Smoked salmon blinis

This was our starter on Christmas Day. You weren't keen on the smoked salmon, but the blinis and cream cheese disappeared remarkably quickly.

You'll need:

4 small blinis per person (I cheated and bought these in Sainsbury's - life's too short to stand over a frying pan for that long)
cream cheese
smoked salmon
capers (4 or 5 for decoration per person)
cucumber, sliced into long thin strips - you want 5 or 6 strips per person

I thought the blinis would be nice warm, so I heated mine in the oven for 2 or 3 minutes (the oven was on at about 180 degrees C to cook the capon anyway). Spread the cream cheese liberally on each blini, and then top with a generous piece of smoked salmon.

Arrange the cucumber on each plate in a fan shape, and dot with the capers. Sling 4 blinis on each plate, and present to your delighted audience.

Smoked salmon, lemon and courgette pasta

We had a freezing cold morning in the park being pursued by ravenous geese, followed by a trip to Borders in the frenzied sale crowds. The former was rather better than the latter.

Tea was the result of leftovers from Christmas day (we had smoked salmon on little blinis as a starter).

You'll need:

pasta (spirali were good for this)
smoked salmon - whatever you've got left
grated rind of a lemon
a large courgette - sliced into chunks
an onion, finely sliced
salt and lots of black pepper

Gently fry the onion in a little olive oil until it's translucent. Add the courgette (you may need to add more olive oil at this point), and fry until soft.

While this is happening, stick your pasta on.

Grate the rind of your lemon into the courgette/onion mixture. Add some pepper/salt to season it. When your pasta's only got a couple of minutes to go, throw the smoked salmon into the frying pan with the courgette/onion mix, to heat it through.

Drain the pasta, and shove it in the pan with everything else. You could add a squeeze or two of juice from the lemon at this point, if you like the lemony taste.

Sprinkle with lots of grated cheese and eat straightaway. It'd be nice with a green salad.

Profiteroles

We made these to have for pudding on Christmas Day, stuffed with whipped cream and topped with dulce de leche chocolate and toffee sauce.

The shape went rather wonky (they turned out rather flatter and wider than I hoped), but they tasted delicious. A piping bag might have solved the problem, as might not putting in all the egg (you're after a fairly stiff mix).

You'll need:

150g plain flour
1 tablespoon sugar
75g butter (cut into small pieces)
200ml water
3 eggs lightly beaten

Stick the oven on at 180 degrees C.

Making choux pastry is not anything like making normal pastry - it's completely weird.

First of all, you'll need to get a sheet of baking paper. Fold it in half (to make a chute), and then flatten it again. Sift the flour onto the paper, and sprinkle with the sugar (and a pinch of salt).

Put the water and butter into a pan, and then bring to the boil. Take it off the heat, and then use your paper chute to quickly tip the flour/sugar in. Beat it all together with a wooden spoon, until you get a smooth dough.

Leave this strange mixture to cool down for a while - about 20 minutes should do it. Then you'll need to add the egg - and do this little by little, beating it in really well each time. You may not need all the egg (see above), as you're looking for a fairly stiff mix that will only drop into the bowl fairly reluctantly when lifted up.

If you spoon or pipe this mixture into little mounds (about 4cm across) on a baking tray (use your greaseproof paper chute to line it), you should be able to get about 24.

Bake the little buns for 25-30 minutes, until they're golden and puffed up. Prick each bun (with a skewer, or pin) to release the steam inside - and then return them to the oven for another 5 minutes so that they dry out. Leave them to cool completely after that.

I made these a couple of days in advance, and they kept fine in an airtight tin. Filled with whipped cream and drizzled in chocolate, no-one really noticed they were a bit misshapen...

Chocolate stars

These cheered your Dad up no end, after a week of flu.

You'll need:

a bar and a half of dark chocolate (about 150g ish)
a small pack of dried cranberries

Break the chocolate up into small pieces, and place in a large bowl. Sit the bowl over a saucepan which contains a couple of inches of water, and turn on the heat. The chocolate will gradually melt - keep stirring it so it doesn't stick on the hot edges of the bowl.

Once you've got molten chocolate, turn off the heat and leave to cool, for 10 minutes or so. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper, and pour the chocolate (which should be thick but not too drippy) onto the paper. Leave for another 10 minutes, until it's starting to set.

Take one small star cutter, dip in hot water, and use to cut shapes in the chocolate. Quickly push a cranberry into each star.

