There's a stewaway on board!

Continuing my affinity with the ocean I went to Dani Bristol's flat for dinner on Tuesday. She lives overlooking the canal on Kingsland Road so my gills weren't far from water thankfully.

She slaved over a delicious hearty stew overflowing with beans and pulses and grainy stuff and swede and cabbage and carrots and potatoes. Recipe: seemed to be cook it all up together for a while. I was too busy chatting to notice. Ooh and we mopped it up with some chunky bread and butter.

For pudding Blue Granny had stowed away in my bag a tub of stewed fruit (actually 2 so we had our pick of apple or blackberry. She is wonderful) and a bag of crumble mix that she had pre prepared that morning. So I combined the two components (we plumped for blackberry fyi so next dinner party is getting apple) and cooked in the oven for half an hour at gas mark 6.

Recipe: Stew some fruits or visit my granny and she'll give you some, and put it a tin then layer the topping over it. Topping appaz is: 300g plain flour, 175g unrefined brown sugar, 200g unsalted butter, cubed at room temperature. Rub that all together until you get crumbs.

Had a very merry meal with Dani, Sparkles and her housemates Harry and Pat. Then we chucked the surplus out for some anti boy: watching BrideWars which I'd siphoned off Granny's coffee morning goods (I had asked). What a tonic.

Then I had a dreamy sleep, fun breakfast with Sparkles and came home to a day of writing. Don't know how employed people fit all this in!