rol (jusrol.co.uk)

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Alice Takes on the Pudding Van

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Baking, British, comedy, Coronavirus, Culture, Event, Everyday Occurances, food, House, Humor, Humour, Mellennial, Mermaid, Nonfiction, Prompt, Social Media, sophistication, Swindon, Uncategorized, Wheelie Bins, Work, Young Professional , , , ,

Someone abandoned their catering van on my housing estate. And I was not happy.

Look at it! It’s massive!

Naturally, I applied a very level-headed attitude to this. That’s right, I sent a ranty email to estate management. It went something like this:

WHY IS THERE A MASSIVE CATERING VAN PARKED IN A VISITOR SPACE? I’VE CHECKED THE REGISTRATION PLATE (“XXX XXX” for your reference) AND IT’S NOT TAXED OR INSURED. IT’S UGLY AND CLEARLY BEEN ABANDONNED. I PAY MY MANAGEMENT FEES, SORT IT OUT!

(The caps are a reflection of the shouty voice in my head…I may have also left the last bit out.)

Estate management responded, saying thay they’d located the vehicle’s owner and told them to move it within the next 48 hours.

48 hours came and went, the van unmoved.

I wish I could say I became tolerant of the pudding van’s presence, but when you’re facing onto something like that every time you go to make a cup of tea, it’s very hard to let go. (Plus, you know, me.)

Whilst waiting for the owners to be chased up again, I did a little investigation of myself. By in investigation, I meant be super nosey.

There weren’t any company details on the van and the only online presence seemed to take me back to a deactivated Facebook page, from when it operated out of Pershore some 56 miles away.

Instead of hard, concrete information, I had to deal with statements like this:

It reads: “Feeling stressed? Stressed backwards is desserts”

I don’t know what bothered me most; the font, the words or the fact that it’s annoyingly true. Everything about it grated on me more than the sugary sweetness of the food it claimed to provide.

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Update: I drafted this post in September 2021, however in June 2022 the van disappeared altogether. I assumed it was at local festival but it never came back and I haven’t seen the van since. No idea what has happened but the problem of the Pudding Van seems to have sorted itself!

I’m totally putting it down to my ability to moan, that or my top-notch judgemental stares out the window.

(And as for why I’m not posting this until now…well, I forgot I’d written it.)

**

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Alice’s Signature “Three Ingredient” Cooking (Alias “Stodge Dinner”)

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Baking, British, comedy, Coronavirus, Europe, Event, food, House, Humor, Humour, London, Mellennial, Mermaid, Social Media, sophistication, Swindon, Uncategorized, Work, Young Professional , , , ,

A couple of videos that showcase just the level of my culinary abilities. I’d caveat it with something like, “it had been a long day in the office and/or it was 23:00 in the evening”, but it wasn’t. It was 19:00 and it was me, being me.

Part One – Preparation and Cooking

Part Two – Finishing Touches and the Taste Test

Oh, and here is the pastry I mentioned in the video, the free one.

I think it was a citrus tart. It tasted of lemons. It was going out of date that day, so someone came up to me and asked if I wanted it. Five days after said expiry date, I ate it (because that’s the kind of classy girl I am).

So, who wants to hire me as their private chef?

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Deleted MHAM Posts From the Cutting Room Floor

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) adult, alcohol, America, Baking, Birthday, Book, Book Review, British, clothes, Coffee, comedy, Coronavirus, Cotswolds, Culture, Europe, Event, family, fashion, Finance, food, Friends, Garden, House, How To, Humor, Humour, job, London, Mellennial, Mental Health, Mermaid, Nonfiction, Prompt, Review, Social Media, Swindon, Television, Uncategorized, Work, Young Professional , , , , ,

Some of the photos and posts that I wanted to write for My Housemate’s a Mermaid, but didn’t quite have enough material (pictorial and verbal) to fill.

Deleted MHAM Posts From the Cutting Room Floor

  1. The time how, at the start of the pandemic, Mumma B spent hours cutting squares of old fabric to make laundry bags for NHS key workers

2. When I stayed up so late that I ended up watching a much younger Nicky Campbell presenting a Top of the Pops episode from 1990

Some people had more fun than others.

