Brie and bacon potato bake with salad; berry crumble and ice cream

The only downside of mum being more herself is that the passive aggressive comments are back. I have had comments about the toilet frame that allows me to use the loo independently (“I understand that some people need them, but it’s so cold and uncomfortable – oh, no, obviously it’s not a problem if you still need it”) and about the fact I was using the kitchen to make dinner (“it was all so nice and tidy, and then you started using all these things – oh, I didn’t mean I was complaining. But are you nearly finished so I can start cleaning up?”). Sigh.

The cause of the kitchen complaints was meant to be stuffed jacket potatoes, but that plan had to be changed on the fly when the potatoes (those ready-cooked ones, which I am rapidly gaining a probably irrational level of dislike for) fell apart when I tried to hollow them out. Instead I dumped the broken bits of potato in a baking dish with the butter, chopped bacon and brie, crispy fried onions, and lots of black pepper that would have been the filling for the potatoes, and baked the lot until golden and bubbling.

The result wasn’t really worth the near argument, but it was more than OK: the potato flesh wasn’t as dry with the added butter and cheese, and the bacon and onions gave it a decent flavour, although the predominant flavour came from the brie, which was surprisingly pungent for a cheese from a supermarket multipack. It really needed the salad to cut through the potency, though I slightly undermined that by covering mine in the Caesar dressing I found in the fridge, having forgotten I bought it shortly before going into hospital.

Mum ate her serving without complaint, but also without compliment, which means this meal isn’t likely to be repeated. Unlike the berry crumble, which I made for the second time since Christmas, this time with a better proportion of crumble to fruit.

The crumble was good: the fruit the perfect balance of tart berries and sugar-sweetened fruit juice, the crumble thick enough to attain the balance between stodgy underneath and crunchy top. It wasn’t quite perfect – it needed more big pieces of crumble mix to give extra crunch – but I’m getting better at crumble making all the time. Given how much mum is enjoying my pudding experiments, I’m going to keep trying! Next on my experiment list is jam roly-poly: now that should be fun!