Easy orange muffins to make when you should be doing Other Important Things.

Here follows a list of Really Useful Things I Could Have Done Tonight:

1. Got the washing off the line, which has been there for three days enduring intermittent showers.
2. Folded the other washing that is hanging on a clothes horse in the loungeroom.
3. Changed my sheets and put my new doona cover on my bed.
4. Written a letter to Kevin Rudd outlining my detailed plan to reinvigorate support for the ALP following the recent opinion polls.
5. Nutted out above mentioned detailed plan.
6. Called my grandmother to let her know I still love her and haven’t forgotten about her.
7. Opened my case book for Contracts and started reading the long list of cases I should have started reading in week one.
8. Opened my evidence book and started some preparation for my moot.
9. Done some reading for my tute in the morning.

Were I to place these in order of importance, the last three really should go in positions one, two and three. You know, seeing as how, at week 12, I’d say we’re at the pointy end of the semester.

Here follows a list of Things I Actually Did Tonight/Look At All The Faffing I Can Do:

1. Checked Facebook.
2. Watched Bold and the Beautiful
3. Watched Mash
4. Checked emails
5. Checked Facebook
6. Ate
7. Watched Home and Away
8. Mulled over when would be an appropriate time to mention to the customer at work - who happens to be a cast member of a particularly brilliant Australian comedy sketch show from the 1980s/90s - that I think she is like…way funny and its an honour to make her weak skinny latte on a semi-regular basis.
9. Made orange muffins. See below.

ORANGE MUFFINS

1 orange

2/3 cup sugar

1 large egg

1/2 cup orange juice

100g butter, melted

1 ½ cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bi-carb soda (don’t ask me the difference between the two, I can offer no insight)

Cut off the thick top and bottom of the orange and remove the pips. Chop roughly and put in a food processor. Blitz until fine. Add the sugar and blitz again. Add the egg, juice and melted butter and blitz some more until combined. By now you should have a regular Blitzkrieg happening. 

Sift dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.

Tip in orange mixture and fold together until just combined. Note - don't blitz, just fold.

Spoon mixture into greased or lined 12 hole muffin pan. Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 15mins or till golden.

Dust with icing sugar when cool.

Sweet dreams.

This morning, at around 7.15am I had the most pleasant dream. In it, I had a boyfriend. Said boyfriend was someone I went to school with in real life.

Rewind eight years (where the flip are my twenties going?) - he was the year above me and he was a dreamboat. Also, he was super smart. He did no homework (or so his nonchalant air conveyed) in our 3/4 psychology class but still aced everything. Anyone else I’d have found this irritating but with Tony* it just added to his all round perfection. He was uber cool - a bit broody, and intellectual. Too cool to play football and other low brow stuff like that. You know?

I was not alone in my adoration, everybody was aware of his total hotness. As far as I can tell his appeal was universal.

I wouldn’t want to brag, but he said hello to me a couple of times, and like, we were in the same psych class so yeah, we were pretty tight.

Fast forward eight years and it’s becoming a quaint memory. Lost in the mélange of youth. Couldn’t tell you what he even does these days. Mind you, half the time I can’t tell you what I do these days.

So my dream seemed to come from nowhere, particularly as in some respects I don’t feel like the partnering type. At least not now. The thought of having someone around often seems more annoying than anything else. I like doing what I want, when I want. Is that so very Gen Y of me? But this dream provided a sharp reminder of the pleasantries of having someone to lean on, or in this case a slim, strong, stylishly clad torso to wind my arms around as we departed a totally rocking party. It was nice.

The dream was shattered by my hideously piercing Nokia alarm tone.

From 8am-5pm I made coffee and put food on plates at dear little Tartine. Today, a fair percentage of the clientele were men calling in to collect provisions, which they employed to show their significant other that although they could not, or would not cook, they hadn’t forgotten the meaning of the 9^th May 2010. It may be Mothers Day, but it seems to be as much about partners saying thanks as well as the children.

Helping the customers carry culinary loot to their Ferrari’s (I’m not kidding – hence the no cooking) my dream swirled around and around in my head.

My thoughts drifted to food (surprise! I like to keep you guessing) and the types of things it might be nice to share with a person you quite like.

Make this. Its pretty delicious, dead easy, and will be a sure fire winner with people you are trying to impress in the romantic sense. Not that I would know, I’ve only ever made it for my mum, my brother, and my friends. I just have a hunch is all.

Raspberry Clafoutis

½ cup almond meal

½ cup milk (do use full cream, it’s better)

butter, for dotting and greasing

½ cup caster sugar

2 cups or thereabouts, raspberries (frozen are fine)

3 large eggs

pinch of salt

1/3 cup plain flour

icing sugar, to dust

In a small saucepan, bring almond meal and milk to a simmer. Remove from the heat and leave to sit for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (if I knew how to do the little degrees sign I would).

Butter a 25cm shallow pie dish. Sprinkle the dish with 1tbs of the caster sugar. Dot with a few little pieces of butter. Scatter raspberries over the dish.

Beat eggs, salt, and remaining sugar till well combined. Squash almond meal into the egg mix through a sieve. Add cream. Beat well. Sift flour into egg mixture and beat until smooth. Pour mixture over raspberries. Don’t panic, it will look super runny but it’s supposed to.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until set and a bit golden. Let it cool for a while then dust with icing sugar.

French people make traditional clafoutis with cherries so you could do that too. Whatever appeals. The raspberries are pretty nice though.

This dish is well suited to romance:

Because it’s French, and they love that stuff.

Because it can be made in advance and whipped out after your candlelit dinner for two and drizzled       with a bit of cream.

Because it’s perfect to cut into wedges and take on a picnic to somewhere you can sit in the waning  Autumnal sun and watch red leaves dance to the ground around you.

Not that I’ve thought much about what I would do/make if I had any romantic prospects.

Bon appétit.

* His name has been changed to protect his identity.