Dinner with friends and family last night was lovely, of course! Lots of chat and laughter. Got home very late and slept only fitfully, so am pretty tired today. It seems to be that if I miss what my system considers to be my sleeping ‘slot’, it gets all out of kilter and doesn’t work properly.

K did something I’ve enjoyed at his before, a multi layered Lebanese dish with crispy bits of bread at the bottom, pieces of chicken, flavoured rice, aubergine, Greek yogurt and toasted pine nuts. It is very yummy.

He had done a pavlova for pud, always good, and I took the ice creams. I did a strawberry one, which I wasn’t particularly happy with, but New Husband said was his favourite, which is handy as that made a big mixture and we still have half of it in the freezer. A lemon one using the zest and juice of 4 lemons, so not cheap, but absolutely my own favourite, zingy, sharp and unctuous. And the remains of the blackcurrant one using fruit from the garden.

All were done using the same format. One third each sweetened condensed milk, thick Greek yogurt and whipped double cream, then add the flavouring.

I had bought too much cream, so today I made 2 more flavours. I have lots of packets of dried apricots from an Approved Food shop. I use them in lots of different ways, and today I simmered a few in some water to soften until the water had evaporated, then whizzed them to a puree and mixed them in to a half batch – 150g of everything. I added a couple of shakes of lime juice from a bottle too to balance the flavour.

The other half I flavoured with some Ovaltine. I have had a container in the cupboard so long what was left had completely solidified. So over the last 3 days it has been sat on the worktop with some water in it, and every time I go past I give it a little swish to dissolve it into the water. Today, it had all dissolved and was quite a thick liquid, so I added about a small tea cup to the base mixture. It is really nice!

Every flavour I have tried has worked beautifully so far, except the tinned mandarin, couldn’t get that one to work.

I have my eye on a packet of prunes in the cupboard to whizz up and use as a flavour, there are gooseberries in the freezer which will be used too. I nearly did that one today, but want to use elderflower cordial in it, and I’ve run out.

I had some lovely little apple pancakes for breakfast this morning. I mixed 50g flour, 25g oats, a tsp of cinnamon and a grated apple (skin and all) with a little milk to make a thick batter. Then fried those until golden in a frying pan with a smear of oil and butter, flipped them over and cooked the other side until golden too. I enjoyed those with a dollop of thick Greek yogurt and a tblsp of bramble and apple jam. Delicious