Domestic Goddess Day

I have decided I love Sundays in the holidays. I have spent today doing all dom.god. things and haven't felt bad about not doing any school work at all.

Here's what I've been doing -


Bad phone camera picture, sorry.

The Mango Chutney is from a recipe in Delia Smith's Winter Collection. I love Delia. She has had a huge impact on my cooking over the years. For example, I eschew ready chopped mixed peel in a tub in favour of whole candied peel I cut myself. She rocks, and I blame Nigella entirely for her demise. Anyway, this mango chutney is the bomb. It's way better than what one buys in the shops. I am just gutted I have to wait 8 weeks for it to mature.

The lemon curd is from this recipe. I am typing it out because I have a fear of the link going dead -

4 lemons, zest and juice
1lb caster sugar
4oz butter
6 eggs

Beat the eggs and add all the other ingredients (I add the finely grated zest instead of putting in strips of peel and fishing them out later - it ends up with a slightly mealy texture, but I like it like that). Put in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. The sugar and butter will melt, and eventually the lemon curd will thicken up nicely and then you put it in a big sterilised jar. The one I used is a 2lb jar.

Then I made peanut butter cookies to this recipe -

8oz butter
1 and a half cups dark brown sugar (I subbed this for the light brown in the recipe as it was all I had)
1 and a half cups peanut butter
1 egg
2 tsps vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
Chocolate chips - but I used some PB M&Ms I brought home from the US in the summer

Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg, vanilla and PB, then add the flour and baking powder to make a dough. Add the chocolate chips and chill for an hour. Roll the dough into small balls and put on a greased baking sheet and bake at 180 degrees C for 16-18 mins.

Finally, I made some experimental Christmas cupcakes. They are a clementine version of lemon drizzle, filled with a cardamom-infused ganache. I am not overjoyed because I think the cake batter needs a bit more citrus kick - I wish I had some orange oil or something - and the chocolate seized a bit when I poured the cream over it for the ganache so it's not perfect. But not bad for a first try.

I found out today that Father Hand has a cancerous tumour on his kidney. He's having surgery on January 18th. I am less concerned than I probably should be, but the prognosis is good.