I continued to watch it, even when this was played from the UK top twenty for the week.

3. How very surreal my office was when I went back to empty my locker

4. My sister’s attempts with one of those packet face masks from South Korea

It ripped off a load of skin, but not a lot else.

5. Squeak, the cat, being rebellious

6. The time I saw my old/favourite History lecturer from University on the BBC and I absolutely lost my cool

I mean, WITH LUCY WORSLEY!!

7. The time I found this in a shop and it perked up my mood

(But not enough that I bought it.)

8. The generous gin measures down the local pub

9. The generous measures of lunch portions while living with family

10. The thinking behind this at the Travel Lodge Hotel in York

It was in the foyer for several days…

11. A post detailing the contents of my bookshelf

12. Everything about this account that started following me on Twitter

How did it take you to spot that’s a semi naked woman?

13. A post on me rekindling my creative mojo during the pandemic

14. The importance of good friends who call-out when you have really bad body odour

15. The ‘what the fudge-ness’ of this targeted advert

Yes, I did tap the link and yes, I am still getting adverts for werewolf fan-fiction as a result.

16. Lockdown birthdays

17. The large number of self-published books with Covid themes

18. The other strange things being self-published

Although I am still a bit in love with the title of this book.

19. My attempts to have a massive clear-out

…which were ultimately foiled by a mixture of procrastination / charity shops being closed / Bubble the cat.

So there you go, a snippet of how much gets filtered before making it onto this website. What can I say? You get what you pay for.

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UK Christmas TV Adverts 2020

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) adult, alcohol, Baking, British, Charity, Children, Christmas, clothes, comedy, Culture, Europe, Event, family, food, Friends, Holiday, Humor, Humour, London, love, Mellennial, Mental Health, Mermaid, New Year, Nonfiction, Poem, Prompt, Religion, Social Media, Technology, Television, Uncategorized, Xmas, Young Professional , , , , , , , ,

This post has been sparked off my Mumma B, who only the other day asked me about this year’s John Lewis Christmas advert.

The thing is, she comments about the lack of visibility, but at the same time records everything on her YouView box purposely to skip all the adverts. You see the dilemma here?

Basically I’m posting all the Christmas adverts for the main UK players so that my mum can see them in one place (and once only).

I’ll add to the list as and when any additional companies release theirs (please do also poke me with a metaphorical stick in the comments). Otherwise lets get to it! In no particular order…

UK Christmas TV Adverts (2020)

John Lewis / Waitrose Supermarket

Aldi Supermarket

Lidl Supermarket

Walkers Crisps

McDonald’s

TK Maxx

Argos

Barbour

Very.co.uk

Amazon

Tesco Supermarket

Asda Supermarket

Morrisons Supermarket

Sainsburys Supermarket

Boots

Lego

Dreamies Cat Treats

M&S Food

Disney

Coca-Cola

JD

Ralph Lauren

(Disclaimer: All videos above have been lifted from YouTube via the URL. I don’t own any part of these videos.)

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The Battle of Cakegate

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) adult, Baking, British, Coffee, comedy, Cotswolds, Culture, Event, family, food, House, Humor, Humour, Mellennial, Mermaid, News, Nonfiction, Swindon, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , ,

Mumma B made a coffee and walnut (but not walnut because she only had almonds) cake the other week. It was lovely.

However, very quickly battle lines were drawn when my sister, also in lockdown with us, questioned the fairness of the portion sizes. See some people in the family tend to favour the little and often approach, others the massive slab at a time. Papa Bennett is also a fan of the unheard of fad of ‘breakfast cake’ (still waiting on the proof that coffee cake is a fair substitube to the morning drink).

India, being young and thereby somewhat left of centre, proposed that a system was drawn up and rapidly used the Spode cake cutter (#MiddleClassProblems) to mark out portions on the cake. Putting to one side how badly drawn and unequal these lines were, I was happy to go along with it.

