One of those days

Do you ever have one of those days when you have lots of things to do, places to go and people to see. Today was one of those days. We started off with synagogue lessons for my dd where I managed to complete my marking while I was waiting. Before we arrived at synagogue, I had made a new batch of dukka as I ran out last night. I used the recipe from the Veg book again butthis time I toasted the cashew nuts for linger. Ok, I took my eye off the clock and cooked them for longer than I should have but I think the overall result actually tastes nicer. I also made a batch of pizza dough which I've left slowly rising all day.

On the way home, we popped into the local farmers shop and I made a few purchases.

I have no idea what I'll make with the bag of thyme but it looked so nice I had to have it. I did add some of the thyme to the tomato sauce for the pizza. Chop and fry some garlic, add a tin of chopped tomatoes, 2 teaspoons of sugar and some fresh thyme. stir together, cover with a lid and turn the heat down to low and simmer for 10 minutes then blend the sauce. I've made an apple crumble with the Bradley apples and we'll use the broccoli tonight. A crumble is the easiest thing to make. Just peel and chop the apples then cover with a crumble mix made by rubbing in 100g butter or marg into 200g plain flour until it looks like breadcrumbs, then stirring in 100g caster sugar. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees centigrade for about 30 minutes and enjoy.

Not content with the flapjack and chocolate muffins I made yesterday, I made some jam drops this afternoon. There's nothing better than an afternoon pottering around the kitchen and as the boys are away this weekend, I could potter to my heart's content. I found this recipe in one of my many Rachel Allen books. I doubled the recipe as I wanted to try a number of different flavours. In a food processor, mix 400g self raising flour and 200g marg or butter (as always I use Pure sunflower margarine). Mix in 200g caster sugar and then add one egg (I also added a teaspoon of vanilla extract). Mix together until it all comes together. Take walnut sized pieces and roll into balls, placing them on a baking sheet. Slightly flatten each ball and make a thumb print. Fill this with a filling of your choice. I used Nutella, homemade raspberry jam and lemon curd. The mixture made 42 biscuits (the recipe said 60). Bake in an oven heated to 190 degrees centigrade for 10-12 minutes until the biscuits are golden brown. This is the end result.

Packed lunches are looking that bit more exciting next week.