I wake to the lovely sound of soft rain falling. It is 5.15am and dark, but I get up and go outside to see if anything needs moving into the shelter of the veranda. It is so nice to feel the rain, although it dries up by midmorning.
In the afternoon, I make rock buns with Ellie. We substitute the raisins with lemon rind which is very nice. The positive side to not having certain ingredients is that it does encourage you to use different ones.
Lately, we have tried making heavy English puddings to fill us up at supper time. My favourite is bread and butter pudding, although bread is not very cheap. This was my favourite comfort food when I was at university. In my second year, I shared a house with three other girls and we must have made it two or three times a week. It was ideal to eat in front of the television on cold winter nights. John sometimes makes a steamed pudding with jam which is lovely with custard. Last week, he found a very ancient recipe for something called Hatted Kit. It goes like this:
Warm slightly over the fire two pints of buttermilk. Pour it into a dish and carry it to the side of a cow. Milk into it about one pint of milk, having previously put into the dish sufficient rennet for the whole.
It ends with the words: This dish can quite well be made without milking the cow into it, although direct milking puts a better "hat" on the kit.
Tonight, however, in the absence of a ready cow, he makes rice pudding. It is cooking away in the oven with the baked potatoes I am making when the electricity goes off. It does not come on for the rest of the night so we have 'Mostly Baked Potatoes' for dinner and go to bed early.
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