Puff Pastry Pizza Pinwheels - a dairy free, baby led weaning recipe

Puff Pastry Pizza Pinwheels are such a quick and easy dairy free lunch for a weaning baby. Harry loves them - despite a streaming cold that's seen him off his food entirely he ate two today. Even I've managed a couple *cough*

Before any CMPA mummies panic - this isn't home made puff pastry (outside of the Bake Off tent who makes their own on a regular basis really? No need to wade in and tell me you do). Jus Rol is definitely dairy free - although as M will tell you I read the packet about 17 times and made him do the same. I haven't checked supermarket own brands yet, but will do.

Regular Violife in the block doesn't melt as such unless it's sandwiched between things - so these are ideal as the cheese melts nicely in the pinwheels. As you can see from the photos it doesn't melt on top in the same way. You can now get Vioife for pizzas that apparently does melt, but nowhere near me seems to stock it.

Obviously you can use any flavourings you like for this - I was using up some leftover pasta sauce that I'd got out of the freezer and forgotten to use so blended it smooth before spreading it over.

Puff Pastry Pizza Pinwheels - dairy free, soya free, weaning recipe
Serves 15

1 sheet Jus Rol puff pastry
Tomato sauce - I used about 240ml of blended tomato and butternut squash pasta sauce
Violife block cheese - I used about an inch, grated
1 tsp dried oregano

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C
Roll the pastry out so it's about a third bigger than it comes out of the packet

Spread the pasta sauce over the top
Sprinkle with oregano
Cover liberally with grated Violife

Roll up the pastry into a sausage shape and cut slices at about an inch thick

Lay these out on a lined baking sheet and cover with more grated Violife
Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown

Meal Planning Monday: A bank holiday edition

Another week begins, and if you could see me, you would notice the undeniable signs that I'm starting to feel stressed about this iminitent arrival. I think it's this last stretch of balancing work, decorating, home, obsessive reading and list making that just don't fit into the available hours in the day.

Still, as with any time of anxiety I turn to my lists and plans to manage those feelings of panic. I mean, there's no way to convince a baby to just - stay put until we're properly ready - is there? What do you mean not a chance?

This week's meal plan is fairly straightforward if busy, we're at the Epilepsy centre on Tuesday, start NCT classes on Wednesday as well as Brownies on Thursday. 

Breakfasts: still home made yoghurt, granola and fruit.

Lunches: Salads with either feta and olives or halloumi.

Dinners:

Monday - Sausages in buns with salad and corn on the cob

Tuesday - Chicken and mushroom risotto

Wednesday - Homemade pizza with salad

Thursday -Chicken kiev, home made chips and peas

Friday - Can we have takeaway? Unless it's sunny in which case BBQ.

So that's us, another week on... what's your planning like when you need to eradicate nerves and anxiety?

Meal planning Monday

I'm afraid it's a bit of a dull week here in the Pantry. I've got a hospital appointment, 2 trips out with work as well as Brownies and with that it'll easily be the weekend before I know it. which is no bad thing, but it does mean that I've needed to be organised and meals are some of our go-to favourites that I can prep in my sleep (and may just do that).

In my bid to be organised I've already done the weekly shop - M has been dispatched to collect it and our meal plan is as follows.

Breakfasts - for the first time in years I'm all about the cereal. I'm trying to ensure I get enough milk at the moment, so it's no bad thing. I'm adding a banana to start my daily bid for my 5 a day too. Scarily I've entirely gone off tea as well as coffee now so it's fruit juice all the way.

Lunches - fairly dull this week - cuppa soup and a sandwich. This is mainly owing to the amount of around and about-ing I'm doing. I have some lentil dhaal in the freezer for when I'm working from home on Friday though.

Suppers:

Monday - Leftover roast chicken, stuffing, veggies and baked potatoes

Tuesday - Chicken and mushroom risotto

Wednesday - leftover risotto

Thursday - Pizza

Friday - Chicken kiev, sweet potato chips and peas/ sweetcorn

Saturday - as yet unplanned. Perhaps a chilli or a curry depending on how we're feeling.

Sunday - with that in mind probably leftover chilli or curry. 

As I said, not a thrilling week but in better news a relatively cheap one, full of reliable standbys.

What does your plan look like when you know you've got little time to prep?

Meal Planning Monday: the quickfire edition

Quickfire mainly because I'm writing this on the train using the blogger app in a hitherto unheard of fit of last-minute organisation as despite the meal plan being written on Friday, there's just been no time to sit and compose a post.

