Yes, I am once again fully aware that I have been AWOL.

What can I say, everyone in my circle is showing me that they can control me. From Eskom to work to friends, everyone wants a piece of Bobby and at the moment there is not enough Bobby to go around.

I got sick twice in 2020 and I just never really recovered. The side effects are long lasting. I have days of brain fog; zero energy and I have a memory like a sieve. I have also developed a post nasal drip, which is so romantic because even in the middle of summer, I am walking around with a red swollen nose and a persistent cough. My immune system is shot and it seems to be non-existent. I just hear someone is sick and a few seconds later I have the flu.

A few weeks ago, a work colleague went to a conference in Jozi and they came back with the flu. All I did was hug them and the next day, I had no voice, then the coughing started. I landed up over dosing myself on cough mixture, because I refused to measure and every time I coughed I just took a swig straight from the bottle.

Because I am stubborn, I refused to go to the doctor, so I self medicated that after two days of just med lemon and cough mixture, I was nauseas just from moving. My mother forced me to go and eventually I gave in. I was prescribed with antibiotics and strict bed rest. I am over the flu, I am still getting my voice back but I still seem to have the nasty cough, which is kind of annoying because I am not able to say two words without stopping to cough up a lung.

My mother was starved while I was away, she did take it upon herself to rearrange the kitchen and now I don’t know where anything is anymore. My father lost weight because he refused to eat the food my mother made for him. When I was able to drag myself out of bed, I was commanded to go grocery shopping because there was no snacks for my dad to eat and my mother was not going to baby him like I do. If he wanted a milkshake she told him he would have to go buy one himself, she was not going to make dirty dishes for one milkshake. Oh well, I am back and hopefully here to stay till the next flu season.

To thank my mother for standing right for everyone while I was man down. I made her a batch of cookies. Of course you know what happens. My dad saw it when he got home and hid a handful away for his office tea time. You can’t make nothing nice for this man I tell you. Let me just make something with paneer in and he wont even touch it.

This recipe was just up my street, we always have a few million jars full of Hersey kisses in the cupboard, my Mother says that they are the perfect size sweet to pray with and you know me, I love buying from Take a lot in bulk.

She allowed me to use the last of the birthday cake flavoured kisses for the cookies.

I came across this recipe on Loving it Vegan’s website and it was super easy to make, super fun and super tasty.

My parents verdict, my mother loved the peanut butter flavour and yes she would eat it again if I made it. My father, the Hersey kiss was so hard it almost broke his tooth and it was too sweet, the biscuit he liked and would he eat it again? His response was seriously he doesn’t even know what his eating most of the time so why do I keep asking for his verdict, I just make things and his forced to eat it. I really wish I was around to be in the kitchen when my mother had to cook for my father.

Ingredients:

• 113g x butter, room temperature.
• 100g x castor sugar.
• 100g x light brown sugar.
• 125g x peanut butter.
• 3 x tbsp milk.
• 1 x tsp vanilla essence.
• 188g x cake flour.
• 1 x tsp baking powder.
• ½ x tsp salt.
• ¼ x cup granulated white sugar for rolling.
• Chocolate kisses.

Method:

• In a bowl, cream together the butter, castor sugar and brown sugar till light and fluffy.
• Add in the peanut butter, milk and vanilla essence and give it a good mix till everything is well combined.
• Set aside for the meantime.
• In a separate bowl, sift together the cake flour, baking powder and salt.
• Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix till a dough is formed.
• Using a mechanical ice cream scoop.
• Scoop out some mixture and shape into a ball.
• Roll in the granulated white sugar.
• Place the balls on a greased baking tray.
• Pop into a preheated oven and bake at 180 degrees for 10 – 15 minutes.
• As soon as you remove the cookies from the oven, immediately press a chocolate kiss in the centre.
• Allow to cool for a few minutes on the baking tray and then place on a cooling rack to cool completely.