Leave the chocolate to cool completely - it's often easiest to do this in the fridge. Once it's cold, you can peel the chocolate off the greaseproof paper, and the stars should be easy to push out.

Red cabbage

There's a lovely Nigella Lawson recipe for proper red cabbage, that you cook in red wine and spices for a couple of hours. Sadly, this isn't it. I was going to have a go at making that yesterday, but by the time we'd been to the park, walked to the post office and back, and sorted out the ingredients for toad in the hole there just wasn't time.

This is my poor substitute. You'll need:

a quarter of a red cabbage, finely chopped
half an onion, finely chopped
a slosh or two of vinegar
a teaspoon of brown sugar

Fry the onion in a little olive oil until it turns translucent. Add the cabbage, and cover with some boiling water. Add a couple of sloshes of vinegar (I used the white wine variety), and a teaspoon of brown sugar.

Leave to simmer for ages. You'll also need to add a lot of black pepper, a little salt, and maybe a slosh or two more of vinegar - it depends how you like it.

We ate this after about 40 minutes, but it could have gone on cooking for a lot longer quite happily.

Apple sauce

This goes really well with the roast pork. You helped me make this - I peeled the apples and you chopped them up carefully into chunks with a sharpish knife. Aside from the odd moment of wafting the knife about a bit too much, you were brilliant.

You'll need:

a couple of cooking apples (we used up some of the stash from Grandma and Grandad)
a couple of teaspoons of sugar

Peel and core the apples, and chop into chunks. Put into a small pan with a little bit of water and the sugar, and leave to bubble away for 15-20 minutes. The apples will turn mushy - splodge them down in the pan a bit if you like a smoother sauce.

Whatever you do, don't forget about the pan once it's on the hob - if the apples boil dry they're an absolute pain to scrub off...

Roast pork (with especially crispy crackling)

I think crackling is probably your Dad's favourite thing (after curry and chicken dripping - not together, obviously). We made this for Big Meal For Jesus (BMFJ) yesterday, to Gran's instructions.

It's safe to say we've only just about recovered.

You'll need a large piece of pork to roast - we bought a shoulder of pork from North Acomb farm, but a pork loin would be just as nice.

First of all, you'll need to stick the oven on - at about 200 degrees C. You want it nice and hot for the first 20 - 30 minutes.

Then, wash your pork rind, and dry, really really thoroughly with some kitchen towels. Score the rind with a very sharp knife. Don't just do this a couple of times - you need to make a proper job of it. Then massage in some salt (not a huge amount, as you don't want to make the meat underneath too salty).

Stick in the oven for 20-30 minutes, then turn the oven down, and leave to roast. As a rough guide, you need to roast the meat for 30 minutes per 500g...

Once it's done, leave it to rest for 10-15 minutes before carving. We ate this with nubbled sprouts, parsnips, roast potatoes and Owen's special stuffing. It were great.

'Whatever's left in the fridge' fried rice

Your Dad made this today, to cheer himself up after a day of hacking and coughing.

You'll need:

an onion, finely chopped (the rest of the ingredients may change, but this is one thing that you really have to have)
a couple of peppers, chopped (different colours are nice)
a couple of carrots, chopped into small pieces
whatever odds and ends of meat-based things you can find - today we had a couple of rashers of bacon, a little bit of yesterday's roast chicken, and a couple of inches of chorizo to play with
rice
soy sauce
black pepper
an egg
hot sauce/mayonnaise to serve

First of all, sort out your rice. Stick it in a pan, with double the amount of cold water, and leave for about 12-15 minutes until all the water's been absorbed. Test it and make sure it's cooked - you may need to add a little extra water and give it another couple of minutes. Drain into a colander, and then run it under the cold tap to stop it cooking any further.

Then put your bacon (chopped up small) and chorizo (ditto) in a frying pan (you shouldn't need any oil with these two), and fry for 3-4 minutes. Add the onion, peppers and carrot, and cook until they've softened (this might take a little while for the carrot). Add in your chicken, and swish about until it's heated up. Do the same thing for the rice - at this point, you may need to add a little extra oil if it starts to stick on the bottom of the pan.

Add a tablespoon or so of soy sauce to the mixture, and then crack in an egg. Swish it all about for a couple of minutes until the egg is cooked and distributed evenly throughout the rice.

Season with black pepper (and possibly a little salt). If you're making this in the summer, it'd probably look really nice with a little chopped parsely on the top.