I'm going to do a couple of posts this week about making your food go further with Sainsburys, so on Saturday we treated ourselves to a brisket and pot roasted that to this recipe This has meant that we had leftovers with baked potatoes last night, and tonight and tomorrow there's cottage pie on the menu - taking a 2lb joint of brisket that cost £8 down to a cost per serving of 66p. Score!

Monday: Cottage pie with beans or kale

Tuesday: Leftover cottage pie with beans or kale

Wednesday: Pizza

Thursday: Pasta bake - loosely based on Pantry pasta with added mushrooms

Friday: Leftovers of pasta bake if possible, or similar from the freezer

Saturday: We're out for my Christmas present of a trip to see Book of Mormon so we'll be treating ourselves to something lovely while we're out and about.

Sunday: Roast chicken I think, mainly to set us up for another week of leftovers.

As I said, a bit of a whistlestop one from me today, but be sure to pop on by At Home with Mrs M and see what the people not doing this on a train are up to.

Meal Planning Monday: Better late than never

*scooting in, trying to remain unnoticed*

Well that didn't work did it? Sorry for the late post, but yesterday was M's birthday, and amongst other things we spent much of the day trying to sort the car out. Anyway, veg box is here - M is back to work, I am getting ready to go back to work and so meal planning is back at the fore.

Monday: Spaghetti carbonara (Nigella's recipe, but without the whole packet of spaghetti she reckons on.)

Tuesday: Was supposed to be risotto, but has ended up being a hot chocolate and 2 biscuits.

Wednesday: Risotto - using my bianco recipe, but adding chorizo and roasted butternut squash

Thursday: Sausages, corn on the cob and baked potatoes

Friday: We're hoping to catch Harry Potter, homemade pizza

Saturday: I'm at camp training all day, so right now I'm not sure... maybe Salmon and greens?

Sunday: I'm quite fancying Pasta Puttanesca, there's a Jamie Oliver recipe I like so I think I will whack a pot of that on.

Lunches are smoked salmon and cream cheese, or Greek salad.

Breakfasts for me are fruit.

Don't forget to pop over to At Home with Mrs M for more meal planning inspiration from all of this week's participants.

Meal Planning Monday: Or Tuesday even

Yes I know, I'm late. Yesterday was my first day back at work, and I came home and slept pretty much all evening, completely exhausted by the combination of commute and cognitive thinking. I knew what I wanted to blog put couldn't even string the words together so Mark could do it for me. As it was, I managed to make a meal, clean the kitchen, and shower in between a nap and going to bed. I didn't even watch Glee! I know!

Last week's Meal planning was really helpful, I'm finding thinking through the evening meals really helpful in actually making sure I eat (which if you were to see me, you would not imagine to be a problem, but because of my health tiredness can mean that I frequently opt for the toast, marmite and lots of biscuits option) and also means I don't need to think the shopping through as much.

This week, is a quiet week, as I've gone back to work I'm trying to make life easy on myself. Mark is with me most of the week so despite it being National Vegetarian week I will be cooking meat.

Monday: Sausages, baked butternut squash, sweet potato, carrots and spring greens

Tuesday: Courgetti spaghetti (recipe to be blogged this week, but it's a long term favourite)

Wednesday: Chicken, pepper and onion kebabs with salad

Thursday: (from the freezer) the final portion of chicken and mushroom risotto

Friday: Home made veggie pizza

Again I'm leaning towards the healthier end of the spectrum, with a bit of a treat on Friday. Packed lunches are mainly salad based with ham or cheese as my protein (just because that's what's in the fridge, I wasn't feeling very inventive when I pottered around Sainsbury's) I think as I'm going to be in on Friday night I'm going to do an online shop - I'm not sure between Sainsburys and Ocado, so any recommendations would be great. Then I can just go to the butcher's on Saturday morning.

This weekend we're not sure what we're up to, no volunteering, no organised activities, so I need to think about what we're cooking - I'll probably do a roast on Sunday or Monday, and depending on how I'm' feeling might get the griddle out and do steak on Saturday.

A pizza hut... a (homemade) pizza hut

*doing actions* I'm going to get so much spam from that title aren't I? Still, what can you do. Sometimes you just have to use certain lyrics, and it's a camp song after all.

Apologies for the dodgy lighting on that picture, and for the decidedly freeform pizza, clearly I decided to forgo traditional shapes and be unshackled by convention. Or something.

