Baboon Business

Many of you will be aware that we had the #IOWTweetUp this weekend with @TourGuideTed, @BooBooBearGreen, @MarthaBBear and @TabithaTeddy. Well my camera played up so I didn't get many pictures, but anyway I think TGT has shown pictures of what we did.  There was, however, baboon business (aka baboonery) and I did get some pictures of that!!

Many of you will have heard about Bob the Bolting Baboon.  Yes Bob is TGT's little baboon and he managed to get himself lost when he arrived.  We wondered whether he felt a bit surrounded by bears and wanted to find other baboons, but then why was he found in a bear shop!!  You got that one wrong Bob!!  Well anyway, Bob was found and our manperson retrieved him and brought him to the TweetUp.  TGT was very relieved.  Mini-Kolo didn't let him out of his sight until he could reunited him with TGT, who was very glad to see him.

In order to keep Bob in order, and maybe to make him feel he has baboon company, we rehomed Bob's sensible twin brother with him, he is the one on Mini-Kolo's right, Bob is on the left.  We hope this may stop Bob from bolting again.  TGT will let us know when Bob's twin has told them his name.

Mini-Kolo did manage to meet up with some rehomed baboons and rehomed a baboon with @TabithaTeddy, that was the last planned rehoming.

 

 

 

Here Mini-Kolo is meeting up with the already rehomed baboons.  You aleady know Bob and his new brother.  Hanging over Mini-Kolo's shoulder is Tony, BooBoo's baboon, and sitting in front of Mini-Kolo is Barney, Martha's baboon.  Barney likes to hold onto his spoon, these baboons with magnetic paws, like Barney and Tony, have been known to steal cuttlery from resturants so it is best if they bring their own.

 

 



Here the baboons are joined by Tabitha's new baboon.  She is a girl baboon who loves books and stories so we felt she would be happiest with Tabitha.  Tabitha will also let us know her name when she has told her.

Tabitha's baboon is number 102 and Bob's new brother is baboon 103.  Despite us taking a rehoming break baboons 104 and 105 are on their way to their new homes in the US and we will let you know when they have arrived.

Pasta with zucchini and egg plant

The first thing to say here is that in England we call zucchini courgettes, which is the French word for it rather than the Italian word.  We call egg plant aubergine, referring to its colour rather than its shape.  I will use those words in this blog.

A Twitter friend asked me to give her this recipe.  I normally cook this with peppers, leek and mushrooms (I have blogged it before).  However, our friend cannot eat peppers so when she came to visit us a Baboon HQ we couldn't cook this recipe for her.  We were given courgettes and aubergines lately so I tried a new version of the recipe that she can eat.

This was a joint effort so, being an organised baboon Edward got the ingredients ready.  Here are the ingredients for two:

8 oz pasta
1 leek
1 aubergine
1 large or two small courgettes (we were given some fancy yellow ones but the green ones will be equally nice)
1/4 pint of yogurt
Two table spoons of olive oil
Some lemon juice to taste
Black pepper (plenty)
Later you will need some hard cheese (I don't add salt in the cooking because I use a salty cheese), the original recipe said 2 oz of cheese but I use much more to give it a nice crispy topping.

Being organised Edward also wanted to show you most of the equipment you will need:

 

 

You need two large saucepans, a pyrex or other oven proof dish, wooden spoons, table spoons, a vegetable knife and a cheese grater.



Yaya is safe using knives so he prepared the ingredients.  Chop the leek into small pieces and the aubergine and courgettes into bite sized pieces.

We found that the courgettes needed a bit more frying than the leek and aubergine so, heat up the olive oil in a pan and fry the courgette gently for five minutes, add the aubergine and leek and fry gently for a further seven minutes.  Turn your grill onto quite a high heat.

In the meantime boil the pasta and grate the cheese.  When the vegetables are fried turn the heat off and add the yogurt, black pepper and lemon juice to taste (just a sprinkle).

Mix the vegetables in their sauce with the pasta in an oven proof dish, the bigger the surface area the better because you can get more crispy topping, sprinkle the cheese on top.  Put the dish under the grill, after about 7 minutes I usually turn the grill up a bit to get a good crisp finish.  It should be under for about 15 minutes in total (not sure whether a gas grill might be a bit quicker, mine is electric).  You will need to see when it looks done.  Hoppo got all this ready to go under the grill.

