it's silly when we get into these crazy hypotheticals, you really want some bread then go ahead, create a set of goals

What's really nice is making friends with people to the point where, when you hang out with them, you can just as easily talk and talk and talk about everything there is as the minutes rush by, or sit in companionable, untroubling silence, just being in each other's presence. I haven't always had this in my life, so I'm never-not grateful that I now (and for quite a long time now)...do have this. If you've got such friendship, give yourself a triumphant high five, or better yet, high kick. If you don't, I don't know, don't try to force it on anyone but do your best to spend as much time with the people who make you feel most like yourself. Not that you guys need me to tell you that (did you also know that drinking water is good for you?) just didn't want to, you know, make anyone feel bad. In case I sounded way too smug, don't worry, there's a squillion things I could complain about, it's just interesting to be positive sometimes. Even in this particularly clunky way.

If you've noticed that the photos seem to be in a different place to my house, it means you're a diligent reader and there will be a tasteful sports car as a prize under your seat. But really, it's because I spent all day sprawling at my friend Kate's, where we talked about everything and sat in calm silence on our laptops and - in the ultimate friends-forever-with-hearts-dotting-the-i move, we had a nap together. It was pretty blissful. We also ate this coconut, raspberry and almond bread and butter pudding for brunch. Unfortunately you can't all have a friend that is Kate specifically, (it might be tiring for her) but hopefully you have some equally good friendly people in your life. If nothing else, you can definitely get this pudding with relative ease and certainly none of the potential fraughtness of human interaction.

It bakes into a rather impressive sight, all puffed and golden and studded with lipstick-pink raspberries but is truly simple - all you're doing is taking bread, pouring some stuff over, and half-assedly baking it for a while. It's like falling off a log (and not like "falling off a log...and into a ravine filled with ravenous hyenas and circling vultures," which was my super professional response when my manager asked how a particular task was going at work the other day. It's cool, we get on.)



raspberry, coconut and almond bread and butter pudding

Serves plenty. Ideal for breakfast. A recipe by myself. PS: dairy-free. 

1 french bread stick
1/2 cup frozen raspberries
5 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 can coconut cream
2 teaspoons cornflour
generous shake of cinnamon
pinch of salt
handful of almonds, roughly sliced

Slice the bread into rounds a couple of cm thick - mine fluctuated between 1.5 and 3cm - and arrange in a baking dish where they will fit snugly. Scatter the raspberries over the top, pushing some of them inbetween the slices of bread with your finger.

Mix together the eggs, sugar, coconut cream and cornflour, not particularly thoroughly, just till it's all incorporated. Evenly pour this over the bread slices, and allow to sit for half an hour. Sprinkle the almond slices over the top, and bake at 180 C/350 F for around 40 minutes or until puffy and golden. 

The rich, sweet coconut cream and sour little raspberries are excellent together, and at filling each slice of bread with their deliciousness. Don't be tempted to leave off the almonds, as their toasty crunch is pretty sublime, but you could use another nut instead if that's all you've got. It needs to sit for a while to allow the custard to sink into the bread, but the longer you leave it the less saucy it will be - whatever you do will be the right choice though.

Also leftovers are really wonderful fried in butter. Learned that one from Kate.

It was a rather quiet week, which was really nice - I need a lot of downtime doing nothing to counteract all the times I have to, you know, do things, and I enjoyed doing plenty of knitting and sitting and inhaling TV shows and such. In fact the most exciting thing that happened up until today was -

I got to hang out with a cat!

This cat! Suzie!

I'm at the stage now where cats are basically unicorns to me. (Quick summary: I love cats, landlord won't allow cats despite my very persuasive and brilliantly worded emails, a thousand times sigh.) So rarely do I see one, that every occurrence of cat in my life is thrilling to the point of overstimulation. The cat in the above picture belongs to my friend, who I hate-watched Glee with on Friday night (oh, Glee, you're doing more harm than good) and sadly scratched me after sitting on me for half an hour (the cat, not the friend) but it was still so fun! So cat! 

head boops!

Oh, and it would be remiss of me to not acknowledge how exciting it was that I also finally watched Fast and the Furious 6, which I've been calling 6 Fast 6 Furious for so long now that I had to google it to verify what the proper title is. It was bananas and hilariously fun and miraculously featured several cool women characters. And I will not be talked out of my theory that Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's and Vin Diesel's characters are secretly in love with each other. 

Quiet though this week was, I still wish, increasingly more so every day, that I had more time to write and focus on this blog and my cookbook and everything I love. Sometimes I forget I even have the cookbook because I have no time to think about it or how I can get more people reading it, and it takes all my energy just to get one blog post a week happening. There are so many projects and ideas and shenanigans I'd love to work on but there is just no time. But - at least there's leftover bread and butter pudding to take to work for lunch tomorrow. 

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title via 96,000, from the musical In The Heights, by literal genius Lin-Manuel Miranda. Long title today, but that rhyme pleased me. 

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music lately:

Rilo Kiley, I Never. This song is really special. You should listen to it. Obviously, otherwise I wouldn't be talking about it here.

Salt'n'Pepa, Shoop. Few better songs for both dancing to and also driving round town on a hot afternoon to. Okay, there's heaps of songs to fit that description, but this is working for me currently.
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Next time: Sounds a bit dull, but I made some blueberry muffins and they were really good. So...maybe them?