I like mine with peas, but your Dad thinks they're the Devil's work and prefers the mayonnaise/hot sauce combo.

Celeriac salad

You had a hectic time at the nursery Christmas party this afternoon (complete with a visit from Santa). So tea was nice calming food - a roast chicken, some potato wedges brushed with olive oil and baked in the oven, a spinachy salad, and the experimental celeriac salad.

I adapted this from a Jamie Oliver recipe - he includes vinegar and olive oil as well.

You'll need:

a celeriac
a heaped teaspoon of capers, finely chopped
a couple of large gherkins, chopped
two anchovies, finely chopped
a teaspoon dijon mustard
a couple of tablespoons of Greek yoghurt
a large teaspoon of mayonnaise
black pepper

First of all, peel your celeriac. Ours came out of the vegetable box, so it was fairly muddy, and sprayed soil all over the kitchen as I was trying to peel it. Oops.

Once all the skin has gone, keep peeling - you want lots of longish ribbons of celeriac. Ignore the fluffy bit in the middle - it can go on the compost heap.

Plonk the celeriac in a bowl, and add the gherkins, anchovies and capers. Mix. Swearing when you drop the capers on the floor is optional.

Mix together the yoghurt, mustard and mayonnaise in a small bowl, season with lots of black pepper, and then sling over the celeriac. Give it all a good stir, until everything is coated.

Onion and goat's cheese tart

While I was making mince pies, I thought I'd make a tart for tea - they use the same shortcrust pastry base.

You'll need:

a small log of goat's cheese
two or three large onions, sliced
a handful of black olives
dried thyme
black pepper
enough shortcrust pastry to line a flan tin

Stick the oven on at about 180 degrees C.

Chuck a slug of olive oil into a large frying pan, and heat. Add the sliced onions, and cook on a low heat for 15-20 minutes (at least - they can keep pottering along for much longer if you need them to), until they've softened and started to caramelise.

Roll out the shortcrust pastry, and line the flan tin. Shortcrust is usually pretty forgiving, so you can patch up corners if you haven't got the shape quite right. I use one of those flan tins with a removable base, just to make getting the damn thing out a bit easier.

Spread the onions over the base, and then top with 4 or 5 slices of goat's cheese. Sprinkle over some olives, thyme and black pepper, and then bung in the oven for 20 minutes or so until the pastry is golden and the cheese is molten.

We ate ours with a salad of spinach leaves - it went well with the oily cheese.

Mince pies

Having decided we'd hold an office party on Saturday (given that both me and your dad work from home the chances of us getting a Christmas party are zilch unless we organise one), I've spent the evening making mince pies.

You can get around 24 mince pies out of one jar of mincemeat.

You'll need:

one jar of mincemeat (I used the last one from last year's batch. It was a little on the dusty side, having been hidden at the back of the pantry all year, but tasted just fine.)
8oz plain flour
a little pinch of salt
4oz butter

Stick the oven on, at about 180 degrees C. While it heats up, get on with the pastry making. I use just a basic shortcrust pastry (I like my mince pies on the tart side), but you could add a little sugar to the mix if you wanted.

Rub in the butter and flour, and then add some really cold water to mix. Bring it together to form a smooth, pliable (and not sticky) dough. Roll the dough out on a floured work surface (you should probably leave it to rest in the fridge for 20 minutes or so, but I ran out of time to do this today), and cut out the bases for the pie tins. I cut out some stars to go on the top as well, but you could use just plain tops too.

Dollop in a spoonful of mincemeat (if you're using a shop-bought jar then beware - it tends to go quite runny in the oven, so use a little less than you think), and then shove the star/lid on top.

Bake for 12 minutes or so in the oven, until the pastry has turned a golden brown. Turn out onto a rack to cool.

They're rather nice when warm, especially if you sprinkle them with a little icing sugar.

Christmas tree decorations

The idea for these is shamelessly nicked from Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess. They are deliciously spicy/peppery, and rather good fun to decorate.

You'll need:

300g plain flour
100g butter
100g dark brown sugar
2 eggs
4 tablespoons runny honey
a pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of ground allspice
2 teaspoons ground black pepper

Turn the oven on to 170 degrees C.

Stick the flour, baking powder and spices/pepper/salt in the food processor, and give them a good whizz round. Chop up the butter into little pieces, and then shove in the blender too. Give it a quick blitz, and then add the sugar. Whizz round until it's all combined.

