A Smashing Time

Bob's away and I fully intended to get up really early and get on with my tasks. But I never set the alarm and managed to sleep till past 8am, which is really unusual for me, I am normally awake around 6.30am.

So of course I got up and rushed around trying to catch up [never a good idea] Following a HUGE shop at Aldi last night [they've got all their dried fruits etc on offer this week] I was able to start my Christmas Baking.

Out with the two trusted cookbooks

I have been using the GH one for thirty years and the Martha one for about half that time. It was the first MS book I ever got, and began my long fascination with this utterly bizarre woman. But I do like her method for cooking Christmas Puds [in a Bain Marie in the oven] It makes them lovely and moist, and doesn't steam up the kitchen. Also [confession] the long slow steaming seems to realise any baked on crud inside my oven, so it is easier to give it a thorough clean afterwards! [It's OK, the puds are covered with greaseproof - it's not as if grot can drop into them while they bake]

Here are the results of this morning's labours. I will cook the cake and puds on my return from this afternoon's Christian Aid Tea Party.

The pudding mixture is "developing its flavours" in my wonderful Mason Cash Mixing Bowl - a treasured Christmas gift from Liz and Steph many years ago. I do miss having the girls around for pud-making. We had a tradition of everybody coming to stir the mix, and then we wrote down our prayers for the forthcoming year. [none of this superstitious Wish Stuff round here!] We would look at the previous year's list and realise just how many of the prayers had been answered. Everyone had three things on their list

1. A prayer for themselves [usually related to Xmas gfts!]
2. A prayer for someone else
3. A prayer for our church fellowship

There were originally eight jars of marmalade, but [rushing about as usual] one went for a Burton.

 

Question 1 - Why does a dropped jar scatter bits of glass SO FAR across the kitchen?

Question 2 - Why do I fret that my marmalade won't set, only to discover it DOES set, instantly, into viscous, sticky patches, across a range of about 6 feet!

Question 3 - Why did I spend 10 minutes hunting for the missing lid [bearing in mind there is no longer an intact jar to screw it on to] and how did it get round a corner, and underneath the freezer in the Utility Room, where I found it ages later after I had given up searching?

I remembered a wonderful Ogden Nash poem I learned whilst I was a student. He wrote about milk - marmalade appears to follow the same rules.

ONE TIMES ONE IS EIGHT

Either old magic or new math

into our house has beat a path

How else could Einstein or Diogenes

Explain an exploit of our progeny's?

While at the table with his milk

A child upsets a glass of milk.

The glass held half a pint when filled -

And half a gallon when it spilled!