Now looking at the next picture you might think that Marley has taken up some strange sport, but this is a warning.

These are sillicone oven gloves which our friend sent from Germany.  These are what you need!!  Getting pyrex dishes out from under the grill is a very hot business.  We used to wear two sets of well insulated cloth oven gloves and it was still too hot to handle.  With these sillicone oven gloves you don't feel a thing.  Marley got it out of the oven.

 

Here it is all ready to serve with a lovely crispy topping.  We think this new version is at least as good as the original version.  Hope you enjoy it!!

Courgette/zucchini cake

A lady kindly gave us lots of courgettes.  Some of you call it zucchini.  Anyway we have been having lots of courgettes this week but there were still too many so we decided to make a courgette cake.  Yes, that's what I said a courgette cake!  Well carrot cake works so why not courgettes?

Some of my friends asked me for the recipe, so here it is.  The recipe I had would have fed the whole of the Arsenal team so I cut it down to the same proportions as I use for banana cake.  You need a 2 lb loaf tin for this recipe.

Ingredients:

2 eggs
125g/4oz of caster sugar (actually this was possibly a little too sweet so I might use less next time).
100g/4oz of melted margarine
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
200g/8oz of grated courgette (I left the skin on as it gave nice green flecks in the cake, but you could peel them if you wanted to)
200g/8oz of self-raising flour
100g/4oz ground nuts (I used almonds but you could grind any nuts for this in a food processor)
1 teaspoon of baking powder
2 teaspoons of cinnamon

Mix up the eggs, margarine,vanilla and grated courgettes in a mixing bowl.
Mix the flour, ground nuts, baking powder and cinnamon in another bowl and gradually stir that into the mixture (actually I just dumped it in and stirred like crazy like I do with the banana cake).

Put the mixture in a greased loaf time and put it into a pre-heated oven:

180C
350F
Gas mark 4

Leave from one hour.  I tested mine after an hour and it was still quite wet so I turned the over up from 180 to 190C and left it for a further 10 minutes.  It was done then and had the added advantage of crisping up the top.

I left it to cool for ages and ages and then tested it.

It was a nice moist cake with pretty green flecks from the peel.  I think the experiment was a success because my people ate it all, every crumb.

Give it a try, it seems you can make cakes out of vegetables and they turn out nice.  Now what to do with the all the cucumbers we were given???  Cucumber cake anyone???  Well maybe not!!

June 2014 rehomings

Four baboons reached their new homes in June.  The first to arrive was Little Jim, who joined Jim with our friend @summerstormsmum.

 

 

Little Jim was welcomed by Jim (who he knew from Baboon HQ), Gracie and Fred.  He is very happy to join his friend Jim.  He had been at Baboon HQ for a while so he took souveniers with him.  I can see he is very happy in his new home.

 

The next to arrive was Oliver, who travelled all the way to New South Wales to join @pete_bear07 and @storm_bear_bill.  Oliver arrived to be given banana muffins, cuddles, pizzas and love.  Not sure about the Masn U shirt, but it could be worse.

 

 

 

 

 

I love this shirt!!





 

Then two baboons made their way to the US.  First to arrive was Beccie Beckham Baboon, who went to live with @Bea_Bells.

 

 

 

Beccie arrived and took up residence on the sofa.

 

 

 

She was obviously hungry!!  But not any more, she had lots of snacks and looks very happy.

 

Finally Boscoe arrived to live with @TiggyBean.

 

 



Boscoe looks happy in his new home.

 

So thank you to all of you for rehoming baboons and giving them happy loving homes.

 

Now further news.  I am sorry to say that the rehoming project is going to take a break.  There will be one further rehoming, in person, at the @IOWTweetUp in July.  But then we need to take a break.  However, this is not the end, so if you would like to adopt a baboon please let me know because I will make a list and get in touch with you as soon as we are back to rehoming.

 

Thank you to all rehomers and to everyone who has taken an interest in the rehomed baboons.  Beccie Beckham Baboon is baboon 100, which was my target, but it will be 102 by July.





Mini-Kolo's mini-break!!

