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Making Sure the Days Are Full Enough

It's 5th January and I have been busy in the kitchen. We started the new year with a favourite old recipe - cinnamon duck with redcurrant sauce - from Good Housekeeping (April 1992).  Basically, you sear duck breasts in a pan with a stick of cinnamon, then transfer the breasts to an oven (skin side up) to roast while you make a sauce with onions, thyme, stock, red wine and red currant jelly. A delicious start to the year. 

Getting ready to roast tomatoes

Yesterday I decided to make soup from one of our cookery books other than The Soup Book. I selected River Cottage Veg Everyday! (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, 2011, Bloomsbury) but didn't go for a straightforward recipe. In order to make Hugh's Mexican tomato and bean soup, I first had to make roast tomato sauce (1.5kg of tomatoes yielded about 550ml of sauce) and go on the hunt for a tin of black beans. Finding black beans was the hard part. Once I found them, there was no holding me back. The spouse said of the home-made tomato sauce: "Very good. There's no comparison!" The soup was very tasty too, a tangy contrast to the baked Mont d'Or cheese that we ate afterwards - the spouse's Christmas present from the younger offspring. 

Mexican tomato and bean soup served with sour cream and avocado

 My second venture yesterday was Liam Charles' Christmas gingerbread fudge. Strictly speaking, it's not fudge: too waxy and not crumbly at all. The assorted spices hit the palate at once but the aftertaste is of black treacle. Once I see a recipe which involves heating condensed milk and adding white chocolate, I drool. However, I'm not sure that I'll make this "fudge" again. 
Christmas gingerbread fudge

 While getting ingredients out of the store cupboard yesterday, I noticed that my bag of dried apricots and one bag of ground almonds were perilously close to their respective expiry dates. What could I do with them? Why not make the apricot and almond cake I cut out of a magazine in April 1989 and first made for the older offspring's christening? I did that today and lo and behold! The older offspring did appear at my front door! 
Apricot and almond cake

 Thoughts for the new year 

 This year the spouse and I will celebrate milestone birthdays. Reflecting on this and on the new year has caused me to think about what I would like to do. This poem by Ezra Pound gave me pause for thought: 

 And the days are not full enough 
And the nights are not full enough 
And life slips by like a field mouse 
Not shaking the grass. 

 I hope I can shake some grass this year. 

 All the best. 

 Minnie

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