FED, DEAD AND READY FOR BED

Recipe: Plum pud

Time taken: 25 mins

Ingredients: 2 plums, 3 fig rolls, half a tin of custard, a teaspoon of honey n a smidge of butter

Hi there,

Readers, It’s the weekend! Hurrayyy! Mexican wave! Everybody standing! Shake that thing! The weeeeeekend! It’s the weekend! Ahhh. How’s your weekend? I bet it’s good. SO GOOD.

Sadly, readers, today was the day that I had an essay to write. Ugh. On a Saturday, I know. This morning I steeled myself, mustered together some determine, AND GOT OUT OF BED AT 8AM! I got out! Really, it was 8am readers and I was not in my bed. No quilt. No happiness. Before I knew it, I was en route to the library. Crunching frost again. I was in the library. Nobody in sight – where were the people? I was seated. Shoes off. Len was out (a non-affectionate term for my laptop). And 9 HOURS OF MY LIFE WERE GONE! GONE.

Literally, it was 6pm. I’d written an essay and an extra unnecessary thousand words – problem for another day. I was dazed. It was dark. Sub-zero? Probably sub-zero. I shuffled off into the night.

And I was home. Hooooome! Readers, I may never have been so happy to be back in my student house so I could sit in and do nothing on a Saturday night. And that’s what I’m doing right now. Strictly is on! The Christmas tree lights are on! I’m wearing THREE LAYERS of jumpers. THREE.

And my brain is fucked. I’m done, readers. Certainly for today; possibly for the weekend. Potentially for 2014. I visualise it this way: The PRESSURE of the amount of work that needs to be done in third year… and the SERIOUSNESS of how much it matters for my ENTIRE FUTURE is just, it’s just, it’s PRESSING DOWN on my brain. Reeeeally heavily. PRESSING. And my brain is just getting lower and lower in my head, and it’s just flat and it’s limp and my brain CAN’T GO ON MUCH LONGER.

But, readers, when life gets you down… you look towards pudding. Always pudding. Literally, pudding can cure ANYTHING. I wholly believe this to be true. I love a good pudding. And, today, I was too tired to bake anything lovely but I used my initiative and botched something together. ChefBeHere style!

Here’s what went down in crazy town…

1. I heated the oven to 200˚C.

2. I took 2 plums and chopped them in half, removing the stones and chucking those away.

3. I greased a little ovenproof dish with some butter and sat my plums inside it.

4. I drizzled a little honey over them.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: If you have cinnamon, sprinkle this on too! It pains me that I’ve run out.

5. I safely transported my plums into the oven to bake for 20 minutes.

6. I took ten minutes to myself. Lit some candles. Danced along to strictly. Sang it out.

7. I took a couple of fig rolls out of my cupboard and cut them into little chunks.

8. I took a tin of custard. Opened it. Poured half into a bowl and half into a Tupperware. Put the Tupperware of custard in the fridge to use another day.

9. I covered the bowl of custard with a plate and put it in the microwave to heat for 2 minutes. Took it out. Super stirred. Re-covered. Put it back for another minute.

10. Finally, I took my plums out of the oven and chopped each plum-half into quarters, then tipped my plum chunks and fig roll chunks into my piping hot custard… and stirred it up!

Here’s my little fruity Frankenstein

And I loved it! After the day I’ve had, this made for a bowlful of joy, readers. Want a bowlful of joy, too? Get on it! Shoo. Go try it out. Don’t have plums? Sub in a banana, maybe. I’m a firm believer in the classic banana and custard combination. Don’t have fig rolls? Not many young people do, I realise. Just a cake bar of any kind should do the job. Or a couple of them, if you like.

And how’s it taste readers? Godly? Like heaven in a bowl? The pudding of angels? A blessing in custard? Saturday night salvation? I’m pretty sure, in my eyes, you could make any kind of biblical reference and it wouldn’t do justice to the wonder that is this pudding. High praise!

What’s your take on the Plum Pud? Raving? Enraged? Hit me with it! I want to hear your thoughts on this, because if everyone’s raving, I may have just invented my million-dollar recipe. And I can stop writing essays.

Study safely kids,

Hayley