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I guess you could say that I’ve been having ‘one of those weeks’.

At the weekend I had been troubled with a rather blocked and sore ear. So, very early on the overcast Sunday morning, I dragged my sorry backside out of my warm bed to get a train and taxi to the out of hours doctor at Southend Hospital. I found that I was the only one in the slightly scruffy waiting room; in fact the whole hospital is run down and strangely deserted. There’s paint flaking off on the outside of the building and there’s rubbish and cigarette butts littering the main entrance despite strict no smoking policies supposedly in place on all NHS grounds. I heard my name called and stood up looking around for the source, the confusion arising either from the lack of hearing in my gammy right ear or due to the fact that the nurse hadn’t actually come to get me… Anyway, I was eventually guided in and, after answering some questions, e.g. reassuring her that I definitely was not pregnant and informing her of all allergies, medications etc, she was able to look in my ears and establish that there was no infection – but I was still recommended ear drops to clear things up.

This soon started to work and I was feeling better by Monday but by the next day it was a different story for the dog. I had to rush home from work to go with my parents to take him to the vet. He was panting and licking in pain with a long-term problem he’s had called pancreatitis. As he’s approaching 10 though we are naturally anxious that any ailment means the end for our furry friend. So after an exhausting evening of waiting for the vet’s opinion, he also turned out to be just fine but we changed his medication and food.

Yesterday’s visit to Southend Private Hospital (way nicer than the NHS one) had been an expected trip, as I’d been referred by my optician to see a cornea specialist. After noticing deteriorated vision in my right eye after my holiday, I had gone to get checked up thinking a change in prescription was required. Instead it was thought that I had suffered damage from dry eye as a result of over wearing my contact lenses. It seemed I would be paying a price for my own vanity. Or maybe I shouldn’t have gone to Specsavers. Either way I was amazed that this problem also seemed to have resolved itself and I can soon wear my contact lenses again for special occasions.

It’s safe to say I’m a bit tired at the end of this week but in the grand scheme of things these little bugbears didn’t matter. I’m looking forward to this weekend for some more cooking but until then, this week I rustled up some much needed comfort food.

Bella’s Toad in the Hole

I got this recipe from May Byron’s war time cookery book from the British Library, but relied on the more modern Youtube video from the Sorted guys to help me out. This is a British classic that is still very popular today.

As a kid I would enjoy the shop bought frozen ones which were still really nice but this one is fully home-made… well, almost.

I decided to use a mix as I am a beginner and seem to be useless with anything involving batter, dough and pastry (go through previous posts to see why…)

Back to this meal… I chopped some red onions into big chunks and scattered them across the bottom of the baking dish. I then assembled the sausages on top – these are pork and apple sausages that I bought from my local butcher (1lb cost about £3). Over this I scattered some dried rosemary and drizzled olive oil over. I put this into the oven for about 10 minutes at 200 degrees to start them cooking. I almost forgot to pierce the sausages – this is important or they may explode (hence why they are called ‘bangers’).

While this was in the oven I prepared the batter mix.

I even struggled to get the lumps out of this shop bought mixture.

Just after the sausages start to go brown and the onions are roasting (this with the rosemary smells great by the way) I poured the batter mixture over.

This may not look very appetizing now but the oil helps to brown the batter. I put this back into the oven for about 30 – 40 minutes. You have to resist the temptation to peek in the oven as the heat needs to stay put so that the batter can rise.

I served this up with a red wine gravy (see Sorted video), which went amazing with the flavours of the sausage, red onion and rosemary and smelt very comforting.

I think Archie approved.