The Skint Vegans do Comic Relief

Ah yes, us Brits and our love of a good charity telethon. Mind you, they're nowhere near as prevalent as they were in the late 80s (ITV Telethon, anyone?). So today - Friday 13th March, 2009 - is Comic Relief Day, or 'Red Nose Day' as it's more commonly known. This involves buying cheap-ass, perishable red noses for a pound a pop by the bucketload, doing 'wacky' and 'funny' things to raise money for charidee, and watching the nation's finest comic talent hawk their butts off during an allnight extravaganza on BBC1 this evening. To be fair, the Brits love Comic Relief because it's ours, all ours, and makes us feel good about watching telly - its a non-stop hit parade of comedy and all we have to do is make a quick phonecall towards the end of the night to bung 'em some money on the credit card and everyone's happy!
So, requisite red noses donned, McGonnagle made sure to dress wacky in her pyjamas for her school's 'dress-down day' -

Then after school, we diluted some of that redness with a nice bowl of spicy spinach and kale soup with homemade chapatis from 'La Dolce Vegan'. So good - especially the caremalised onions you spoon into the soup just before serving - yummy!

But we couldn't finish the day without some more red noses, and as it's Friday, it can mean only one thing:

Cooking With Children Friday Part 3!
Strawberry-lingonberry cupcakes with red fondant noses.

This was a twist - again - on the VCTOW golden vanilla cuppers. I love that recipe, btw - so versatile!! I subbed 1 tsp strawberry essence for one of the tsps of vanilla, then when cupping-up, I put a spoon of lingonberry jam between the layers of batter. Twenty minutes later, these cupcakes were out of the oven and smelling great. The fun bit was yet to come as I let Princess Sparkles loose with the red fondant and pink glitter.

So for all my British friends, Happy Red Nose Day! Lets see how many comedy shows they can amalgate into one skit tonight! And to everyone else, Happy Friday - I hope we all have a good weekend!