Stirred (and whisked and baked)

I don't use this community enough. These days I'm lazy about cooking. When I lost the girlfriend, I also lost the house and all those cookbooks. Eventually I gained a boyfriend who takes me out more often than not, or cooks for me so I don't have to.

Today I miss the cookbooks - we had hundreds and before I moved, I photographed all the dear favourites I had bookmarked, all the things I'd made multiple times, because I knew one day I'd want to make them again. Winter is here for the second time, and I finally do want to make that wonderful pumpkin soup I perfected. Navigating a thousand photos requires rather too much effort to track down a recipe though, so here's my deal to myself: every time I make one of those old beloveds, it goes here. Tagged, so that I can find it easily next time the urge comes on. One day I will write these down, in a thick-sheeted, brown-leaved book, with a fountain pen. Today is not the day to morph into Nigel Slater, however.

( Soup. D'jour. :D )

I'm thinking very seriously today about making orange jam, which differs from marmalade only in its sweetness. I'm not a fan of peel, and leaving it out results in a wonderfully smooth, sticky-sweet jam that is glorious on a cold winter morning. However, I have a thesis to write, so the jam has been passed over (for now) in favour of endless cups of tea and the carrot cake I made at the weekend.

I've made little secret of the fact that Nigel Slater is my cooking god; this is his recipe (with a few tiny modifications).

YOU WILL NEED [CAKE]

3 eggs
250g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
200ml sunflower [or canola] oil
250g light muscavado
200g grated carrots
150g chopped walnuts
a pinch of salt
the juice of half a lemon

( Directions )