Summer? Pudding!

Well, folks, I have been Truly Unconfined, having ventured down to the south coast to spend a week with my parents.* It was glorious, and there was a lot of eating, including family favourite such as Polish-style escalopes (kotlety) and the family-recipe bacon-and-sweetcorn risotto which is a strong contender for some serious #HeritageKitchen blogging. I photographed none of it and therefore simply make the observation that in my case 'just like mother used to make' is achieved by Adding More Butter. 

I've also had a birthday, which also involved eating, and I did document and vaguely photograph that.

It's been impossibly autumnal all week, but I'd planned a birthday meal for something rather more summery, viz:

• goat's cheese and nectarine bruschetta
• grilled mackerel
• summer pudding

The starter is foolproof. Slice some nectarine and stick under a hot grill. Meanwhile, toast some slices of ciabatta, spread with soft goats cheese (we had this, which is delish and available from our Waitrose), sprinkle with thyme. When nectarine hot and bubbly but not disintegrated, add to the rest and drizzle with a very little runny honey.

The mackerel were frozen fillets, fresh mackerel being mysteriously impossible to source sensibly at present. Marinated in a blended mix of spring onion, chilli, lemongrass, coriander, garlic, ginger and lime, and then grilled until nicely cooked. Served with rice, baby veg, and a vague approximation of kecap manis.

Summer pudding is also pretty easy: definitely easier than it looks. But you do have to start the day before. Simmer a bag of mixed frozen summer fruit with some sugar until the fruit is giving off plenty of juice but isn't disintegrated. Dip slices of white bread sans crusts into the juices, and use them to line a pudding basin. Add the fruit, top the basin with more dipped bread. Pop a saucer on top and a weight on top of that (tin of beans, dumbbell weight, whatever you have to hand). Leave in the fridge overnight.

The two keys points are 1) to soak the outside of the bread: don't rely on the juices soaking all the way through the bread, or you can end up with a splotchy pudding reminiscent of Bagpuss. No-one wants that. 2) Do weight it down: it really brings a structural integrity and seals all the joins between the slices of bread.

To serve, ease the edges with a palette knife or similar and turn onto a plate. Eat with thick cream and a big smile. 

We put candles on it, and everything

*I say 'ventured', but I mean 'dad came and got me in a car'. I have still not done A Train.