Beat the 2 eggs with the runny honey, until you get a delightful gloopy mess. Add this to the food processor too, and the mixture will start to come together into a beautifully spicy brown dough.

Roll the dough out thinly (about half a centimetre or less) - you'll need a fair amount of flour so it doesn't stick. Cut out whatever shapes you fancy - we did hearts, stars (large and small), and some rather nifty Christmas trees.

Take a small pointy object (I used the nozzle of the icing gun, but a straw or skewer would do), and poke a hole in the top of the decoration - you'll need this to thread some ribbon through to hang on the tree.

Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes - they'll turn brown(er), and won't be doughy underneath.

Once they've cooled down, you can ice them, which is the really fun part. We did ours with an icing gun, and so made royal icing. You'll need:

one egg, separated into white and yolk
icing sugar - about 225g, but you might need a little more

Sift the icing sugar through a sieve into the egg white. Mix round until you have a smooth, glossy icing. You want it fairly stiff if you're going to pipe it through an icing bag, or use an icing gun.

This makes quite a lot of icing - we used the other half to decorate the gingerbread house we bought from IKEA. It keeps in an airtight tin for a few days if you've made slightly too much.

Chicken and courgette stir fry

We spent the day doing Christmassy things - buying our tree, decorating it, and then making biscuit decorations.

Tea was a bit secondary, to tell you the truth. Maybe it should have been turkey in honour of the festivities.

You'll need:

noodles
some cooked chicken (I roasted some chicken legs yesterday, and there were a few left over, so I just pulled the meat off them and then chucked the bones in a pan to make some stock).
a large courgette, thinly sliced lengthways
an onion, thinly sliced
a carrot (or pepper), thinly sliced
a tablespoon of soy sauce
a sprinkling of dried ginger (sadly there wasn't any fresh ginger lurking at the bottom of the fridge)
a teaspoon or so of honey
sunflower oil
sesame oil

Firstly, get the noodles sorted out. Bung them in a pan with some boiling water to cover them, and cook for 3 minutes or so, until they're done but not soggy. Drain.

Mix together the ginger, soy sauce and honey in a small bowl.

Then, heat the sunflower oil in a large frying pan on a high heat (we use a heavy, dark green Le Crueset one - but that's only because the wok went rusty years ago). Add the vegetables, and stir round until they start to soften a little (probably 2-3 minutes). Chuck in the chicken, and swish about for another couple of minutes until it reheats. Add the ginger/soy sauce/honey mixture, together with a teaspoon or so of sesame oil, and let it bubble away in the pan.

Add the drained noodles, and stir for a minute or so, until the noodles are reheated. Serve as soon as possible - noodles seem to go cold terribly quickly.

We ate this with some steamed broccoli (drizzled with a little soy sauce).

Salmon and leek parcels

It's still freezing cold, with powdery snow everywhere. It'd be rather good for sledging except (a) it's about 1mm deep, and (b) Grandma and Grandad failed to bring the enormous wooden sledge with iron runners that Uncle Dom and I used to hurtle downhill on.

Tea turned out to be rather good, considering it was thrown together in 10 minutes after a hideously cold walk back from nursery in the dark.

You'll need:

salmon steaks (two large ones fed the three of us)
a couple of large leeks, sliced into rings
two large foil squares
a little olive oil
black pepper

Take your square of foil, and place half the leeks on top. Sit the salmon steak on top of the leeks, and drizzle with a little olive oil. Season with black pepper. Repeat for steak 2.

Stick in the oven at about 175 degrees c for ooh, half an hour or so - open up the parcel and have a look. If the salmon is pink all the way through, then you're in business.

We ate ours with a real ragtag of things today. I was going to do a lemony, oniony risotto to go with it, but discovered there was only one rice for one portion - so your Dad had that on the side, while we had some tiny star-shaped pasta, swished round in some pesto.

Pancakes/crepes

A rotten sort of a day - cold, wet, and everyone with hacking coughs. We brought in the little Christmas tree to make up for it, and decorated it with tiny fairy lights, angels and chocolate baubles.

Tea was rather an afterthought, after all that excitement.

To make 15 thin pancakes you'll need:

500ml milk
2 eggs
a pinch of salt
250g plain flour

Bung the flour in a large mixing bowl, and add the salt. Make a well in the middle of the flour, and crack the eggs into it. Add about half the milk, and whisk, so there's not too many lumps in the gunge. Add the rest of the milk, and give the batter another really good whisk so it's nice and smooth.