You may remember that about thee years ago @leroy_sealion and his brother Henry went on a short visit to Sandwich in Kent, on the way to visit our grandma and grandpa in Deal.  Leroy and Henry thought it was an interesting place so we thought we would send Mini-Kolo back to investigate.

Mini-Kolo took the car ferry and then they drove all the way to Kent.  Which took a few hours and numerous stops for snacks at motorway services (truck stops)!!

When he got there he booked into the Bell Hotel in Sandwich.

Mini-Kolo was very happy with his view of the River Stour in Kent.  Then he tried out the bed to ensure it was suitable for him.

 Yes he was happy!  The Bell Hotel gets a very high baboon rating for the lovely staff, the food and everything about it, the breakfast is particularly recommended.  Mini-Kolo was particularly impressed with the advice they gave.

 

This notice was on the door.  For anyone who cannot quite read it it says that 'When leaving the room the door must be open'.  Mini-Kolo took this advice at all times.

 

I think the hotel people thought Mini-Kolo had rather more luggage than he had really taken with him.

 



Anyway, having booked in Mini-Kolo decided to explore the area.  As a baboon who lives on Baboon Island, he is quite used to hills, so the landscape of Kent came as a bit of a surprise to him.

He said it reminded him of the praries of Texas!!  Well he soon came to something else he wasn't expecting.

 Those of you who are interested in golf, and I know some of you are, will recognise the name of this golf course.  It is Royal St George's Golf Club.  That is where the British Open Golf Championship gets held sometimes.  We don't really understand golf but we know it is a links course, meaning it is by the sea.  Mini-Kolo knew that he could get to the sea by crossing the golf course so he found his way to Sandwich Bay.

In the evening Mini-Kolo was going to Deal, the next town to Sandwich, to see our grandma.  He also met up with rehomed baboon Russell.

We can see that Russell is very happy in his new home with our grandma.  The little chap with him is a lar gibbon from the Owl and Monkey Haven on Baboon Island.

They went out to dinner with grandma.  Mini-Kolo had a banana parfait with a peanut butter base.  It was yummy.  Just the sort of food that baboons like best!!

The next day, after a long walk, Mini-Kolo looked around the town to see the old buildings.  Sandwich is a mediaeval town so it has many beautiful old buildings.

 

 

This building puzzeled Mini-Kolo a bit, the sign says Sandwich Weavers, 1500.  Mini-Kolo knows that sandwiches are not woven now, so things must have changed since 1500.



Mini-Kolo had a lovely time with lots of walking and adventures.  He managed not to get knocked on the head by any golf balls  He got home tired but he had had a great time and seen lots of interestng things.  He represented his country well by wearing his England shirt during the world cup and he didn't let them down!!

May rehoming

I am pleased to say that the 97th baboon reached their new home this month.

Jim arrived at his new home on a different island not too far from mine, to live with our friend Fred @summerstormsum.  He took his introduction card with him.

Jim is a very lucky baboon, there was a whole wardrobe waiting for him when he arrived.

He is all set to be a very well dressed baboon and how clever of them to find clothes the right size for him.  I love that red waistcoat!!

On arrival Jim was given a glass of wine!!  He looks as though he can't believe his luck!! Cheeky baboon!

Wow he has clothes in all colours.  He even has his own pyjamas!!

and his own bed!!  We can see that he and Fred are getting to know eachother.

The next day they even went flying together.

I think Jim is very lucky!!  After flying it was time for tea!!

I think Jim has settled in for a very good life.  As well as that he has a new bear to keep him company, Gracie!  So he has Fred and Gracie as good new friends.

Fred also kindly sent me a new friend, Peter a lovely bear from his island.

Peter came with lots of lovely presents for us, a calendar, fridge magnets, wine gums and a lovely tea towel.  Thank you so much Fred.  I really love Peter.

He is settling in well and making good friends with outr other new bear, Jurgen from Cologne.  They have lots in common.

I am very lucky to have such great friends.  Jurgen came from @fuzziestFreya and @F_is_for_Fred!!

So 97 rehomed baboons!!  I wanted to rehome 100, but actually I have got five baboons here still looking for homes, one is spoken for but four remain so if anyone thinks that they would like a baboon or a companion for their baboon please let me know.  It looks as though I will be rehoming 102 baboons!!