Week 34. And September. It’s as though summer never happened. What did happen to it? What was I doing? Did I fall asleep?
It’s been a crazy few weeks and honestly right now I’m suffering from complete overwhelm and exhaustion. This coming weekend is my last weekend off until Christmas, forgive me if I sleep for most of it! Rather than fixate on that big picture, let’s look at some of the happy little things.
* One red tomato. For some reason (maybe the hot June and July and wet August) everyone’s tomatoes are huge but green. I feel a small sense of achievement that one of our has gone red. I don’t hold out a lot of hope for the other tomatoes and see vats of green tomato chutney and salsa verdi in my future.
* This card, bought for me by Himself to celebrate you know what. Seriously this sums me up perfectly. The little person even kind of looks like me.
* Hot air balloons. On these late summer evenings there have been a lot of balloons above the fields at the back of our house. They look so majestic just hanging there defying gravity. Himself wants to go on a trip in one. I’m not so sure. To me they seem to be one of those things that only looks good from a distance. Quite a big distance. Anyone who has read the first few pages of Ian McEwan’s “Enduring Love” will know what I mean.
* Green tea. I really used to hate this stuff but either my taste buds have changed or green tea making has come on in leaps and bounds as I love it now. Problem is I didn’t realise it has caffeine in it until it was too late. 
* Cake. If in doubt eat cake! 
Tell me what little things you love today!
Firstly a big thank you readers for all your kind words, comments and emails on yesterday’s news. I’m excited. And scared. And excited. And ludicrously grateful. I’ll let you know how everything turns out!
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Now moving on from my news, today is a very special day for a dear friend. The gorgeously fabulous Phil is getting married today. For various reasons I couldn’t make it to her Big Day, so instead I have made a delicious cake “for her” and I will congratulate her to myself as I eat it! 
HAPPY WEDDING DAY PHIL AND TOM – LOTS OF LOVE TO YOU!!
Now, I don’t know about everywhere else in the world but in the UK traditional wedding cakes are like Christmas cakes – rich fruit cake, slathered in marzipan and royal icing. These cakes are being displaced by less traditional sponges and cupcake towers, which is all well and good but I like the traditional cake. I used to work in conference and banqueting and I cannot tell you the number of wedding cakes I have had to cut up. We had a special silver knife and everything. And no of course I never ate the icing. Of course not…. 
As I have no intention of getting married I have to make sure I get invited to plenty of weddings to eat the cake these days. Either that or make my own. So let’s do this….
As you can see, we’re just going to concentrate on the cake. Remember this recipe readers as I shall be testing you on it later in the year when I shall be using it for the Christmas cake part of a “Have a Very Vegan Christmas” series of posts. It is a then that we shall deal with the icing part. I may even persuade Pa Yogini to divulge his secret marzipan recipe. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
Ingredients
12oz/300g self raising flour
12oz/300g mixed dried fruit (pick what you like, I used raisins, sultanas and mixed peel but you might like to use dried cherries, cranberries or apricots)
4oz/100g ground almonds
3oz/75g dark brown sugar
1 mashed banana
6fl.oz/175ml sunflower oil
6fl.oz/175ml fruit juice (any flavour)
1 big tablespoon of treacle (molasses)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon allspice
Firstly grease and line a cake tin and put the oven on 170*C/325*F/Gas Mark 3
Then on the hob heat up the sugar and treacle with a little bit of water
Turn the heat off under the pan once it is all melty and add the mixed fruit, ground almonds, sunflower oil, juice and banana and leave it all to soak for half an hour.
In a separate bowl sift the flour and spices.
And mix the marinated fruity treacly goodness into it until your wooden spoon can stand up in the batter unaided.
Do not be tempted to eat the cake yet.
Instead, put the batter in your cake tin and cover with tin foil and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes. After this time take the tin foil off the cake and bake for a further 20 minutes. Allow to cool in the tin for about 15 minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack.
Come Christmas there will be the addition of brandy, but why not practice with this for now in honour of Phil and Tom’s wedding, in honour of friendship, in honour of the glory of cake itself. Yum!