This week has been quiet, another trip to hospital to contend with, because of another blinding migraine. Thank goodness for scheduled posts I suppose. Providing my head and vision stay put for the next week or so, I'm going to be doing some work to the blog, changing tags and whatnot so it's a bit more organised. Or that's the plan anyway.

Anyway, tonight I was home alone as M had gone to visit his parents and I wanted to make pizza. There is some sad news to pass on. Mabel has, well, passed on. Which is sad. I have no idea what happened, I fed her with gluten free flour last week and she kind of exploded, so we had to split her between two containers, and now she is not leavening at all. This has meant the emergency purchase of some yeast, and begging tweets to Doughblogs and my friend Matt for a new leaven.

Anyway, pizza. It isn't something I cook or eat with any regularity - it's a bit 'bready' for me, and with the weight watching and all that's going on at the mo, is probably something I should be avoiding. All of that said, another 3 days of vomitting and nausea this week mean I'm not overly fussed if I can eat at all and keep food down. And, as I'm a bit of a fragile little flower at the mo I thought home made would be best.

Pizza base

500g strong bread/ 00 flour
1.5tsp dried yeast (small palmful of fresh)
1.5 tsp sugar
2 tblsp Olive Oil (I used extra virgin as I'm sure I can taste it)
1 tablespoon sea salt, crushed up in pestle and mortar
325 ml warm water
Fresh Rosemary, and dried oregano

Put your yeast, sugar, water and olive oil in a jug and stir. Leave for 5 minutes to activate
Put the flour and salt in a pile on a clean worktop, make a hole in the middle.
Snip your rosemary (I used about 3 stalks) over the flour and add a palmful of dried oregano
Pour in the yeasty liquid slowly (I do it in about 3 batches) mixing in the flour from the outside to the middle so it doesn't leak all over the side.
This is a recipe that requires a pinny by the way
When you've added all the liquid, pick up any remaining flour by kneading your dough over it until your side is relatively free from loose flour.
Knead for a good 10 minutes. I count this as exercise.
Put somewhere warm to prove for an hour
Knock back, split into 4 portions and roll/ press out into a pizza shape. My pizza shape is dodecahedron. Ish.
Leave for a good 20 minutes to rest, while you're doing this preheat your oven (and pizza stone if you have one) to really hot
Put dough on pizza stone
Put sauce and toppings on
Cook for 20 minutes or so
Eat in front of Come Dine with Me with fingers.
Avoid spilling on new sofa and cushions
I only managed half of one of these portions, but someone with a bit more appetite (and who hadn't eaten quite a few chocolate fingers whilst doing the housework) could probably manage more.

Easy peasy pizza.
Part 2 of this post, is for my friend Sarah and on pizza sauce. Hopefully, should be up in the next few days... (famous last words of course)

Who ordered pizza?

Oddly, pizza isn't something I usually make or buy, it just doesn't really feature on my 'things to eat and cook' radar. However, having read headlines in the last week or so, saying that people have a main repertoire of 9 dishes that they cook and eat on a regular basis, and looking at myself as someone who although they have more than 9, who does tend to rotate the same meals (at the moment lentil ragu, butternut squash and chorizo, chilli, and chicken and mushroom risotto are featuring heavily) depending on the time of year. I thought I'd try and branch out over the coming weeks and months, trying things in either different ways or entirely new recipes. And tonight's pizza is the first of those for a couple of reasons.

I'm taking the Guides away for my licence holiday in a fortnight, and having had a very successful and yummy introduction to individual pizzas on my Guiders weekend away recently (thanks Brown Owl) I thought I'd use it as the basis for my Guides' Friday night tea. It's a meal they can customise, and that way no one has to face anything on their first night away that they don't like. Also I have buckets of leaven that I sort of hoped we could use for the bases.

So earlier this week I got Mabel out of the fridge at precisely the same point I got hit by a rotten virus that has left me feeling epically nauseous and not at all up for kneading a squishy leaven. As today dawned I suspected that I had killed her, but thought I'd go through the motions of making some bread to see if the routine activity helped me feel a bit better.

Surprisingly Mabel is more resilient than I would have expected, and survived my neglectfulness, and we have two loaves of bread in the kitchen.

I kept about a quarter of the dough Mabel yielded today to one side while I did the rest of the baking as I wanted to trial making a leaven pizza. A bit of googling hadn't turned much up so I decided to just make it up as I went along, using my imagination and some prompts from Dinner Diary's Quest for Perfect Pizza.

