Food: Quick and Easy 2-Potato Bake
Disclaimer:
Not Recommended for:
Lactose Intolerant People, Celebrities Who Shun Carbs, Models etc.
Highly Recommended for:
People who like to eat their body weight in carbohydrates, with added grilled cheese toppings
Easy 2 Potato Bake
(Caters for Family of 4 – Adjust as necessary for larger gatherings…bake the carbs, and they will come)
You will need:
- 4-5 Medium/Large Potatoes
- 1-2 White Sweet Potatoes
- 1 Small Onion diced
- 1/2 Cup Chicken Stock
- 1 tsp crushed garlic
- Salt and Pepper
- 2 Cups of Grated cheddar
- Parmesan (to sprinkle – optional)
Pre-Heat your oven to 180deg centigrade
Peel potatoes and sweet potatoes and allow to stand in a bowl of water (so they don’t discolour) while you ready your oven dish.
Slice potatoes and sweet potatoes and layer them in any fashion in a shallow oven proof dish, whilst pausing to sprinkle diced onion in between.
Add your tsp of crushed garlic to your 1/2 cup of chicken stock, and pour over the assembled potatoes.
Season with salt and pepper as per your desired tastes.
Use your two cups of grated cheddar to sprinkle over the top, and add parmesan cheese if you’ve remembered to buy it, and could find some under a gazillion dollars in the shops.
Bake in your (did you remember to pre-heat the oven?) oven at 180 deg centrigrade for 40 mins until golden brown.
Hmmm, smell your yummy kitchen? Have the family gathered in anticipation yet?
Take a closer look, the onions should just be crispy, the potatoes will be soft, and you will have quickly and easily created the perfect accompaniment to any barbeque, braai or dinner.
If you have a house full of boys (as do I) then feel free to serve them this by itself. It has protein (the cheese and chicken stock), and 2 different kinds of vegetables (well potatoes and sweet potatoes are vegetables right?) and starch. I’d never claim that this dish is actually well balanced, or even healthy, but it’s definitely tasty enough to be requested more than once by hungry males.
read moreBeauty Product Buy: L’Oreal Eye Contour Cream with Pro-Xylane
The Editor of NessWorld donned the hat of Health and Beauty Editor for the day and went shopping.
Her mission: To acquire new eye cream, that would defy countless sleepless nights and rapidly advancing age. To disperse multiple bags and dark circles from too many nights hunched over the computer instead of sleeping.
So basically miracle cream.
She came back with this…
Then dispensing with the third person whilst compiling her review, I decided to share my experience of L’Oreal Derma Genesis Eye Contouring Cream 
I see in America, they’re calling it ‘Skin Genesis‘. Must be because they don’t speak Latin like the rest of the world. Hah.
I am assured by spokespersons (spokespeople? I can’t afford to hire a copy editor yet, so you’ll have to forgive me any major grammatical blunders – sorry Mrs Crutchley!) such as Eva Longoria, and other very boring, and in fact merely average looking American women such as Scarlett Johansson, that simply applying this to the contours of my eyes will instantly lift and tone this area, as well as diminishing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, with use over time.
How much time exactly, is probably dependent on how much money one has because, after forking out ZAR159.00 for the tiniest pot of cream known to humankind (but it’s pure magic, so surely I won’t need a lot?) I’m going to need a whole different set of creams for tending to the new crease on my forehead thanks to worrying about the cost of maintaining my new Scarlett Johansson look.
This will of course be the line of defense that I use with my husband…and of course, because I’m worth it.
On a realistic note, after the first application, I experienced a very pleasant tingling sensation in my eye contour area, and even though I’m operating today, on about 3 hours of sleep, it certainly FEELS as though my eyes look as good as Scarlett’s.
read moreTravel to Hogsmeade!
Do you remember reading your first Harry Potter book?
Let’s face it, most of us were adults already, when the books rose to global stardom. I sheepishly paid for my first copy (book 5 – yes, I was a bit slow on the uptake), thinking that the bookstore clerk was probably eyeballing me like I was some kind of oddity that liked reading childrens stories.
Hah! Less than one chapter in, and I was unashamedly a thorough Harry Potter dork and proud of it. I’d seen the first two movies, prior to reading book five, and hastily rectified this HUGE gap in my literary education, and quickly purchased books 3 & 4.
I’d have been in line to get book 6 as soon as the stores opened if not for a minor medical emergency which thwarted my attempts to lay my hands on the first available copy. When book 7 was due to come out, my husband was by this time suitably prepped with anything and everything that he would need to see to the care of our first born child, so that I could be left in peace to read my precious! So I could thumb through it’s hallowed pages, and be plunged once more into the dark, magical world, to gasp in fear and dare to hope when approaching the much anticipated climax of the story, lest I be dragged back to realistic consciousness and have to attend to trivialities such as feeding my family, or at worst, laundry.
