Eating well

It seems a long time since I have mentioned food - although now I come to think of it, I did write something about moelleux au chocolat not all that long ago.  I printed out a recipe and the Old Bat tried her hand at it but with a marked lack of success.  The result was perfectly edible and tasted very good, but it wasn't what we had expected.  I reckon she left the puddings in the oven just a little too long.  She argued that if she had taken them out sooner, they would not have been cooked.  My counter-argument was that the centre is supposed not to be cooked and the outside should be soft and squashy, not quite as firm as was the case.  But I can never win an argument of that sort so I just stop bothering.

Anyway, we have eaten very well this past week.  My worst meal was actually the one I ate at the Inn on the Park on Tuesday evening.  I was the duty Lion for the blind club transport and the meeting consisted of a meal at a pub on a mobile home park.  The pub is a bland, unwelcoming sort of place - and the meal was similar.  Tasteless chicken accompanied by thing gravy, boiled potatoes, carrots, cauliflower and broccoli, followed by a stodgy and equally tasteless spotted dick and custard.  I remembered afterwards that I had eaten there before and the meal was just as forgettable.

At home, things have been different and altogether better.  I'm ashamed to say I have forgotten what we ate on Wednesday, but there was a superb steak and kidney pudding followed by a lemon mousse on Thursday, Friday we ate pork chops served with a grainy mustard sauce, hasselback potatoes and cabbage.  That was followed by mincemeat tart with Cornish clotted cream.  A flaky pastry shell stuffed with Gruyere cheese and pieces of gammon from last Sunday's roast was partnered with parmentier potatoes and (whisper it softly) spaghetti in tomato sauce on Saturday, followed by apple crumble and cream.  Then yesterday we ate the traditional Sunday roast: pork, with roast potatoes and the obligatory two veg, plus sage and onion stuffing balls and apple sauce, all followed by crème brûlée.

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The temperature did hit 18 yesterday and I did mow the grass. I don't know the name of this little flower - it's about an inch and a quarter across - but have always thought of it as a type of anemone.  It grows in the woods in Withdean Park but these are in our garden.  We never sowed them; they just appeared one year - and very welcome they are, too.  Wonderful what a bit of warm weather will do.