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Hey there!

The Evans' are soooooooo excited about Halloween! We have a party planned where they have all invited a friend to join us. They all have new costumes. Cerys a blooded nurses costume and Ffion and Mari have a 'Joker' costume from Batman!

The order of the day tomorrow will be start baking, cooking and preparation at 1.30pm. Friends will join us at 3pm, so that they can also enjoy the fun cooking too.

So far, we have planned (as usual) a haunted graveyard cake, ghoulish marshmallow ghosts, witches scab soup, spiders web muffins, sqeamish squares with worms & chocolate orange spider jelly!!

We'll play party games at 4pm and go 'trick and treating' at 5pm! In all there should be at least 14 of us including Dot little ones. Yahoo! Downside, is the amount of sugar they will take on board tomorrow. At least it's only one day (two at most). I love Halloween though, so do the kids!!

The other positive side to Halloween are Pumpkins. Having carved 3 (one each), I was left with lots of flesh...so today we enjoyed a simple soup, which is enclosed for you to try!

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 onions , finely chopped
• 1kg pumpkins peeled, deseeded and chopped into chunks
• 700ml vegetable stock
• Spoonful of Creme fresh

Method:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, then gently cook the onions for 5 mins, until soft but not coloured. Add the pumpkin to the pan, then carry on cooking for 8-10 mins, stirring occasionally until it starts to soften and turn golden.
2. While the soup is cooking, oven bake part baked baquettes for 10-12 minutes.
3. Pour the stock into the pan. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 mins until the pumpkin is very soft. Purée with a hand blender and then add the Creme fresh and stir in.
4. Serve... voila!

Enjoy!

Happy Halloween!

Joe

Hey there!

As the title says, apologies for the absence (although I did manage to squeeze in an amazing ice cream receipe for you in September) ...its been crazy!

The fact is, is that I have been working flat out on my internet marketing web site (www.joefizz.com) putting in a brand new membership site, which will be filled with great content and excellent affiliate commissions forever!

Very little else has happened (no time) except a marvellous treat for me on top of Pen y Fan (South Wales' highest mountain) with my beautiful girls... my 42nd birthday!  Chocolate cake courtesy of my little babies!

Thank you very much for the fab memory and great chocolate cake c/w amazing decoration!

Not enough room for all candles....erm...

42 is not old....

I'll be back in a week or so with some great info for you.

Until then, take care all,

Joe

Hi all,

As the Blackberry season is coming to and end, I thought I'd remind you to make an effort to gather them before it is too late. Why? 2 puddings, which are world class:

1. Blackberry pie (ooh), fresh from the oven!

2. Blackberry ice cream.

Here's receipe we follow. Enjoy!

Serves 8 - Ready in 20 minutes plus freezing

1. Put the blackberries and the apple juice in a small pan, bring to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes. Add the sugar, heat gently until dissolved, then bring to the boil and simmer gently for 3-4 minutes to thicken the syrup a little. Cool, then scoop out 3 tbsp of the blackberries and keep to one side. Purée the rest of the berries and the syrup with a hand blender and rub through a sieve to get rid of the pips.
2. Beat the double cream to soft peaks, then pour in the condensed milk and vanilla extract and whisk again to soft peaks. Pour the mixture into a freezer-proof box, and drizzle over half of the blackberry purée. With a rubber spatula or large spoon, stir the mixture once in a figure-of-eight, just to ripple the purée through. Cover with a lid and freeze for at least 3 hours.
3. To serve, mix the rest of the purée with the saved blackberries. Scoop the ice cream into bowls and spoon over the purée.

Here's one I made earlier!

Hope you enjoy it as much was we do!! In fact any fruit will do!!

Homemade Blackberry Ice cream!

Hi there everyone!

Wow... that's all I can say! Have been flat out on life really... I am also in the middle of creating a membership site on my Internet Marketing site (www.joefizz.com), so it's pretty mad!!

Suffice to say that the summer holidays were fab. Despite having really poor weather most days, we managed to do loads of superb things like:

• Walking in the rain through woods.
• BBQ 'ing at home (prepared all of our own food)
• Lots of cooking, including brownies, sweet potato soup, courgette chutney (ooh) and a new ice cream fruit filler, which is delicious....Pineapple!
• Museum visits
• Craft mornings
• Castle visits
• Walks along the Glamorgan canal (very famous)
• Toy Story 3 in 3D.
• New hairstyles for the girls...even Mari, who is a tom boy!!
• DVD afternoon (Uncle Buck...how I miss John Candy)
• Beach BBQ with own burgers and pasta salad made by Ffion (9)

We essentially created a timetable for the 2 weeks and moved things around as the weather allowed us. Looking back, in was absolutely great! I am so lucky! I loved spending time with the babas, who are 12, 9 & 6!

Finally, feedback on the book is excellent & sales are progressing! My next job is to monetise the membership site. So, if you want life to be a little less stressed and more involved with your children, then the $27 fee is very modest indeed!!

In fact, the first 7 days is free, so you have nothing to lose! Want ideas for a memorable September? Get it in there!

I look forward to seeing you.

best wishes

Joe

Hey there!

Just coming up to 5pm here in the UK and am shooting out to a meeting, but before I went, I thought I'd mention some exciting news on my brand new membership site, which is now live.

For just $77 per month, I will help and guide you to be a better parent. From feeding your children nutritious food (no rubbish here) through to planning an activity...it's all there.

So, for the equivalent price of a cup of coffee per day, you can be assured of great content, which is regularly updated.

Why not try it? First 7 days is free... enough said! Click here...

Hey everybody,

I have been having a great couple of days here in Wales... things have just gone right ...for once.

It was no surprise therefore to receive the final proof in the mail today, so I quickly checked the amendments. They were done. I felt a great elation and let out my regulation "yessss"!

Within half an hour, I had written an email to my business colleagues to let them know the great news, Twittered & Facebooked its release. The messages back were lovely.

So it's now available to buy through Amazon by following the link on the book.

My next task will be to work my strategy that I have created for its sale.

Talking about strategy, I have been working flat out on my NEW Membership site launching very, very soon...watch this space.

To our success,

Joe

Hi there y'all!

Proof is here... I will be spending tonight checking it out and making sure that it's all ok. Initial thoughts are ...wow!

Watch this space...

Joe