Mango Tango

Mango is no doubt one of my favourite tropical fruit.

The juicy sweetness of its flesh just makes my mouth water every time I think of it.

I love it in ice cream and desserts just as much as on its own.

This is an Ice Cream I made,

it has mango pieces, canned pineapple pieces, unsalted pistachios and dried cranberries in an ice cream made with strawberry puree, whipping cream and sweetened condensed milk,

I love the sensation of every mouthful you get hit with different ingredients,

the fruit and nut combo always appeal to me.

Now dig in, shall we?

This cheesecake is delicious,

even if you think you can't make cheesecake,

you'll have to try this.

It's not as hard as you think.

Recipe from here: Mango Nectar Cheesecake
Only change the fruit to whichever you fancy.
It was originally Apricot Nectar Cheesecake,
I also added mango pieces to the topping.

See the little guys standing up with a letter pegged to them with a mini peg?
They are cute, aren't they?

I just love the idea of them standing around in front of every placesetting at the table to show the guests where their seats are.
I've been combining work with enjoying and eating, in this case Mango Cheesecake,

been twisting wires making these for placecards,

You can't see it clearly, but there's actually a little hook that I twisted for the letter card to sit on.
The top of the stand is like the shape of the top end of a shepherd's staff.

I think they are handy especially when different guests with different names come over,

I can just swap the letters over to suit the initial of their first name.

Or I could make up some name cards with their first name on,

or make the card white and the names black so they look more distinctive.

Now if you would excuse me,

I would like to go back to work......... and the yummy cheesecake and tea.

Have a fabulous weekend, won't you?

Today I'm linking up with My Romantic Home's Show and Tell Friday.

Anne Boelyn Roses

There are lots of flowers on the Anne Boelyn bush in my garden at the moment,

so I gathered some and had a bunch of fun with them.Anne Boelyn is a David Austin (English) Rose which is said to have only a mild scent compared to most other English Roses which are much stronger in scent.

But for some reason their scent really stood out to me today,

which I totally welcomed.

I placed the pitcher with these Anne Boelyn roses on my bedside table.

Ahhh! There's a lovely tea-rosy scent wafting in the room. Simply heavenly!

From here you can also see my monogram-painted pillow which I did a while ago,

I guess for me painting the letters is much easier than stitching them,

so that was exactly what I did with a fabric paint in grey;

since I also had spare linen and white fabric and pillow inserts lying around.I hope you are having a wonderful day,

have a lovely Tuesday, my dear friends.

BIG HELLO to everyone and Happy Valentine's Day!

Hiya! How are you all?

Happy Valentine's Day to you.

Just wanted to wish you a very lovely and memorable day,

Apart from the beautifully wrapped chocolate hearts I gave them this morning,

I also baked some special treats for my dearest hubby and family,

I think it's a wonderful way to express my love for them.

May your day be absolutely blessed!

Preparing for Christmas

Hi, everyone, I'd been busy preparing to host a cookie swap at my humble abode; and now I'm glad to say that we had a wonderful time together, we played some games as well and had such good fun and laughs. The Christmas season is very busy for us, but there is definitely an atmosphere of excitement building as Christmas gets closer and closer. Enjoy your preparation process friends. 

Baking French Morsels

I've been enjoying baking French morsels lately, French Macarons and Madeleines in particular. They are really scrumptious treats indeed; I have to stop myself from eating too much of them. Have you tried to bake those? Do you like them? I found the process of making the macarons a bit more time-consuming and finicky and they are rather sweet to eat, they were supposed to be pink (strawberry flavour), but I didn't add enough pink food colouring ( I must've been too well conditioned not to have food colouring in food) to make them turn out pink enough. Good thing is my kids still absolutely loved them whether they were pink or not. The Madeleines were simple and easy-peasy to make but disappeared extremely quickly as soon as they were out of the oven. If you asked me if I would bake them again, I would say I would. ( I would love to make Mint Green Macarons next time!)Thanks for coming by here, have a lovely weekend; Till next time.

Spring Garden Update

I have finally organised my recent Spring garden pictures and here are a portion that I compiled for you to see. So let's go for a stroll in the garden, shall we? I'll let the pictures take the lead. So there you have it, the tour of my little garden, hope you didn't get bored. I have to say after staring at the mostly white and green of the climbers growing on the fence for the whole winter while the roses were pruned, I'm now quite glad to see colours everywhere when I look out the windows. Have a colourful week, everyone.

When Burlap Meets Roses

On a hot day, I like to cut some of the roses' blooms and bring them inside to enjoy, I figure it's better than them getting dried up out in the sun. However, before I brought these blooms in, I set them up for a little photo session outside, and these are some of the pictures for you my dear friends. I love the way the texture of the burlap shows in pictures, I think burlap looks great together with roses.I hope you are enjoying your week, I want to thank you lovely ladies who sent me very encouraging e-mails recently, I will reply to your requests and questions as soon as I can, you ladies are a wonderful bunch. I love hearing from you, thank you so much.  Roses used here are Jude the Obscure (yellow, peachy, David Austin), Jubilee Celebration (pink, David Austin) and Radio Times (pink, David Austin)