If you can leave the batter for 10 minutes or so while you sort out the fillings, so much the better. We tend to like our pancakes rolled up with crispy bacon and a little something inside (pick any from sweetcorn, spinach, mushrooms and courgettes, grated cheese) or drizzled with a little maple/golden syrup and lemon juice.

Put your frying pan on a high heat, and add a little sunflower oil. Once it's really hot, add a ladleful of the batter into the pan. Swirl it round really quickly, and then leave for a minute or so, until you can feel it coming away from the pan when you shake it. Flip the pancake (the best bit is obviously when Daddy drops one on the floor - although I have to say he was remarkably restrained tonight), and stick a little bit of your filling in a line on the top.

Cook for another 30 seconds until it's starting to brown on the underside, and then flip one half over, to cover your filling, and slide onto your plate. Eat really quickly while it's still hot...

Apricot and chocolate chip muffins

Just the thing for frosty trip north to the Alnwick Garden, to meet up with Santa at the lantern parade.

This made about 16 little cupcake-sized muffins.

You'll need:

150g dried apricots, chopped
500ml boiling water
225g self-raising flour
75g brown sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
125ml vegetable oil
125-150ml milk
100g chocolate chips (or in our case, leftover mini chocolate Easter eggs gleefully unwrapped from their foil and smashed up into little pieces)

Stick the oven on at about 180 degrees C, and line some cupcake pans with paper cases (that's your job usually).

Add the apricots to half a litre of boiling water, and leave to stand for 5 minutes. Drain, and then stand them on some kitchen paper to absorb the worst of the wet.

Mix the flour, sugar and apricots in a large bowl. Pour everything else in (including the chocolate, assuming you can stop eating it) and give it all a jolly good stir. It'll look supremely revolting.

Using a teaspoon, drop the mixture into the paper cases, and then shove the muffins into the oven for about 15-20 minutes - they're done when the tops are browned.

These are gorgeous when they're still warm and crispy on the top. They freeze well too.

Lasagne

Another freezing cold day, but it was livened up by real reindeer and an animatronic polar bear at Gateshead's Frost Fair.

There were no reindeer for tea, just a blast of 1970s lasagne (coincidentally, Hugh Fearnley Whearnley's got a good recipe for one in today's Guardian as well).

You'll need:

bolognese sauce - recipe here from August
some sheets of lasagne - you could probably go to town here and make your own, but ours was Morrisons value, and tasted no worse for that
lots of grated cheese (preferably mature cheddar)
black pepper
a bechamel sauce (the amount depends on how big your lasagne dish is - ours was A4-sized today)

For the bechamel, I used:

about 1/3 pint of full cream milk
a large knob of butter
a heaped tablespoon of flour
lots of freshly grated nutmeg

Melt the butter in a non-stick pan, and add the flour. Swish about until the butter has been absorbed into the flour - you've now got a mixture called a roux. Little by little, add the milk, making sure each time that it's absorbed into the roux - you want a really nice, smooth paste, with no lumps. Keep stirring, and gradually add all the milk. Grate some nutmeg into the sauce, and then heat until it thickens - you probably need to give it a good stir every minute or so.

Right. Stick the oven on at a sensibly high temperature - 180-200 degrees C. Now assemble the lasagne. Take one large squarish/rectangular dish (makes it easier when you've got rectangular sheets of pasta). Stick a layer of bolognese on the bottom, followed by a layer of pasta sheets. Repeat. Pour the bechamel sauce all over the top pasta sheet, and let it trickle down the layers. Sprinkle with grated cheese (you don't need a huge amount).

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or so - once the top is browned and bubbling it's ready. It goes well with a nice green salad, and maybe a bit of baguette (I suppose it should be garlic bread if you're being authentically retro...).

Leek and potato soup

Good when it's freezing cold. The temperature gauge on the car said -1.5 degrees C this morning, so I think that qualifies.

You'll need:

some leeks (I used three fairly skinny ones), sliced into rings
four or five small potatoes (or however many are starting to sprout in the cupboard and need to be used up), peeled and chopped up small
lots of black pepper, thyme and a little salt
stock - I had some vegetable stock in the freezer, but chicken would be even better

Fry the leeks in a little olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan for a few minutes until they've started to soften. Add the diced potatoes, and swish about for a couple of minutes. Pour in the stock (or hot water and a little vegetable bouillon powder), and chuck in lots of pepper and thyme. Add a little salt.