So I had taken the bread recipe up to the point on Doughblog's recipe where the dough would normally go in the tins. I kept a quarter back in the mixing bowl and covered it with cling film. And left it for 4 hours while I baked the rest of my bread.

During this time I cooked down a tin of tomatoes with 2 cloves of garlic, some salt and pepper, a pinch of sugar, some dried oregano and some halved cherry tomatoes I had left over from some muffin pizzas at Guides the other week. I reduced this for about 15 minutes on a slow bubble and then took it off the heat.

I then chopped up some mushrooms, opened a tin of anchovies, hauled some olives and salami out of the fridge and chopped up some mozzarella (top tip - if you're cooking with mozzarella then it isn't worth buying the top range products as in taste test when cooked people can't tell the difference between that and the mid range brands).

Jules of Domestic Goddess in Training had mentioned something about using semolina to make her bread not stick to the baking tray, so I thought I'd try that. But not having any semolina I made do with couscous. Epically fantastic results you'll be pleased to hear. Anyway, I stretched the pizza dough over the base of the tray trying not to tear it, and then topped that with the tomato sauce, and then my slightly eclectic selection of toppings. Cooked in the oven as hot as it would go for 20 minutes, the pizza absolutely rocked. It was fabulous, and I think will work nice and easily with the Guides. Although I think I'll take the dough up to the stretching stage beforehand as it's quite mucky and Guides don't need any help in making a mess.

Tuesday at Guides we're making Christmas cakes in baked bean tins (Lordhelpme) watch this space for a blogpost if the girls will stay out of the pictures!

My Junk is You! You! You!

Well 'My junk' is mainly baking and musical theatre as regular readers will testify. This weekend heralded the much longed for, slightly feared (in case it was ruined) first preview of the UK production of Spring Awakening.

As much as I was excited about Friday night's performance I was also insanely trepidatious about what it held in store, I have a lot of admiration, respect and love for the Original Broadway Cast of Spring and was loathed to believe, or even entertain the notion that they could be bettered. I was wrong, there was something that made the production feel like it had come home from the moment Charlotte Wakefield stepped on her chair in her chemise, to that final glorious a cappella crescendo in The Song of Purple Summer (don't look for it on the CD; it's an orchestration that was added after that was recorded. Yes I'm a nerd, judge me if you will). The Lyric Hammersmith is a theatre I've been fond of for many years, having fainted there during a performance when I was in the sixth form. Seriously though I love the fact that as a theatre it's not afraid to stage really cutting edge performances be they dance, physical theatre, comedy, or as we see here musicals. Spring Awakening held little by way of a surprise for me (although some new additions and changes were pure delight) but the cast were stunning, Aneurin Barnard is an intense and sorrowful Melchior, a steadfast friend to Moritz and a young man denied the joy of falling in love for the first time. I had the undeniable pleasure of seeing Richard Southgate the understudy for Moritz whose less desperate character made him undeniably sympathetic and gentle in his lost, angsty self. Charlotte Wakefield was for me a revelation as Wendla, because as much as I had always adored Melchior, Wendla had always seemed well, a bit wet and whiny for my taste. This young woman knew what she wanted and screamed back at Melchior, pushed him, dared him to hurt her, yet could only touch as a mother touches her child, stroking his tears away. Without knowing it her Wendla was already stepping into the maternal shoes she was destined for.

To talk about the three leads is not to deny the other characters their glory, Evelyn Hoskins should win awards for making the easily overlookable Thea spunky and full of life, when she grabs Anna's hands whilst rocking out to Totally F****d you see a woman full of life. Natasha Barnes and Hayley Gallivan as Anna and Martha respectively have stunning voices and (like their OBC counterparts) bring pathos and sensitivity to these girls. The most powerful line in the whole piece (to my mind at least) has always been...

"When I have children I'll let them be free, and they'll grow strong and tall"

...and Natasha as Anna gave those words their verity. Like the girls the boys showed the shades to their characters, Jamie Blackley and Harry McEntire stealing the vineyard scene with their bubbling passion.

For me the adults are so often overlooked, I think because of the audience that talks about, obsesses over, adulates this show the adults can seem one dimesional, as in part their portrayal by the same two people is intended to convey. It doesn't matter whether you are a teacher, a mother, father or doctor; the fact is that you hold power and the children don't. However the amount of skill and depth of ability to portray so many distinct characters with sometimes no more than walking around a chair to signify a change astounds me, and I have to say that Sian Thomas and Richard Cordery have that quite simply nailed.

