Spring vegetable stew and mash; Black Forest gateau, chocolate sauce, ice cream, chocolate misshapes

My day today began before there was even a trace of light in the sky, with a knock on my bedroom door and the appearance of an upset-looking mum wanting to know if it was Saturday or Sunday today, because she needed to know if she needed to get up early for church. I assured her it was Saturday and, after looking at the time on my phone, that five minutes before five am was, in any case, far too early to get up for anything, so we both went back to sleep.

She has since apologised a number of times, and I have assured her it was no big deal, but I nevertheless hope we don’t have a repeat early tomorrow morning! It unfortunately also set the tone for the day as a whole, which has consisted of many, many repetitions of the details of various forthcoming appointments, and how we’re getting there, and what mum’s going to wear, and what day is it today again?

By the time mum decided that she had had enough of the athletics that I was watching and changed the channel mid-race (tbf she changed it back when I squeaked “hang on, at least let me see if our bloke wins!” (he didn’t)), I was feeling more than a little irritable, so was glad to take advantage of the box of chocolate biscuit misshapes from my Box of Infinite Snacks to sweeten my mood. With mum doing a similar thing, I’m starting to think I should have got two bags!

Dinner tonight was another recipe that I intend to include in my forthcoming cookbook (if it ever materialises): chopped bacon, various veggies, and some chicken stock, simmered until the broccoli disintegrates (I wouldn’t actually recommend that bit, but I got distracted by The Chase, even though I had seen the episode before¹) then pesto, and cream stirred in. It’s savoury, creamy, fragrant, and excellent over mash, with crusty bread, or as a sauce for chicken, pork, or (possibly, I haven’t tried but think it should work) fillets of white fish.

Then we had Black Forest gateau, from Iceland and excellent value for £2: thin layers of chocolatey sponge, plenty of whipped cream, and some nicely sour cherry gel / jam on top. I cut myself a slice, added some ice cream, went to warm up the chocolate sauce as it had set solid overnight, and mum came in and took my bowl with a “thanks very much”.

So I cut myself a second, bigger slice, added ice cream and chocolate sauce, and put a few of the misshapes on top so it looked nice in the photo, failing to realise the white chocolate one was the same colour as the ice cream, and the dark chocolate ones the same colour as the sauce, so they’re practically invisible in the photo. Oh well, it was a good thought, and as mistakes go it was a tasty one, at least.

And now it’s coffee and Gladiators², and my usual routine of trying to remind / convince mum that the gladiators are acting, and aren’t really nasty people. (Well, most of them: obviously I don’t know who they all are, and have never met any of them irl, so one or two might not be the nicest people for all I know.) Anyway, gladiators are ready, so I’ll see y’all tomorrow.

1. They lost again. Amazing – you’d think they would have learned from last time. Smh. ↩︎
2. I’ve said since the start of this series that I don’t care about the programme – not that I dislike it, just that I don’t care – then said something about “my favourite gladiator” and realised the pretence was over. ↩︎