You can tell when I’m lonely solitary because I’ll post something about cooking. When I’m not interacting with people, I’m at home, cooking, which is why there are no other stories to entertain you with.

Without planning it, I cooked myself a very English dinner tonight. Di left me pork and apple sausages from our barbecue on the weekend — she’s in Florence this week so I’m making sure the food isn’t wasted.

For dinner, I grilled two sausages and made potato mash (seasoned with salt, a bit of milk, mixed herbs and paprika). I have paid £8 for a meal like this at The Big Bang.

But wait! There’s more! …Dessert!

I had some bread past its use-by date, so I made bread and butter pudding based on this recipe, but scaled it down by a third and used diced apple because I have no raisins or sultanas.

Interestingly, while I was chopping and mixing and mashing, my eyes kept drooping. I was very sleepy, even though it was only 6 PM. Normally, I wake up if I’m doing something but I must have been tired because when I finished eating and washing up, I flopped into bed and slept for an hour.

Bread and butter pudding with apple

Feeds…four?

• 4 slices of bread (from my pantry: wholemeal)
• Small, erm, handful of soft butter
• 330 mL milk (from my fridge: skim)
• 1 medium sized apple, diced (from my fridge: cox apple — really nice, never had it before I came to England)
• 1 large egg, beaten (from my fridge: free range)
• 2.5 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

1. Butter one side of each slice of bread. Butter a loaf tin.
2. Line loaf tin with bread (you will need to cut the slices into thirds). Save three thirds of bread slice to use as the cover.
3. Mix in a bowl the milk, apple, egg, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon.
4. Pour the mixture into the loaf tin. Sink the remaining bread slices into the middle.
5. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 3 (170°C: 325°F). Let the tin sit for about 20 minutes.
6. Bake the cake until it is ‘golden brown’ or ‘not too gloopy’. Mine took a long time, about an hour. The recipe reckons it should take half an hour.