So, it is with great happiness, childlike enthusiasm and fervor approaching cult levels that I anticipate the opening of this particular theme park in Orlando Florida, in the northern hemisphere spring of 2010 (that is April).
You will be able to purchase wands
I wonder if the Zonkos Joke shop planned for the park will include products such as Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, in case I need to make a quick escape from the hotel, in order to make a return visit?
At any rate, at least I know I’ll find next years Christmas gift
Cell Phones: The Blackberry Curve 8520
Imagine my excitement with my most recent upgrade, to learn that I was now eligible for a Blackberry!
Email Push technology! Saving me the additional keystroke energy usually required, to retrieve my email!
Free unlimited on-device browsing!
My Facebook friends could be suitably informed as to my up to the minute whereabouts, REALLY up to the minute!
With this technology, I would soon have more Twitter followers than Oprah !
I could catch up on work emails whilst on a school run! (That is, being parked outside the school, not whilst driving to it of course).
So I dispatched the husband to the local cell phone outlet to order my upgrade (universal suffrage is all very well, but men are still better at this sort of thing, than even the geekiest of women – I include myself in that category of course) ONLY to be told that the offer in question, was only valid for NEW subscribers to the network in question, NOT EXISTING CUSTOMERS…
Hmmpf.
Double hmmpf.
This is exactly why I *had* dispatched the husband to do the legwork in this case, because I knew that such trivialities would not soon put him off the scent of my elusive Blackberry upgrade.
I would probably have hung my head in disappointment and had my happy mood evaporate, and resign myself to the fact that now, not only did I not have an iPhone, and now, I could not get a Blackberry either AND that pesky new customers were still getting better treatment than existing ones…a concept in this country which never fails to baffle me.
My husband on the other hand took exactly three steps out of the mobile phone store in question, and placed a call from his cell phone directly to the upgrade department of our service provider, who informed him that the cell phone store in question was talking absolute TOSH, and that we were in fact entitled to said upgrades and that they could process everything on the phone, and would simply deliver our brand new Blackberries during the course of the coming week (it was a Saturday).
Hurray!!
An end to embarrassment when having to answer my NOT smartphone mobile phone was in sight!
Husband returned home to a heroes welcome of hot tea and freshly baked biscuits. (Well they were freshly baked at the factory a few weeks ago, so really, it’s of little consequence).
A few moments later, we received notification that our upgrades had been processed and approved. Hurray!
A few moments after that, we received notification that our handsets were on back order and that an sms/text message would be sent shortly with an update…
Triple Hmmpf!
Three days go by.
Another text message comes in to say that our handsets were still on back order…
A week goes by.
In geekish desperation I place a call to the upgrade centre who inform me in cheerful tones that a new shipment of Blackberry Curve 8520′s were due in the following morning, and that we would receive our sms confirmation just as soon as they were on their way to the courier ready for dispatch to us.
48 hrs go by, and we receive text messages saying that our handsets were on back order, and that we would receive a text message advising us of a delivery date.
In horror I thought that our little darlings had not been in the shipment in question, and I placed yet another call to the upgrade centre to let them know in NO uncertain terms that they were to appropriate two other (less desperate) customers phones, and ship them to us, but before I could begin my “I have been wronged by your company so hear my wrath before I put Carte Blanche on your backs” tirade, yet another cheerful upgrade employee (no idea what’s in their kool-aid, but I want some) assured me that our phones were in fact in the shipment, that had just left their premises for the courier and that we could expect to take delivery of our little darlings, no later than Friday.
The Friday in question dawned bright and clear and promptly at 11am the doorbell rang, I realised in horror, wrapped in a towel on my way to a leisurely bath, that when the doorbell went, that it was a case of a) go get my new phone half naked at the front gate, or b) wait even longer for phone. Then I remembered that it was in fact a long weekend, and my husband could get another opportunity to play the hero and simply fetch it for me.
Ahh, bliss!
Here are some of the awesome features of my new baby:
- 2.0MP Digital Camera
- Video Camera Capabilities
- Supports BlackBerry App World™
- 256MB Flash Memory
- Wi-Fi® enabled
- Bluetooth® enabled
- Multimedia Player
- Wireless Email
- Organizer
- Browser
- Phone
- SMS/MMS
Right now, both Vodacom and MTN are offering very similar packages for this awesome phone, and it’s the lowest price entry point if you are keen to upgrade to a smart phone and don’t want your cell phone bill to be the same as your bond repayment each month.
At the time of writing this it’s going for R149.00 a month including the Blackberry Data Bolt on, which gives you the unlimited on device browsing and email etc. Remember that you will be charged extra for Itemised Billing, Caller Line Identity and VAT. Though again, I’m at a loss to explain why you have to PAY to see your bill in full, because that, is yet another ridiculous thing that we have to deal with in this country.
But, at least I have my Blackberry!
What funny stories do you have to share about your mobile phone upgrade experiences?
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