Basket Balls

I'm sure we've all had days like these. The cupboards are barer than bare and the usually upwardly buoyant inspiration has hit an all-time low. You just want to grab something simple to eat, anything, and not worry one little bit what it looks like. It's not like anyone is going to see it but you, is it? Until there's that unexpected knock at the front door and you remember with horror that you casually invited Mrs so-and-so from the next street along that you never really liked very much round for a bite to eat while showing off your holiday slides. Oh balls! Fix a smile, contain your panic and think 'What Would Fanny Do?'

The inevitable answer is always something erupting with elegance and embellishment, something that the nasty not-bargained-for neighbour would never dream of. Something they would simply have to rave about as the hover over the garden fence to tell the other, intentionally uninvited, neighbours about in great detail. Above all garnish and presentation. As you glance round the kitchen though, while Mrs so-and-so takes a gander round your living room hoping to find specks of dust, or worse, options seem limited. Just a fleshy fruit flashing a wink at you from the counter-top... If all life gives you is a melon, what on earth do you do?

Fanny says balls, naturally. Melon balls. Always classy, fresh and zingy. But are they dramatic enough? Will Mrs so-and-so really be impressed with a pile of balls? Fanny clearly thinks 'no'. Her answer is to make an overblown feature of the melon itself, pulling on all her creative powers to fashion it into a basket to cradle the otherwise 'everyday' balls. Pesky Mrs so-and-so will never believe it...

Knife skills are key here, first of all marking out the handle for the basket, then slowly and carefully creating an overly exaggerated jagged edge, you know, erm, like all baskets have. Slicing ever-so-carefully around the design to release two sections of melon either side of that 'handle'. Then trim out under the arch, and scoop out the seeds, no-one would be impressed with those. Grab your melon baller (which I presume is never far from hand) - although do remember when Mrs so-and-so asks it's called a Parisian cutter - and swirl those off-cuts into the spherical star turn. That'll show Mrs so-and-so, I bet she's never eaten melon balls from an actual melon basket...

Fanny does not stop there of course, always a footstep ahead when it comes to flaunting fruit. She identifies a deserted tin of mandarin oranges sitting all lonesome in the bleak kitchen cupboard. But how can you serve tinned fruit to Mrs so-and-so and get away with it. Taking girl power as her inspiration (no doubt) the answer, as ever when uncertain, is to spice up your life. Fanny gently heats the mandarins with water, sugar and cinnamon before serving them 'icy' cold. Luckily for me my store cupboards also have some mulled wine Spice Drops, so I just add them to the juice and slosh it on. No need to gently heat and chill. Made in minutes, Mrs so-and-so will be lost for words. So, get carving and balls to her.

Recalling Appalling Tarpaulin

There's one pudding (yes, just one) that I have really never liked at all, ever. Loathed it. We had it a fair bit when I was young but the thought of it made me feel ill with dread all through the meal. Back then it was a case of 'you are not leaving the table until you've eaten it' so you can imagine me sitting there for hours and hours, wishing and hoping that it would magically disappear, slowly shovelling the smallest amounts into my downturned mouth, trying to force it down. Even today, I shudder when I think about it, such was the horror of the... Rice Pudding.

It was the really thick, absolutely black tar-like canvas-feel topping it had as it emerged from the oven that made me quake. I've heard other people say for them, this is the best bit, but it made me want to heave then, and now, just thinking about it! I didn't want it anywhere near my plate, or my mouth. There's no rhyme or reason for it I suppose. Thankfully Fanny seems to share the repulsion, with her recipe for a colourful, fruity alternative which does not have the 'tarpaulin top' that gives me the heebeegeebees.

Fanny makes her version by mixing Patna Rice with sugar, vanilla, fresh (or tinned) orange juice and ordinary tap water before baking under a light covering of ordinary domestic foil in a medium oven. Fanny doesn't specify a time for this, just until 'it reaches the consistency you like.' Clearly she hasn't been listening, I don't like the consistency at all. I struggled to find pudding rice in the supermarket - clearly I've never searched for it, ever, but I'd assumed it would be easy enough to find. Perhaps the whole world shares my feelings about rice pudding? I did spot some Thai Sticky Rice which said it was ideal for puddings though... Rats, there was no escaping this one!

To spice up the rice a little, I added a few drops of luscious Cardamom Holy Lama Spice Drops which I was very kindly sent recently. Orange and Cardamom are a celestial match. The drops are divine, really intense and as the name suggest, you only need a drop or two. For a pudding like this it seemed to make sense rather than adding ground spices. The heavenly smells coming from my kitchen are making me think that perhaps Rice Pudding might not be so bad after all?

Nothing with Fanny is ever that straightforward, so while the pudding is baking I whip up an accompaniment in the shape of Fried Breaded Bananas. As their name suggests, they are bananas cut down the centre ('because they look prettier'), rolled in beaten egg and enclosed in breadcrumbs before frying. Fanny arranges them in a fan display with a nut on the end, for no apparent reason. They taste like you'd imagine. They don't distract me long from the dreaded rice pudding though - but I needn't have worried. It surfaces without the dreaded tarpaulin top, and retains its orange glow - no black in sight. It's like a jammy marmalade-y risotto consistency, and with the kick of warm cardamom is, erm, lovely really. Just don't make me have that black-topped heavy duty tarpaulin stuff ever again.