Bring to the boil, and then simmer for ages, until the potatoes are tender (I left mine on for about 45 minutes). Blend, and then add a little milk or cream. You could also add a few crispy bits of bacon on the top for maximum mmmmmm factor.

Chorizo with peas and feta

We wrote a letter to Santa today, and you cycled to the postbox at the end of the street to send it on its way. Here's hoping you get a reply...

A robust sort of a tea for a cold, windy and migrainy day was required. Makes enough for two (your Dad was out at a work event, hence the peas).

You'll need:

a large chunk of chorizo, sliced
lots and lots of frozen peas
an onion, finely chopped
any odds and ends of peppers hanging about in the fridge
lots of freshly ground black pepper

Gently fry the chorizo over a low heat until it gives off its spicy oil. Add the onion/peppers and fry until they have softened. Meanwhile, heat the peas in boiling water for 3 minutes, until they have defrosted and cooked. Drain.

Chuck the peas into the chorizo/onion/pepper mixture, and swish about for a couple of minutes until they take on the chorizo oil and flavours.

Serve immediately, with some plain basmati rice. Sprinkle some cubes of feta cheese over the top.

Boiled egg and soldiers

It's the perfect lunchtime food. And the soldiers have to be coated in Marmite - the deeply salty hit is essential with the egg.

You'll need

one egg, an eggcup and an egg cosy
some decent bread to make toast (none of this sliced white nonsense)
butter
Marmite (go not near Vegemite or any other hideous imposter)

Take your egg out of the fridge, and put into a small pan with enough cold water to cover it. Heat on the stove, until you start to get bubbles appearing in the water. Forget the small piddly ones - you want the massive bubbles that ripple across the whole pan. Once these appear, time 2 minutes 30 seconds on a handy watch/timer/clock/sundial.

Meanwhile, toast your bread, and spread with butter and a good smear of Marmite. Cut into soldiers (long thin strips for the uninitiated).

Whip your egg out, plonk in eggcup, and stick an egg cosy on its head to keep it warm while you transport it to the table with the soldiers. Bash with a spoon, and then take the top off to reveal the golden mass inside. Dip soldiers repeatedly until its all gone.

Roast pumpkin soup

We ate this for lunch today, after a hard morning's work reading fairytales in the library. You particularly like the Princess and the Pea, the Little Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty at the moment.

You'll need:

some pumpkin (I used the last third of a particularly large one)
an onion, finely chopped
chicken stock, preferably with a few bits of chicken in
lots of salt and black pepper
olive oil

Stick the oven on at about 200 degrees C. Peel the pumpkin, and cut into large chunks. Place in a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil, and then roast in the oven for 20-30 minutes, until the pumpkin's soft (you don't want it to burn or go too brown).

Fry the onion in a little olive oil until it's translucent. Add the roasted pumpkin, and the chicken stock. Simmer for 10 minutes or so, blend (I use a handblender as you can just swish it about in the pan), and then season with lots of salt and black pepper.

If you're feeling really fancy, you could swirl a little cream or creme fraiche into the soup before you serve it. I never remember to have any in the fridge, so never get round to that bit.

Banana bread

I adapted this one from a Nigella Lawson recipe - she's right, it does produce the most wonderful fug of banana-y smell that permeates the whole house.

You'll need:

some rather squishy bananas (I used three large ones), mashed
125g butter
150g brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
a teaspoon of vanilla extract
60g walnuts, chopped
100g sultanas or raisins
175g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarb of soda
a pinch of salt

First of all, stick the oven on to about 175 degrees C, and find a loaf tin (I used a silicon one, so I didn't have to faff about with greasing or greaseproof paper).

Melt your butter (either in the microwave or in a small pan), and then add the sugar to it. Beat the two together, then add in the eggs - beat until it's blended really well. Mix in the mashed bananas, and then the vanilla extract.

Add the sultanas and walnuts (you like taste testing these, so I darkly suspect we didn't have quite the right amount).

Stir in the flour, bicarb, baking powder and pinch of salt, and make sure it's all mixed together really well.

Decant into your loaf tin, then bake in the oven for an hour. Poke a skewer or long pointy thing into the cake - if it comes out clean, then the cake's finished.

Leave to cool in the tin, and then turn out. Try not to eat it all at once...

