(I may have mixed up two songs there.)

Pasta bake; syrup sponge pudding and ice cream / custard

Jump to the sponge pudding recipe.

I didn’t sleep well last night, thanks to the bit of my brain that knew I had an appointment today and insisted on waking me up every hour or so to see if it was time to go yet. As a result, I was up and ready in plenty of time, waiting by the door with my bag and crutches for the taxi to appear. Fifteen minutes after he was due to have picked me up, I sent him a “where are you?” message. Ten minutes after that, I called and got a brief but jumbled explanation that amounted to “I forgot”.

As by this time there were only ten minutes until my scheduled appointment and I was still a forty-odd minute drive away, I phoned the hospital to explain, fully expecting a lecture, and was instead offered a telephone appointment with a consultant who, when I apologised for not being where I should be, told me not to be silly and that making a phone call was no trouble.

The outcome of that telephone appointment was that he has no knowledge of my condition and was therefore removing himself from my ongoing care (fwiw I agree, but it’s a shame as he’s a really nice person and I feel comfortable with him in a way I don’t with the consultant who will now be managing my care). As his last act, he has scheduled me for a blood test to check my current levels of something that’s a marker of my condition, purely out of curiosity as to what the test results will show.

With that sorted, and several conversations reminding mum that her hairdresser’s appointment is tomorrow and she therefore didn’t need to get changed just yet out of the way, I went onto scrolling through Facebook and spotted a gorgeous little cat in need of a home. Mum – amazingly – agreed, so I sent a message to the shelter, who informed me that they had already found a home for her, within an hour of making the post. Great for the cat, not so great for me who got my hopes up that I might finally get a new feline friend.

The rest of the day was spent repeatedly clarifying the difference between Tuesday (today), Wednesday (tomorrow, hairdresser day), and Sunday (church, and not for a few days yet), and trying to work out a meal plan for the next week when so many of my favourite foods are on mum’s “sorry, not for me” list.

I was (and am) feeling rather down, and we all know what I do when I’m feeling down: I cook things. So I made my favourite lazy pasta bake – literally cooked pasta, jarred sauce, and bits of whatever cheese is in the fridge, piled into a cooking dish and baked until golden and bubbling – then whipped up a super-quick sponge pudding to serve with ice cream.

If you want to make one, you just need:

• 120g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 120g sugar (I like soft brown sugar, as it gives a caramelly flavour, but use whatever sugar you have)
• 120g soft butter / margarine
• 2 medium eggs
• Milk (amount will vary, but shouldn’t be more than a few ml)

Put all the ingredients in a food processor / mixer and blend for a few seconds until combined, then add enough milk to make a thick but pourable cake batter.

Take a small-ish baking dish and pour some syrup* into the bottom: you need enough to generously cover the bottom of the bowl: I didn’t use enough and it all got absorbed by the cake, so use more than you think you’ll need. Pour the cake batter over the syrup, smooth off the top, and bake at gas mark 5 (375° F) until well-risen and golden on top, and a skewer / knife stuck into the top cones out without any wet cake mix on it. Mine took about 40 minutes bit, as always, ymmv (your minutes may vary).

Serve with ice cream, cream, or custard, according to preference.

* Or jam, or marmalade, or chocolate spread, or fresh or frozen or dried fruit, or whatever else takes your fancy.

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So thatwas today. Now I’m tired, and tired of repeating that mum doesn’t need to get up early tomorrow for an appointment at 4.45pm, and sad that I still don’t have a puddy tat, so I will finish here and come back tomorrow when I’m (hopefully) in a better mood.