Not Such A Domestic Goddess

What a disappointment. Well, an utter failure really. You see, today would have been my late mother’s birthday.  This is our first year without her so in order to fend off the blues, I decided to bake a Victoria Sponge to sort of celebrate her birthday. I was planning to share a small amount with Toddler-Not-So-Tiny-Temper and Mr Working Mum, then polish the rest off myself. (I’m a firm believer in the healing powers of cake).

Well, I’ve just come back from the kitchen where the timer was alerting me to the readiness of my glorious sponge. I had been expecting to find a golden, fluffy triumph, ready to be adorned with lashings of raspberry jam and icing sugar, but the reality is sadly rather different. The only way to describe it is ‘sorry for itself’. It is a limp, apologetic, lop-sided pancake with a lump on one side. (That’s where all the baking powder ended up then). But what is so shameful about this, is that I can cook. I really can! I even did a 3 month full-time cooking course in my gap year, but my Achilles heel is, and has always been, the Victoria Sponge. I have never, not even once, made a successful one that looks like the pictures.  It’s meant to be the easiest bloody cake to make for goodness sake! I’ve tried all manner of recipes with plain flour, self-raising flour and every variation known to man, but every one a failure.

So now I’m now about to tuck into my Vicky Pancake, but please fellow mums, bakers and gastronomes, if you know a fail-safe and I mean truly fail-safe recipe, please let me know. Thanks!

x

Waste Not Want Not

I am getting a little fed up of being constantly nagged by the newspapers about how much food we throw away. I was brought up in a house where it was common to cut the mouldy edges off the cheese before eating it and scraping a blue-grey layer from the top of the jam was perfectly normal, so hardly anything from our kitchen goes in the bin. Now I’m not suggesting that you go that far but here are some of my top tips for using up ‘tired’ food:

1) The sad brown banana

Quite revolting to eat but ideal for turning into banana bread – a gorgeous, not-to-sweet cake that is great mid-morning with a cup of tea (let me know if you need a recipe and I can post it for you)

2) Floppy herbs

The recipe calls for 1 tbsp of chopped coriander but can you buy anything smaller than a whole plastic pack of the wretched stuff?  And will it last until the next Thai curry you feel like making? Of course not. Chop it, add a little bit of water and freeze it in an ice cube tray. Do this with any herb and it’ll save you a fortune.

3) Lethal weapon bread

Hard enough to cause serious injury if dropped on a bare toe but otherwise fine. Hack it into pieces, put it in the blender to make breadcrumbs, then put these in the freezer. Ideal for making chicken schnitzel and all things crumbed.

4) Lemons and limes

You bought loads to make the fruit bowl look summery but they never last as long as you’d like. Before they get too wrinkly, chop them into wedges and freeze them. Next step, prepare your gin and tonic, beer, dark rum and coke, or other tipple of your choice and drop a frozen citrus wedge straight in. Chills and flavours, perfect!

5) Wine

Now this is one of those tips I think could be a good idea but have never used. Why? Because it refers to ‘leftover wine’. If you’re anything like us there is never such a thing, however you may be more restrained so I’ll tell you anyway: pour your leftover wine into an ice cube tray, then add the cubes to your stews and casseroles as you need them. Having said that, needing to open wine ‘for the cooking’ is one of my great excuses so feel free to ignore this one!

Anyway, that’s enough saving the planet. I’m off to put tip 4 into practice. Now where did I put that gin……?

x