Mince and dumplings

These are just the thing on a freezing cold and windy day in November. You were at nursery while I rummaged through old newspapers and colliery documents in the Northumberland archives - a traditional tea felt very appropriate.

This makes enough for three large people (you could feed more if you added a few extra dumplings, or had some potato on the side)

500g mince - I used pork, but I suspect beef mince would have been even nicer
a large carrot, finely diced
a large onion, finely diced
a stick of celery, finely diced
a stock cube
lots of black pepper and dried thyme
a good splash of worcestershire sauce

For the dumplings, you'll need:
100g self-raising flour
50g vegetable suet
a pinch of salt
a little cold water to mix

Start off with the mince. Brown (in a large, heavy bottomed pan that you can also stick in the oven), and then add the onion, celery and carrot. Cook for 5 minutes until the vegetables have softened. Add the stock cube, dissolved in some hot water, the worcestershire sauce, and lots of black pepper and dried thyme. You need the water to cover the mince and veg nicely.

Bring to the boil, and simmer for 10 minutes while you get on and make the dumplings.

(oh, and don't forget to stick the oven on to about 180 degrees C)

Mix together the suet, flour and pinch of salt. Add a little cold water, to make a firm, pliable dough. Shape the dough into little balls (I reckon this makes about 8 large dumplings and 2 toddler-sized ones).

Place the balls on top of the simmering mince, and shove the whole lot into the oven (uncovered) for 20-30 minutes, until the dumplings are golden brown and crispy on top. You might need to add a touch more water to the mince now and then, so keep an eye on it.

Goes nicely with green cabbage, or peas.

*Update*



Tastes just as good reheated...

Scrambled eggs

When you're feeling a bit rotten, then only scrambled eggs on toast will do for tea.

This makes enough for one person (or to top two slices of toast):

two eggs
a splash of milk
a knob of butter
a little black pepper (your Dad also adds dried or fresh parsley)
two thickly sliced pieces of bread, toasted

Beat the eggs together in a bowl, and add a splash of milk. Season with a little black pepper. Find a non-stick pan (you can make it in an ordinary one, but it's a pain to wash up), and melt the knob of butter over a low heat. Pour in the egg mixture, and gently stir for a few minutes, breaking up the solid bits of egg as they form. This bit is quite relaxing, especially if you've got some random nonsense from Radio 4 on in the background.

Once it's a beautifully creamy mixture, turn off the heat, plonk onto your toast, and eat immediately. I like a little Branston pickle with mine, but that leaves your Dad cold.

Kielder feast

We trundled up to Kielder yesterday afternoon to take part in Northumberland Lights 2008 installation, Out of Water.

You were fascinated by the palm trees in the lagoon, and by the Clangers-esque noises in the trees. As it started late, we had a feast in the car park, tucked up in the front seats of the car so the windows steamed up.

You'll need:

lots of hot dogs, in hot water in a vacuum flask (make sure the neck of the flask is wide enough to be able to fish them out!)
finger rolls/hot dog buns - the trashier the better
fried onions - doesn't matter if they're cold
a selection of ketchup/mustard (although preferably not with a best before date of February 2007, like one of ours)

Peel apart a hot dog bun, and line with a carpet of onions. Fish out a hot dog, and place it in the middle. Add a squidge of ketchup/mustard, and you're good to go.

When we came back from our magical walk, we warmed up with a flask of hot chocolate and some French chocolate biscuits in the shape of dinosaurs. Sadly, we need to go back to France for some more now.

Salt and pepper squid

After a busy morning clambering around the walls in Byker and eating croissants in Morrisons, we decided you needed a little bit of exotica for lunch...

We used:

one large squid (preferably with all the internal stuff taken out by the fishmonger), sliced into rings
75g plain flour
lots of freshly ground salt
lots of freshly ground black pepper
a small pan, with about 1.5cm of oil

Put the flour, salt and pepper into a freezer bag, and shake it about to mix. Stick the squid rings (such a lovely sounding phrase) in the bag, and give it all a good shake (while holding the top closed, obviously).

Stick the pan on the heat, until the oil is sizzling. Drop the rings carefully into the pan, and pull out after a couple of minutes when they are golden brown. Drain on a piece of kitchen roll.

Eat with some salad, and lots of homemade bread and butter.

Christmas cake

We stirred this up properly this afternoon, and made a wish - you screwed your face up tight, and wished for snow on Christmas Eve.

