Domestic Fairy: Pre-Christmas Edition
Originally published at tansyrr.com. You can comment here or there.
I have been domesticking up a storm this week, shopping, making things, cooking, and planning more cooking. Surely earned a Mother of the Year award this morning by entirely forgetting to take the baby to daycare - for her ONE full day this week, the one I had made many plans with Raeli for. At 10:30 (after a bad night’s sleep because someone had nightmares and had to climb in with us) I suddenly blinked, stared at the baby and said “we forgot to take Jem to daycare!”
Cue mass hilarity all around.
Once we had rectified that mistake, Raeli and I had brunch at the local cafe and then went down to Meredith’s Orchard to stock up on fruit and vegies for the Christmas weekend. Got a good deal on raspberries, picked today! Back home to rehabilitate her dolls house in return for putting away or chucking away a whole lot of old toys. And then it was icecream concoction construction (or possibly deconstruction). Using silicon cupcake cases & chocolate mould trays, we made vanilla penguins, turkish delight hearts, and mince pies, all by stirring interesting things into icecream. I also made the outside layer of the icecream pudding (Christmas Bombe!). I was going to have a Turkish Delight core but now I’m thinking raspberry-doctored vanilla.
Sadly I think the creativity overstretched practicality. The results were delicious but messy, and I don’t think the freezer is cold enough for the icecreams in the moulds to harden properly. The best results were the mince pies: brandied fruit stirred into vanilla icecream and scooped into star-shaped silicon cases to serve.
Oh, and I whipped up a lasagne too
Though I managed to split the bechamel sauce like a bad hollandaise, leading to huge amounts of delicious but strangely lumpy cheeseness over the dish. Turns out that an extra large fruitcake pan is actually excellent for making lasagne in. Once again, messy but tasty. (actually that pretty much sums up most of what emerges from my kitchen)
Raeli and I alternated between bonding beautifully and grouching at each other, largely because her vocabulary seems to have reduced sharply to ‘BUT MUUUUUUM’ which drives me wild with irritation, especially when she follows up ‘don’t say that to me again’ with “BUUUUUT MUUUUUUUUUM.” There were times when I thought my head would explode!
She’s still only five, right? Not fifteen?
Tomorrow’s plan is to make it to Pilates for the first time in a month (a succession of disasters and babysitting letdowns have prevented me), to pick up a few groceries (no big pre-Christmas shop for me, I can’t face the queues), check the postbox and then come HOME and pretty much stay here until the holiday hits. Still need to finish the Christmas Bombe, bake a gingerbread cake, and probably make christmas muffins with Raeli because she desperately wants to.
Sigh. Baking with children is fun, but takes FIVE TIMES LONGER.
I should really wrap presents.
Kind of sleepy, actually.