Food

In an attempt to curb my sweet tooth, have been doing more home baking recently. This wholewheat banana and walnut loaf went down well with colleagues.

These muesli muffins were also (I thought) pretty nice and formed a robust mid-morning snack with a cup of coffee. Topped with linseed, just in case there weren’t enough seedy bits in them already. Ruth is suspicious of the wholemeal flour with millet seeds, linseeds, cracked wheat and poppy seeds that I am trying to use up (bag just visible on the right of the picture) as she claims it keeps creeping in to recipes where she expects white flour and is solely put there for her to crack her teeth on. None of which is of course true.

Have also found a delicious Delia Smith recipe for peanut butter cookies - halving the amount of sugar in the recipe (also leaving out the actual peanuts, and using smooth peanut butter as I prefer it - OK, so quite a lot of modifications) - but haven't photographed those yet.

At the other end of sweet snacks: Arctic Roll. I had no idea this was even still made. I remember having it occasionally as a child, and perceiving it as a luxurious special treat (or possibly just a respite from Instant Whip), though I don’t think it was something Mum was willing to buy all that often. Ruth and I had a nostalgic slice each, which we enjoyed though almost inevitably with such things, we weren’t as enamoured of it as adults. From an adult perspective, Nigel Slater's reported comment about Arctic Roll tasting of frozen carpet is probably a reasonable summing up, but I do remember that from the point of view of a 1970s child, Swiss roll BUT WITH ICE CREAM IN THE MIDDLE did seem rather thrillingly decadent.

A bit of research suggests that Arctic Roll did in fact cease production, but had a bit of a resurgence following the 2008 recession.

Moving on to savoury foods: I had a go recently at a recipe for saag paneer. The result looked quite pretty but lacked something in the taste.

Finally: bloody marrows. I like courgettes and Ruth and I did grow some a few years back, but I've no idea how people end up with such a glut of them - possibly it's crucial to stick to having only one plant. These somewhat careworn-looking specimens were laid out on the garden table at Mum and Dad's when I visited in August. Mum has evidently made chutney with some of the marrows, but no idea whether that used them all up - I suspect not.