The Ultimate Incentive to get debt free… again. Dinah & NIM go head to head!

Dinah93

This evening NIM realised he has a uni assignment due in 6 days... and it isn't started yet. Looks like the holiday finding is back in my court. The one he has found us looks great, but it's risen in price a lot this week, I'm going to sort it all out this weekend.

I was pleasantly impressed by how hard my brother has worked in the garden today, he's made a real difference. Need to get as much out of him as I can though as I get the impression once he comes back from holiday with the lads he won't want to do any more work!

poddle911

Dinah, I made the Guinness cupcakes yesterday - the cake was amazing, but had a total 'mare with the icing! Not sure if my cream cheese was just too runny (though it came straight out the fridge) or the quantities were mixed up on the recipe - 300g philly to 150g icing sugar plus cream?!

I had to start again using the recipe from Hummingbird but they were okay - and much appreciated - in the end!

Shame about NIM's assignment, when are you due to go on the mystery holiday?

Dinah93

Going 18th-20th April for 1 week. We've narrowed it down to two places, now we just need to actually book one before the prices rise too much!

Sorry about the quantities, I'll check it again. Cream cheese is a funny devil though, some brands are thicker than others, I know Tesco's own works very differently to philedephia.

Tete_en_l'Air

I had the same prob the other day Poddle - I could see what was happening so stopped after adding about 1/3 of the cream, and added about 400g icing sugar in the end, it came out quite stiff and spreadable though, if I'd followed the recipe it would have all ran off the edges!

EDIT - those are the right quantities for Nigella's recipe.

poddle911

Dinah93 wrote: »

Sorry about the quantities, I'll check it again. Cream cheese is a funny devil though, some brands are thicker than others, I know Tesco's own works very differently to philedephia.

Tete_en_l'Air wrote: »

I had the same prob the other day Poddle - I could see what was happening so stopped after adding about 1/3 of the cream, and added about 400g icing sugar in the end, it came out quite stiff and spreadable though, if I'd followed the recipe it would have all ran off the edges!

EDIT - those are the right quantities for Nigella's recipe.

I didn't mean to doubt you Dinah! It was just so wildly different to the Hummingbird, which has twice as much as sugar.

Tete, you're such a smarty pants It serves me right for trying to be all goddessy and ice them (with bleary eyes) before work! And also for being thrifty and not buying Philadelphia!

Wow Dinah, holiday is really soon - are you still thinking Ibiza?

Dinah93

Nope it shot out of our price range, we're looking at Majorca now. The hotel we want has 77% thumbs up on trip advisor, which is reasonable, but I need to find out the flight times as I think we're going to go from Edinburgh as it's by far the cheapest and it's only a £20 return train journey. My friend won't consider anything under 4* and it has to be all inclusive for 7 nights, and I won't look at anything under 65% positive on trip advisor after the Egypt disaster, but on her £250 budget thats quite a tall order!

Tete_en_l'Air

I used proper Philly, it was on 2 for 1!

Dinah you have to remember that people who have something to complain about are much more likely to go and post a review on a site than someone who's had a lovely holiday and come home with a tan and a smile - I take them with a big dose of salt. But then I'm not one of these people who "won't go under 4*" either - I see it as a place to sleep when you're not out enjoying your holiday.

Off to do a 25 min run now - woo!!

N.I.M

Thats what we did with egypt to our detriment.

Dinah93

Not at work today?

I'd happily go 3*, 2* usually don't have a pool which would be nice. I do put a lot of stock in trip advisor because I know our place in Egypt was noisy and dirty, and we only got about 4 hours sleep a night and I needed a holiday to get over it - I'd like to avoid repeating teh experience!

Birdie85

If anyone can find a holiday that checks all those boxes for £250 it's you Dinah! I think that if you're going AI it's quite important to go as high as you can star-wise too since you're going to be more or less stuck there!

Did anyone get fooled this morning? I did One of the young lads in the office put a notice on the office door saying 'Use other door' so I went back down stairs, outside, down to the other entrance, up the stairs, down the massively long corridor and when I sat down everyone was like, 'Errrr... you didn't actually fall for that did you?!'. Ooops!

Is Wendz about? Wonder how the last week at work has been!