In my previous post, I related how I watched telly with my daughter on a cold Sunday afternoon. Lest you think we are just couch potatoes, it wasn't the only thing we did all day. It must have been the weather for I was in a cooking mood right from the word go.

For breakfast nothing seemed better than a plateful of Huevos Rancheros, only I didn't have corn tortillas or masa harina, nor did I want to go shopping, so after a look in the fridge there were some leftover boiled spuds, perfect. I made a cooked salsa using that workhorse Mexican chile, the guaillo, fried the spuds in some oil, then fried the eggs and plated everything up. Despite the lack of any tortillas, the dish stood up well. Just in case you are wondering, there was no hangover involved at all.

Later on I grabbed a free range Glenloth chicken from the fridge, sectioned it and made a stock with the carcass and used that to make a sauce after frying off the chicken pieces, then braised them in the sauce for twenty minutes. The pieces were then removed and the sauce was quickly reduced over high heat to intensify the flavours. Whilst that was reducing I made some rice pilaf - nothing better to soak up the chickeny juices. The traditional accompaniment to chicken fricasse is baby mushrooms and onions, but I was toying with the idea of adding in either porcini or morel mushrooms instead. But after a taste of the sauce I decided to keep it simple and concentrate on the chicken flavour alone.

This cooking bug that I had contracted was contagious.

Whilst we were watching telly, my daughter M wandered off for a bit. Suddenly she reappeared and in her six year old excitement announced that she had made a cake and I should come and have a look. In some trepidation I went with her to the kitchen, hand in hand, looked around but could see no cake.

"Where's your cake, darling?"

"Over there."

I looked over there and could see a bowl with what looked like a whole bottle of milk in it.

"Is that a milk cake, honey?"

With a look reserved for simple people, she said "No, there is flour in it."

There was too.

I explained to her that she must always cook with an adult. What else was there to do, but back up my statement? Out came the scales, flour, butter, sugar and sour cream. M rubbed the butter into the flour, cut out a parchment circle, mixed the wet and dry ingredients, greased the tin and licked the bowl. Clean. The next day when I caught up with my wife D, I asked her if M had told her about the cake.

"Yes she did, she said it was delicious."

Sometimes I think there is no better job in this world, and the bonus is that M calls me dad.