I could enthuse for pages, but I shan't inflict that on those of you who couldn't give a fig about musical theatre in general and teenage angsty musicals in specific. I will move on to talking about pizza - along with Spring Awakening the yeast obsession continues...

The boyfriend and I made pizza this weekend, he made up the dough (apparently, and I quote "you need big strong arms"), quite simply from 00 flour, extra virgin olive oil, salt and some of our fresh yeast (yes snaps still going out to Sainsburys, 16p for our fresh yeast supply!) He kneaded the living daylights out of it while I had a much needed rest, and then once it had had an initial prove on the radiator, I knocked it back and rolled it out as thinly as humanly possible. You could practically see through it. We made three pizzas and topped them with a concentrated tomato sauce, mozzarella, olives, some hams and any other yumminess we could locate within the fridge.

Served simply with a glass of white wine each, they absolutely rocked. Now we never order takeaway, but if we did I would be swapping to home made now, these are definitely becoming Friday night dinner material. Easy to eat on our laps, in front of the telly, with a glass of wine while I try to talk him into going to see another musical and he expounds the virtues of guitar hero.

Now if anyone would like to buy me tickets to SA for my birthday that would be fabby ;-)

Give my regards to Broadway

No really do. I miss it. I miss New York... And please no one point out that I'm missing Hair in the park this summer, because I'm more than a little bitter about it. Oh and I have good reason to be bitter, having saved up to go on holiday in the autumn only for that to evaporate faster than... well something that evaporates very fast... and me to be left with the money, and TWO SLIPPED DISCS... no I'm not even going to pretend I'm happy and perky and gleeful about any of these facts. I'm bitter and nothing, NOTHING is going to change that. *And breathe* In fact so bitter that I'm actually pleased that Christopher Hanke is taking over from Jonathan Groff as Claude for the final two weeks, cause that's two weeks where I can be slightly less angsty. Although angsty does give me every reason to listen to Spring Awakening loudly and practice my belting (still not so good) but not my stomping (slipped discs are a bitch). Just in case any of you are scratching your head (you mean after all these months, you've resisted the urge to Google my dual crushes of Broadway shows and Jonathan Groff? Hmpfh! Philistines!)... here's what you're missing...

But, better late than never here is a quick photo diary of some of the places and foodstuffs we indulged in on our trip in May... Yes, I know it's August, but I've been busy, moving house, getting boyfriends, losing boyfriends, slipping discs.... the usual!

A highly scientific experiment was carried out as to which cupcakes were better: Buttercup or Magnolia? The jury returned with a unanimous verdict of *insert own drumming here* Buttercup! Yay!

So here we have the Magnolia, vanilla cupcake ... prettily iced
(but don't ask about accompanying, out of shot lemonade, there are people who still have flashbacks about that. Note to possible visitors to NY - lemonade doesn't always have sugar pre-added...)

Compare this, to the chocolate cupcake of goodness. The chocolate cupcake which I firmly believe should, like Nigella's chocolate chocolate chip cookies, be available on prescription for extreme bouts of PMT, mild depression, and work related stresses. To ensure the experiment was entirely scientific we did also eat vanilla Buttercup cupcakes. Possibly daily. Well, the bakery was around the corner from our hotel, it would have been rude not to patronise it regularly. Although somehow, I still managed to come away without the cupcake recipe book. So that's twice. Well done Pen...

We also took our lives in our hands, well not literally cause that may have meant we missed a show which quite frankly would have been a tragedy. And I mean that literally. We ate slices of pizza, more than once. And hotdogs from street vendors. Yes, we're that brave* I actually couldn't believe how the type of places I run (well, OK walk briskly) past in London, sold food that was clean and not just edible but tasty. Well apart from the slightly weird onions on one hotdog but we'll skip over that briefly. So yes, we can tick the boxes by 'Slice of pizza' and 'Hotdog from Street vendor'. (*readers may wish to replace brave with stupid, but it's your choice)


So what else had been on the list. Ooh I know! The Life cafe, the real one... We found it. We had such a good day at finding things. Complete and utter kudos to Lauren's map skills. And to NY cabs. We were so organised, we got to The Life Cafe before midday and were pretty much the first people ordering lunch. Sadly my photo of the AMAZING sweet potato chips didn't come out. But people should go, eat there and admire the wall of amazing Rent-ness. We did. We also tried to be subtle. And failed. More cold drinks were consumed. Here I would (if I could) add an ode to the amount of diet coke we drank. Seriously, the room was littered with bottles and bottles of the stuff (no word of a lie). Bottles which are considerably bigger than at home, and as such genius for those of us on the go.

