She feeds you tea and oranges...

It feels cold and wintry today - and according to Amanda Ursell [the nutritionist in The Times] "January is not a month for surviving on crispbreads and lettuce!" So although I made a healthy chicken salad for lunch, I decided to follow it with a Proper Pudding. Extreme busy-ness this week hasn't left much time for "faffin' in the kitchen" so this morning I put on a pretty pinny and made a proper pudding.

I did make a chicken salad for first course - and dressed it with an improvised mustard&maple syrup dressing. [I roasted some cubes of potato, dusted with salt and smoked paprika, in the oven whilst cooking the pudding, to give a little warmth to the salad]

The pudding was a variation on a recipe from the paper a couple of week's back.Yet another 'magic' pudding with a sponge top and sauce beneath.

I halved the quantities and served it with natural yogurt.

SEVILLE MAGIC PUDDING

This pud mystically produces its own puddle of zesty sauce below a light, soufflé-ish sponge [from a recipe by Lucas Hollweg ]

Serves 2

- 75g butter, plus a blob for greasing

- Finely grated zest of 1 orange

- 90g caster sugar

- 2 eggs, separated

- Juice of 1 orange made up to 200ml with milk

- 25g self-raising flour

- Icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease a round 18cm ovenproof dish. Cream together the butter, zest and sugar with a wooden spoon until it forms a coherent mass, then beat in the egg yolks, one at a time, until well incorporated. Mix in the juice and milk. Finally, fold in the flour. Whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks when you lift the whisk, then gently fold into the mixture. Tip into the greased dish and place the dish in a roasting tin. Pour boiling water into the tin around the dish so it comes about halfway up the sides. Bake for 40 minutes until the top is firm and golden. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve with cream or natural yogurt.

It looked really good in my blue enamel bowl - and it tasted satisfyingly warming! I am drinking lots of tea too, that always helps to keep me warm. I am enjoying the Redbush Tea which Liz had here at Christmas. I hope Bob feels duly fortified, now he has gone out for an afternoon of Pastoral Visiting.

Once I have done all the other things which need to be sorted, I shall try and unload [from Bobs' camera] the photos taken last night. We went to a Folk Evening and had lots of fun, fund-raising. But we did not get to sing "Whose Pigs are These" unfortunately.