Easter madness.

I wake up early in the morning to start zesting 5 medium-sized oranges. Zest plus oranges after peeling end up in a pot with ridiculous amount of sugar and a three hour long process of making orange jam. Stirring oranges with one hand, I extend my right arm to put the oven on to heat it up ready for shortcrust pastry. In the meantime I cook chickpeas for hummus, drain them, try mashing them with a potato masher (this is how they must have done it for years before food processors were invented), but it doesn't work. Still stirring the oranges. I take out a food processor and put chickpeas in. Too dry, food processor is not able to manage with these. I go over to get some olive oil and tahini, stirring oranges on my way there. Finally I decide to add some cold water to my chickpea mix, the consistency begins to look more like hummus and less like shoe paste. I stir the oranges a bit more (going into the second hour of stirring).

As a little miss multitasking, I start chopping peppers for lunch. They end up in the oven instead of pastry, which still isn't made. Dad starts boiling eggs for Easter breakfast and pours colourings into four glasses. There isn't enough room in the kitchen for two people trying to prepare five different things in parallel, but there is no time to spare. I wash spinach and start wilting it down. Dad makes a horrible mess with his colourings. I decide to simply ignore it to spare my nerves. Still stirring the oranges. I quickly whip together shortcrust pastry, it ends up in the fridge to rest a little. Back to my spinach tart now, ready made puff pastry ends up in the tart form and then spinach and peppers which I managed not to burn in the oven. I pour milk and egg mixture over the vegetables. Half of it end up around the tin. The tin has a spring bottom and somehow the pastry didn't stop it from leaking. Nevermind, I shuffle the tart into the oven, praying that some o the filling will set fast enough to remain in the tin. 

Back to stirring the oranges. After three hours the mixture is thick enough to turn the hob off. Thank goodness, since I'm covered with sweet sticky orange blobs. 

Tart goes out of the oven, I quickly whiz in my two pieces of tart, there's no time to spare. Shortcrust pastry is done and cooled, so I can begin decorating. I have sliced almonds and dried figs from which some random patterns begin to emerge. It will do, the cake will disappear before anyone notices the decorations anyway. Two more cakes to make. Yeast almost grows out of the giant bowl it is in, so quickly I whisk egg yolks with sugar, mix them with yeast and flour. I put the dough aside to rest, at which point I realise I forgot about raisins. I mix those in. At least there are no oranges to stir anymore.

10 hours later, it's all done. Nothing burned (too much). Finally I sit with a cuppa, watch telly and wait until I need to leave for Easter Vigil. Gosh, I need some domestic help in the future, or simply start going on holidays for Easter. Enough of Easter madness.