Having managed to do most of my packing last night, and with a morning to spare, Sprog and I dashed off into town to purchase eggs and sausagemeat. After dashing back, we began a little assembly line with the two of us - eggs were boiled, cooled and peeled. Sausage meat (a whopping two and a half kilograms of the stuff) was systematically turned into flat "meat patties", seasoned and then wrapped around the eggs. They've been rolled and coated in bread crumbs and, as I type, are baking in the oven.

The only problem is transport - we don't really have a tub large enough to carry them, so we may have to go for wrapping them individually in a layer of kitchen towel and tin foil and twisting the tops closed.

Edit 1137h: Taken them out of the oven, a few are pristine with no cracks, a few have small fissures, one has a fairly large gap. Once they're cooled, we'll move on to the "wrapping them" stage. Joy!

Second attempt at Scotch Eggs. Made five this time round, with more meat per egg. One cracked neatly in two, another two remained intact but noticeably cracked, another one had a small crack, and the fifth one (designated CE #6290) came out more or less perfectly. Sprog and I devoured the split-in-two one (#6285) to ensure that the batch were at least edible. Next attempt at Scotch Eggs will feature more seasoning for the sausage meat, and trying to compress the meat around the egg more so the "join" is less obvious, as I think it's that part which cracks.

Experiments #6279-6283 (hopefully to be known as "Scotch Eggs" (or, for Maelfroth, "Merisusi Eggs" - all the great taste of Avian eggs and bear-meat!)) are now in the oven to bake away for around forty minutes. Aiding construction of the eggs was my little brother Sprog (malky_moo), which sped up the preparation time by a fair bit. Covering the eggs in sausagemeat was quite a tricky task - next time, I'll flour the board and my hands to make handling it a little bit easier - but they've all been coated with seasoned meaty goodness and smothered in breadcrumbs.

Hopefully it'll be a success. Having become addicted a while ago to the Scotch Eggs at Botham's in Whitby, every other one I've tried has paled in comparison, so providing I've got the meat-to-egg ratio correct, it should stand above the crappy ones you get from Tescos. I mean, really, I don't want to hear the egg rattling around inside! I want it to be jam-packed with meat!

Edit: About ten minutes left of cooking time to go. Checked on the eggs - for the most part, the meat has (predictably) contracted, causing cracks and exposing the egg inside. I think the answer lies in using more sausage meat to cover the eggs...

Edit 2: Eaten Experiment #6279, which had suffered the highest amount of meat-cracking. While #6279 may have been deformed beyond all recognition, it tasted fantastic. Certainly more meat will be needed for the next one (probably 200g of meat per egg, rather than 100g of meat).

"Now flip the roll and lay the ingredients on the reverse side..."

I'm not sure how well I'd cope with doing that at, say, noon when I'm feeling awake, alert and generally on the ball. Trying to do it at quarter past seven in the morning? Suffice to say, it didn't end well. I may have to buy another little bamboo rolling mat, place it on the top and then flip it over like that. Even then, I know a lot of the rice is going to stick to the mat when it comes to rolling. More experimentation is needed.

So I've made some regular rolls, and some not-so-great looking inside out ones, with avocado, cucumber and salmon. I fear that the sushi rice may be a bit too sweet for Freddie, I'll try a different mixture for my lunch and see whether or not that comes out any better.

In pudding related news, we had some Yorkshire Brack last night. It's essentially fruit loaf and tea and is really rather good indeed. Luckily, Bothams does cake-by-mail, so once we've run out, I can quietly order some more and just pretend that we've got a never ending tin of cakes.

Lasagne is in the oven, although I'm not entirely sure how this one's going to turn out. I've taken out one of the normal ingredients, added two different ones and am trying out pork mince rather than beef mince, as the beef mince at Sainsburys didn't quite look right. I intended to take photographs of some things during my trip into town, but failed to do so, instead favouring the option of lunch at Let's Do (gods, I love that place) and buying stuff for dinner tonight. Oh, and I picked up a DVD.

Sprog's arriving on Wednesday evening, so I need to sit down and think of (a) some kind of meal plan to keep him, and the rest of us, something approaching "well-fed" and (b) super fun happy activities to do over the few days he's over. With Miss Freddie at work throughout the day, I'm guessing Thursday will be a "run around town" sort of day, with Sprog fending for himself in the evening. Friday.. we'll.. err.. well, I'll burn that bridge, salt the earth and take prisoners of war when I get to that, err, bridge.

Hopefully Freddie will be back by the time the lasagne's almost ready...

One dozen eggs, a lot of flour, six pints of milk, a big bag of sugar and a bottle of lemon juice. As we're trying to slowly empty the freezer of foodstuffs, I guess I can use some of the ice cream that's been lurking near the back since time immemorial as a pancake filling. If only I got some Cadbury's Creme Eggs - we've proven that you can melt them down to make a great pancake filling.

I've not got any savoury fillings planned. How are you supposed to get hyperactive, giggly and awesome with savoury pancakes?

Must try and stay awake.

( Cut for pictures FOR GREAT JUSTICE )

So this lasagne is rather a team effort, as I had Miss Freddie as my glamorous assistant for the cooking process. With the New Improved Tidy Kitchen, there's actually enough space for two people to work at once, which means I could've got the other chopping board and given it to her so she could've done some veg-choppin' as well. But I only just realised that after I put the lasagne in the oven. Once again, I've made a lot of lasagne, so Miss Freddie, Miss Jenny and I* will be eating up lasagne for lunch tomorrow as well.

Next big cook will be roast duck. Yum!

* Come back soon, Mister Colin! I'm in a house full of girls!