On our last day *weeps* we made our way to Jamba Juice - well we had pretty much resisted fruit most of the week, so decided to get our intake in one fell swoop. Which we did. With amazing (huge) smoothies that were as we had been told (thanks Jess) more like meals. I think mine had pineapple and mango type things. It worked, they should expand to London.




A quick food break, to list the shows (and plays!) we saw... are you ready?

• Legally Blonde


• Rent


• In the Heights


• Sunday in the Park with George


• Spring Awakening: I saw this twice, once onstage, and once in the stalls


• Wicked


• Gypsy


• Port Authority (Play!)


• Xanadu


• The Country Wife (Play!)


• Curtains

A poster for the most 'perfect' piece of musical theatre EVER. No word of a lie. Ask Skylar Astin, he agrees. It's amazing the discussions you can have with people at stage door. There isn't one song or moment that doesn't progress the plot, and I actually got goosebumps at the Overture. Fact: more musicals should have proper overtures. Ask Seth Rudetsky... he knows!


I've run out of foodie pictures now, so a photo of the coolest theatre I have ever been in. Ever. Until this trip this prize went to 'The other place' at Stratford-upon-Avon. The name alone almost swung it, but the intimacy of the venue also won it extra points. This is The Atlantic Theatre where I saw Port Authority. It's Off-Broadway (apparently due to size, not location fact fans), and is a converted church. Well when I say converted, really just emptied of religious artefacts. It's still a church that's been made into a performance space. Utterly amazing. Port Authority is (well was it's closed now I'm afraid - had I done this post in a reasonable time I would have done huge plugging for this but as we know, circumstances, boys, houses discs... alas) also amazing, and for a three-hander with practically no set, one of the simplest yet most affecting and effective pieces of theatre I have seen in a long time. Bearing in mind last time I had seen John Gallagher Jnr he had been channelling a suicidal-rock-star come angsty-teen as Moritz, the transformation to slightly gawky young Irishman was astounding. Truly an actor to watch. This theatre is where Spring Awakening began its run and as much as I love it at the Eugene O'Neill, part of me will always wish I had seen it in this venue as I'm sure that the history and ambience of the space added something else to the whole performance.

Last foodie related post, I also helped out at a Girl Scout Cookie sale. I'm a Guider in the UK, and had contacted various Brownie troups in the NY area to see if I could come along and join in a meeting and this is what I ended up doing. Selling cookies with some lovely children and their families to raise money for some fantastic outings! (Photo used with permission)


Finally we have, what I know you've been waiting for with bated breath, barely able to contain your excitment at the prospect of the ubiquitous, but necessary:
'Fabulous Broadway actors pictures... '
Jonathan Groff *happy sigh, followed by bitterness at missing Hair*


Blake Bashoff who was playing Moritz on Broadway until this weekend just gone (now playing Moritz on tour I am reliably informed). I should just point out, this is what happens to my eyes when I'm slightly overawed... they become starey. I'm resigned to the unattractiveness of it, but until I learn to use photoshop and edit myself OUT of such horrendous shots.... you have to put up with it I'm afraid.


Now may I just take a moment to introduce you to the wonder that is Matt Doyle (and Lauren: travelling companion and the person who understands the necessities of diet coke, cupcakes, and Reese's more than anyone else. Seriously she had them ready when I landed. That's good planning!). Most importantly, note the matching hair, that doesn't just happen by chance. That's destiny. Seriously folks. He plays Hanschen in SA and is fabulous. If you like rock musicals then check out the new recording of Bare that he plays Peter in. His voice is stunning, and as with so many of the other talented members of this cast I will be following his future career. Not a photo of me, because I had the scary eyes again... clearly put me next to talented men and I become incapable of making normal eye contact. Maybe next time I should just take them my cupcakes, and avoid unecessary staring and chit chat... just feed them... it works with everyone else... I see no reason why Broadway actors would be exceptions.

OK, this has to be one of my lengthiest (least foodie orientated) blogs ever, and for that I apologise. But hopefully if my Broadway adventures bore you, you were forewarned fairly early on. And I'm not going back for a while. Ever possibly. Not that I'm bitter you understand. Nope. Not me. Not one bit. *wails*