Thursday 17th July – A Hymn to the Lemon Cheesecake Square

I have been reminded that I left this blog rather abruptly nearly a week ago and have not returned.  I am not dead.  I thought I might be dying, but it turned out to be a false alarm.  Also, despite having cheated wildly over my slimming regime last week I managed to lose a pound.  I think this may have been down to the stress of my hips collapsing.  They have been much more uncollapsy over the last few days, but as I got better my children have all come down with some thankfully short lived, but horribly violent stomach bug which involves them exploding from both ends simultaneously.

This has meant lots of cleaning, lots of laundry and not a lot of time to think about cooking nourishing food.  It’s amazing how off food a person can get when up to their eyebrows in vomit and pooh.  It really does temper the appetite beautifully and I may start my own slimming group with the slogan: ‘I lost fourteen stone in a week due to being up to my eyebrows in pooh.’  It’s not really catchy, but it’s very, very effective.

I have been doing a lot of snacking in between crouching over the laundry basket and scrubbing bathrooms.  One of the things that has lightened my life significantly over the last few days is my mother’s discovery of the Co-op’s own brand luxury biscuit bar things.  They come in packs of five and you can have Brownies, Tiffin, Millionaire’s Shortbread or Lemon Cheesecake Squares.  The Tiffin is lovely and moist.  For the uninitiated Tiffin is crushed biscuit, chocolate, syrup and raisins,  like chocolate refrigerator cake, but the thing that makes it Tiffin is the raisins.  It’s nice.

The Brownies are alright, but I’m really fussy about my Brownies and only really like home made ones.  I used to make Nigella’s recipe from her How to Be a Domestic Goddess book, but it’s the only recipe of hers that’s ever let me down and I only ever managed to do it right twice. I am now a convert to the Nigel Slater recipe in his Food Diaries.  It’s exquisite.  I don’t like nuts, so where he uses nuts I use chocolate buttons or chocolate drops of some kind, but whichever, it makes the best Brownies I’ve ever come across.

The Co-op’s piece de resistance however is their lemon cheesecake squares.  They are bloody lovely.  I cannot get enough of them.  They’re tart and sweet, creamy and dense.  The biscuit is lovely and crumbly and they’re topped with thick, white chocolate which works beautifully against the tartness of the lemon. I love them.  I am in love with them.  If I eat any more of them I will turn into a Lemon Cheesecake Square.  I am converted to their wondrous joy.  They have saved my life over what has been a fairly miserable week on the food front so far.

So.  This is my hot tip for the week so far.  I have cooked real food all week, albeit uninspiring real food.  Real food that I would normally fall upon like a dying woman sighting water in the desert, but it has been a waste of effort.  The only thing that has revived my flagging interest is lemon cheesecake squares, God bless them every one.