Sunday was largely spent in the kitchen, packing things up. In between all of that I wanted to get a head start on food for the week and not just sit in a pile of belongings, getting stressed (it’s all far too like moving house for my liking, but it’ll be worth it!)

We’ll be doing a lot of instant pot and slow cooker meals over the next month, but I’m feeling very intimidated by this. I’m not a whizz on these like a lot of the bloggers and youtubers I follow and I’m a bit worried that there will be so much stew that we’ll never eat it again.

So naturally, I started with stew.

Veg and meat – still working on the leeks! Also mushrooms, garlic, carrots and parsnips.

Add potatoes and herbs.

Add stock and seasoning.

45 mins cooking time in the instant pot, and delicious sludge!

Allowed to cool and then into the fridge for later. I try to avoid cooking on Mondays as far as possible.

While that was going on, and in between bursts of lugging kitchen crap upstairs to Tetris into the guest room, homemade burgers for dinner with the last pack of mince from the freezer.

We also had some bread that was only good for toast, so bread pudding time! This is the Irish version, which is usually much more gooey than Southern bread pudding.

Crusts off buttered bread, face down, into a dish. Don’t use too much butter or it’ll be greasy instead of gooey.

Small sprinkle of sultanas, as not everyone is convinced by them in pudding. Small sprinkle of nutmeg, and then next layer.

Beat together cream, milk, eggs, sugar and vanilla and strain over. Into the fridge for at least an hour.

The recipe uses 12 slices, and I had 8, so I used a smaller dish and about half the liquid. This would turn out to be a slight mistake – while still delicious, it’s much better when the full batch is cooked.

Cheeseburgers with fries, followed by this glorious pudding served with a drizzle of fridge-cold cream. Yum!