“But how will we know who has eaten what?” Mumma B cried out loud. I just shrugged, Dragon’s Den was on TV and I love that show.

So while I was half-hearted watching a television rerun Mumma B was out planning how to resolve the biggest catering crisis since home bakers having to buy substitute flour during lockdown.

I walked into the kitchen to discover my dear mother had been at it again with the cocktail sticks and PostIt notes.

Oh yeah, AND it was done through the clingfilm, making it a Middleclass nightmare to even gain access to said cake!

Funny thing is, it didn’t even stop people. It’s like the time Papa B was eating a magnum ice cream and only afterwards saw the wrapper had been labelled with a large white sticker saying ALICE. I learnt a lot about our parent/daughter relationship that day…

Anyway, people still ate cake regardless of the little flags, BUT no one complained this time. Who knows, maybe this approach could be here to stay. The battle of cakegate could be the Bennett family’s new normal.

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More Than Just a Sandwich

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) adult, Baking, British, Charity, Culture, Europe, News, newspaper, Nonfiction, Swindon, Uncategorized, Work, Young Professional , , , ,

Recently myself and a small team have been working closely with a local charity in Swindon (Wiltshire, UK). The Sandwich People (headed by The Salvation Army) are a small catering enterprise that help those experiencing hardship retrain and get themselves back on track.

Having recently spent time volunteering with these guys (hence the classic local paper pose) I can vouch that everyone from the management to those producing and selling really do put their all into what they do.

Click this link to read the official article: ‘The Sandwich People’ a scheme to help homeless people

To find out more about how to buy (and thereby support) this great team visit their website The Sandwich People
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Girl Gotta Read

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) adult, Art, Baking, Book, British, comedy, Cotswolds, Culture, Europe, Friends, House, Humor, Humour, Novel, sophistication, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , , ,

Here’s a newsflash…I like books.

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I once read somewhere that book lovers never go to bed alone and well I’m that. I read books in pretty much every stereotypical place, including in bed and I’ve woken up with a book is on the pillow on more than one occasion (‘oh God, 50 Shades of Grey, we didn’t…?’) But at the same time another reason why I never go to bed alone is because my room is packed full of books. It’s only now when I’m (tying) to have a clear out that I’m beginning to realise quite how many feature in my life. Call it a bit of soul searching, because I don’t care if you’re Mr Rockefeller or if you saved fifty refugees from a burning missionary school, if you don’t have time for literature then this ain’t gonna work out.

Think I’m being a bit over the top? Well here are all the types/places I keep my books. Bear in mind as well that these are just the ones in my bedroom.

 

Alice’s Books

I have a pile of unread books…

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…And a pile of recently read books

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(Before you ask I do a little bit of yoga which subsequently means I’m now super flexible. I used to do more but I have reason to believe it contributed to stuffing up my knee eighteen months ago but that’s a story for another day.)

I store books on my window shelves which is great because it means I don’t need to open/close my Venetian blinds when I get up every morning (I call them my ‘modesty books’)

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(That’s right, I own four Blue Peter badges but that’s a story for another day.)

I have intellectual reads

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I possess old book buyer catalogues (in case I ever needed more coffee table material)

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I own a box of old books

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I have books on the waitlist for more permanent accommodation

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I also have a few Alice books (aka photo albums) with glossy memories I value more than pixels. One of the best friend presents I ever got was the album titled ’21 Things I Love About Alice Bennett’ (left).

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And do not get me started on notebooks

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Good news though, I’ve recently purchased an oak bookcase so now I can purchase and store even more books! (I kid, I really need to clear a lot of these out and move the rest to the book case – except my modesty books.)

Looking to take my conversation engagement from 0 to 60? Give me a book and tell me why my life is poorer without it.

50 things to do instead of watching The Great British Bake Off

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) adult, Baking, British, chocolate, comedy, Culture, Humor, Humour, London, Nonfiction, Review, Social Media, sophistication, Swindon, Television, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , , ,

Recent article written for The National Student (a shortened version of the 100 point list I did last year):

50 things to do instead of watching The Great British Bake Off

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