Through a head full of cotton wool

Some weeks are more productive than others. The week before last was less productive than usual but with good reason. Well almost. Looking back my excuse for not cooking much was that we had the brother in law, his wife and their almost newly born child stay with us. How newly born? Still at an age that is referred to in weeks not months.

This was much to the amusement of my colleagues at work – I am not renowned as the most maternal of people. In reality the guests were really no problem, least of all the shiny new niece who never once woke her aunty and uncle up in the middle of the night. Good work!

And coming to the point of this excerpt, I was planning to blame the lack of cooking on the visitors but in reality I did all of the weeks cooking while they were there and none of it during the week.

In a round up of the week that was – we went to quiz night. No we didn’t win, in fact we came 3rd – but – BUT – we only had four team members. And one of those was the husband, who by his own admission is not the quiz guru as such. And the two teams who came in 1st and 2nd hand over 10 people each. And we only lost second by three points. And –this is the really good bit – the team who had beaten us into second for so many weeks were there, and they only had four people too, and we got over double their score. Come on, that’s good.

So back to the cooking. On Saturday night I figured I would make a roast with all the trimmings – roast beef with Yorkshire pud and horseradish sauce. I had been warned that making horseradish sauce is not for the faint hearted, that the grating of horseradish roots requires gloves, a nose peg and ski goggles. Perhaps I’m made of sterner stuff because I had no problems.

I finally managed to acquire some horseradish at Farro – my friendly local – gosh they’re good to me. Here’s a little plug – I buy all my eggs at faro, cheapest place I’ve found to get non tortured eggs and they are nice and big. Fair enough, I do buy them 20 at a time though.

The horseradish sauce made a larger quantity than I could ever imagine someone requiring but the Yorkshire pudding was a different story. Don’t get me wrong, the yield of Yorkshires was probably sufficient for a normal person but I love Yorkshire pud. I might feel the same way as I do about custard if they weren’t so unhealthy, meal specific and fiddly to make. Nothing will overthrow custard’s place in my affections.

Naturally, being the exemplary housewife that I am, I also made dessert. I made lemon meringue pudding – like the pie but with no crust. I encountered the same issue I have had multiple times now with cornflour based desserts not setting properly. It has happened too many times to be a coincidence – in the future I will take advanced action and add extra cornflour.

And on Sunday I whipped up a batch of madelines. No one ever seems to be able to write about madelines without mentioning Proust, yet I always wonder how many people have actually read the book and how much of it has become food writing convention? Convention it would appear that I am adhering to! I have madelines before but had never seen them Edmonds style – dunked in almost set jelly and rolled in coconut like a lamington. They weren’t bad actually.

Now I feel the need to mention that I am typing almost from my sick bed. I have come down with another cold. Such is my dedication to Edmonds that I am sitting here in my fluffy yellow bathrobe with running nose and eyes and pounding head typing away. That and the husband is insisting on catching up with last nights shorters in the lounge and I hate to watch a program twice. Men! He’s done the dishes though so I really shouldn’t grumble!