Lemon meringue pie yummyness

Hello! We've been having a busy kind of time in the tangerine household recently. Not busy in the sense of actually having to get anything that counts as a Real Life Achievement done, but more that we've been moving furniture around so we can de-artex our sitting room, having birthdays, father's days and getting-the-chores-done days, looking after the neighbour's dog, that kind of thing. And then I saw that I hadn't been back here for five whole days! Bad blog owner! Before I went on maternity leave I worked a lot of shifts and overtime and although I was looking forward to having the break (with a newborn!ha!) I just couldn't imagine how I was going to fill all those empty days and weeks and months stretching ahead. Now I can't remember how I fitted work in - playing with the baby, walking the dog, feeding the baby, cooking food, changing the baby, seeing a friend for a cup of tea, keeping the house vaguely tidy, getting food to the house, going to bounce and rhyme with baby, doing the washing et cetera takes up so much of my time! I did worry that I would get 1950's housewife syndrome being at home all the time but it's actually been genuinely really really nice. Strangely nice seeing as most of what I do seems to be childcare or housework. It sounds odd but I've quite enjoyed making meal plans and making food from scratch and having the time and inclination to bake. And babies do this weird thing to your brain, where any time you can do something productive when they're asleep feels like a real treat: so I now quite enjoy popping the radio on and getting stuck into the mountains of washing up all that cooking creates when baby's napping. So so 

weird. 

Baby girl turning into THE HULK!!! Or having hand-prints done for father's day.

I think that because us ladies have historically had a bit of a fight on our hands to actually being able to work and do things outside of the home and because all ladies are still rather expected to have babies and LOVE EVERY SINGLE SECOND OF IT OR ELSE it can feel a bit ... embarrassing almost I suppose, to admit that you do have enjoyment and fulfillment in the simple things. That's not to say that having babies and doing housework is the only way to happiness and achievement and contentment as a lady, far from it (!) but more that it's not often that you have the opportunity to step off the merry-go-round of studying/working/shifts/general busyness to breathe in deeply and just enjoy the moment for what it is. I really hope that when I go back to work that I can keep that sense of pleasure in the simple things.

Hold the phone, this blog post was meant to be about lemon meringue pie! What happened?!? 

Pie.

Ta dah! Now, I hadn't ever made this before, but my other half requested this for his birthday cake after he saw Mary Berry make in on the televisual machine. Well, challenge accepted! Turns out, it's a Massive Faff and creates a truly biblical amount of washing up. Honestly, I haven't even started tackling it yet. It's just so enormous. I think it's because it has three separate elements: the meringue, the lemon custard stuff and the base. However - and it is a bit however - it tastes as epic as the pile of washing up. If I do say so myself, it is almost impossibly nice. I would highly, highly recommend it, but probably best done when you fancy a bit of a kitchen pootle on a lazy Sunday afternoon (or have a dishwasher)

Mary Berry uses a biscuit base in this recipe which makes it pleasingly cheesecakey with the added benefit of not having to make pastry. I had a bit of a drama because I was a numpty and used a handheld food blender to whip the egg whites which did horrible things and they ended up all split and gross looking. However, three fresh egg whites and a recently found hand whisk later and my husband had cheerfully created a very respectable bowl of 'cloud-like' egg whites (seems like a very subjective description for egg whites. Are we talking cumulonimbus clouds? Sirrus clouds cartoon clouds? Endless variations!) Mary makes some very pretty swirls in hers but mine didn't really hold the swirls so it all looked a bit plonked. Luckily my husband isn't the type to notice these things.

Just put ice cream over the bits that look like vomit and voila!

I'm counting this one as a success! On a lemon meringuey note, my brother in law makes a lemon meringue cake. That's right. CAKE. HOW?!? All I know is that if you really could cook happiness, it would taste like that. Om nom nom. I just really love food. I don't get those people who forget to eat. How does that even happen? Surely it is evolutionary unfavorable? I think so. It makes me feel better about eating all the pies anyway. Ha!

I've nearly finished making some container baskets out of that coloured string I showed you last week. I'm going to try and write my very first pattern for you! Eeeeeee!

Happy father's day to you all

xxxxx