Aubergine parmigiana with cheesy garlic flatbread; pineapple sponge and ice cream

My plans for a pleasant morning of quietly reading were scuppered at 7.01 am (I checked the time on my phone) when mum knocked on my door with a plaintive “I don’t feel very well”. It turned out to be a combination of a pulled muscle in her back that she keeps aggravating by insisting on going back to gardening the moment it feels less painful, and the start of troubles caused by not drinking enough¹.

The first was massively helped by the application of a hot water bottle, and the second by multiple glasses of apple juice and water, but not before giving me a good scare: at one point mum emerged from the bathroom, leant on the living room door frame and said something like “when does my hair get sorted?” I asked if she meant getting it cut, or washing it, and her response was a slightly panicked look and “I don’t know – doesn’t it need cooking or something?”

I wasn’t sure how to tell her that she wasn’t making any sense but, fortunately, I didn’t need to: by this evening she was better enough to realise that her “head had been lost” (as she puts it) and asked me if she’d missed anything. The only thing she had missed was an invitation to Sunday lunch next week from a family friend, which I accepted on her behalf as she expressed enthusiasm for the idea. If I’d realised she wouldn’t remember I would have saved my introvert self some discomfort and politely refused. (I’m mostly joking, but only mostly. 😬)

Faced with emotional distress I, as always, headed for the kitchen, making a cheat’s aubergine parmigiana (a decently well-flavoured pasta sauce layered with fried aubergine slices and topped with ready-grated mozzarella: an Italian nonna would doubtless recoil in horror, but I find it’s a pretty good shortcut) and, finally, a pineapple sponge pudding!

The pineapple sponge wasn’t brilliant – the chunks of pineapple needed to be smaller, and the sponge needed some baking powder to make it rise more – but it was a decent first attempt, and I will keep trying until I get it right. And next time I will pour the pineapple juice left in the tin into a glass rather than drinking it straight from the tin, as that’s a good way to end up with it all down the front of your t-shirt instead of in your mouth. Or so I’ve been told: it didn’t happen to me, obviously. 😳

So now mum has gone to bed,my phone is charged enough to write this post, and I’m going to finish the day with hot Ribena, mini Twix bars (they’re small so you can eat more of them, right?), and maybe a chapter or two of my book, before sleep and then we do the whole thing again tomorrow.

Or at least that’s the plan, and we all know what happens to them.²Or at least that’s the plan, and we all know what happens to them.

1. Several people have suggested I get her some of the water-disguised-as-sweets that are available to buy, and I will do so as this keeps happening and it’s no fun for either of us. ↩︎
2. IIRC, they gang aft agley, according to Rabbie Burns. ↩︎