Spoiled us with some Comfort Food

Mourning

Today I actually wanted to write a completely different post. A post that I didn't want to write, but which is worth reading, and a post that can be an example for many people how NOT to do it. Unfortunately, my post ties in seamlessly with @jk6276's post… The legendary words “Don't be like JK” certainly apply to me as well. Because as much as I hate to admit it… I am like JK, and also sold my Splinterlands assets BEFORE the big boom! Ouch!

That post, I will write it at a later time… once I've licked my wounds enough, and 'mourned' long enough about what could have been but isn't. As soon as I have accepted that apparently it really is “The Story of My Life” I will. I'm not there yet, but… I'm on my way. I just spoiled myself with some comfort food. Isn't that the best thing you can do in such a case?

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Holidays are over again

In this first week after my partner had to go back to work, and I was home alone again with the dogs during the day, I had to get back into the rhythm. Such a holiday mood always lingers with me a little longer. I can organize the time myself, I don't have a boss where I have to appear at 8 o'clock in the morning, and the dogs are usually nice enough in the morning to let me do my thing. Only that thing, that didn't work this week. Normally I can focus quite well, but this week I spent quite a few hours staring at my screen uselessly. Or staring out with unseeing eyes and listening to the rain tapping against the windows. The weather has been a bummer all too often this summer, and my inspiration has simply been washed away with the many downpours we've had this summer.

I'm going to bake a cake!

To brighten up my mood, which was also in danger of falling below zero, I went to see what I could do this week. And then the idea came to stand in the kitchen again. After all, despite the bad summer, we DO have plenty of plums hanging on the trees that we can pick. And they are NOW ripe and nice and sweet.

Plums should be picked when they are ripe, because once picked they do not ripen any further. But if you wait too long for them to fall, you should also leave them behind, because a fallen plum can rot very quickly. And many insects like to crawl into such a fallen plum. You don't want to eat that, at least I don't. Now I was right on time, some plums had fallen, but there are certainly very nice specimens in the trees. And there I faced a challenge. Because how was I going to pick them? I'm not very small, but those trees are very tall! A kitchen staircase had to provide the solution. Staggering on the stairs, and finally with a net, I scored enough plums for the cake I wanted to bake! And I have to admit, 'taking action and doing something' did me good. Something completely different from just staring at my PC and not really getting anything done yet. The dogs also found picking plums together very pleasant and were already happy that after picking the plums, we also played with balls for a long time before we went back inside.

Getting to work

Once inside, the preps could begin… washing, halving and pitting the plums. When that was done I could start looking for all the ingredients for my dough. And in the absence of enough butter, I came up with something else… which also worked very well.

Yes, don't be too impatient. LOL. I'll tell you what I came up with. But first I want to proudly show you my end result. A delicious plum pie made from plums from our own garden. And I can tell you that both my partner and I have 100% approved the cake and labeled it “Repeatable”.

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Then now… of course on with;

The process of creating.

So after I had made all the preparations it was time to throw the ingredients together. And those ingredients consisted of;

• 250 grams of cottage cheese
• 250 ml milk
• 1 egg
• 500 grams self-raising flour
• 100 grams of sugar
• 1 sachet vanilla sugar or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 8 tablespoons of oil
• 1 kilo of plums

Now I said before that because of a lack of butter I had come up with something else, and that was the combination of the cottage cheese and the oil. That together gives about the same result as butter. The rest of the ingredients are pretty standard for a cake, in my opinion. So the procedure was as follows;

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You throw the cottage cheese, egg, oil and sugar all together in a large bowl and mix it together until smooth. Then slowly add the milk and flour, little by little at a time. Keep mixing each time until both the milk and the flour are completely incorporated. And at the end of your milk and flour you have made a nice smooth homogeneous mass of dough.

Now it's very simple. You pour this dough into a baking tin, or even straight on a baking plate, and simply stick the halved pitted plums upright in the dough.

The whole thing goes into the oven together. And bake it at 225 degrees for about 40 / 45 minutes. After it comes out of the oven, sprinkle it with powder sugar again… I never said this was a healthy cake, did I? LOL!

Let it cool down

And when the whole thing has cooled down, yes…really. Let it cool because it tastes much better cold. Especially because last, for the finishing touch, you have to add some whipped cream. And with a big dollop of whipped cream thrown on top you serve the whole thing… Normally I would have sprayed the whipped cream neatly in a doll so that it also forms a nice whole in the photo, but unfortunately for me my partner was a bit impatient and just took a spoon with which he whipped cream into both pieces of pastry. So much less beautiful in the photo, but of course it doesn't matter at all for the taste.

Healthy?

Nope, not at all! Far from healthy. But a delicious treat that I made for us with fresh plums from my own garden. A great way to process the seasonal fruit. And I had distracted my thoughts very well in this way, which gave me new energy to just faithfully play my daily Splinterlands quest every day with the cards that you can still use thanks to the Summoners Spellbook. It takes some getting used to not having good cards anymore ... but yes, whoever burns his butt must be on the blisters, my father always used to say. And that is even more evident in this case. After enjoying my piece of cake, I now quickly go back to play the daily quest ... and hope that my one box will yield a nice surprise when opening it.