The recipe comes from a rather battered page in Sainsbury's magazine, November 2007.

You'll need:

315g butter
340ml apple juice
295g dates, chopped
1 medium cooking apple (about 300g), peeled, cored and grated
350g raisins
315g sultanas
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
150g plain flour
150g ground almonds
lots of freshly grated nutmeg
zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon

First of all, stick the oven on at about 150 degrees C.

Then get out a fairly large saucepan (you're going to be boiling up all the dried fruit in it, so it needs to be pretty big), and melt the butter with the apple juice. It'll look very strange...

Stir in the dates, apple, raisins and sultanas, bring to the boil, and simmer for 5 minutes or so. Then comes the fun bit - tip everything into a (large) mixing bowl, and add the bicarb. Once you mix it in, it'll fizz enthusiastically for a while - guaranteed to amuse small children.

Leave everything to cool for 5-10 minutes. Add the flour, ground almonds and nutmeg, and beat until it's all thoroughly combined. Grate in the lemon and orange zest and you're done!

Stick in a large tin (at least 20cm/8in round and 9cm/3.5in deep). This year we've tried a star-shaped silicon tin, rather than having to bother with all that wrapping in baking paper. It seemed to work and was much less faff. (If you haven't got a silicon tin then you'll need to line the tin with baking paper, and also wrap a double layer of paper around the tin itself before it goes in the oven). Lay a sheet of baking paper on the top, otherwise the cake will turn too brown.

Bake for 2.5 hours - it's done when a skewer or long thin pointy thing inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin, then turn out onto a baking rack.

If you're going to eat it straightaway, dust with some icing sugar, and go off in search of some Wensleydale cheese. If you're keeping it until Christmas, wrap in greaseproof paper, then foil, and place in a tin. You could feed it a little rum/brandy at intervals if you feel like it.

Cherry and almond muffins

We spent the morning in the park in the freezing cold, and then realised that we'd eaten all the cake in the house. Doh.

You'll need:

65g glace cherries, chopped
25g sliced almonds
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
175g plain flour
100g sugar
1 egg, beaten
125ml milk

Chuck the baking powder and flour into a large mixing bowl. You probably ought to sift it, but doing that with a three-year-old is nigh-on impossible, as it just goes everywhere.

Add the sugar, and stir thoroughly. Mash up any sugar lumps and bumps. Add the cherries, and then the almonds, and stir really well. You don't want one person to get all the cherries in their muffin, and someone else to not get any. That could cause a riot.

Mix the egg and milk together in a jug, and then pour in to the mixture. Stir until it's all combined - doesn't matter how lumpy it is.

Put into little fairy cake cases (we road tested the silicon ones against the paper ones this time, and actually the paper ones were better).

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or so at 180 degrees C. Try not to eat them all at once.

Pork and cabbage parcels

We spent this afternoon running round Homebase like a bunch of loons, looking for wallpaper samples. Sixteen rolls of paper later, we've found one we all quite like for the loo. You liked pretty much all the ones we tested up against the wall, especially if they were pink.

Tea was adapted from a Hugh Fearnley Whernley recipe. His leaned towards Eastern Europe, with dill and sour cream, whereas this one is a bit more Greek in its origins.

You'll need:

tomato sauce
a largish onion, finely chopped
two tins of chopped tomatoes
a clove of garlic, chopped
salt/pepper/thyme

Fry the onion and garlic in a little olive oil until they soften and turn translucent. Add the tomatoes and herbs, bring to the boil, and leave to simmer for 20 minutes or so.

parcels
12 large cabbage leaves (we used white cabbage, but savoy would also be nice)
500g pork mince
an onion, finely chopped
half a mug of rice
an egg, beaten
a few mushrooms, chopped
oregano, salt and pepper

Add a mug of cold water to the rice, and cook until soft (there shouldn't be any water to drain away). Stick in a large bowl.

Brown the pork mince, then add the onion, and fry until it's softened. Add this mixture to the rice.

To the rest of the pork/onion juices in the pan, add the mushrooms, and fry for a couple of minutes (you might need to add a little extra olive oil here). Chuck in your bowl with the rice/pork etc. Add the beaten egg, season well with the herbs/pepper, and squidge together.

Take your 12 large cabbage leaves, and blanch for 3 minutes in some boiling water. I had to do this in two batches, as I only had a small pan on the go. Shake most of the water off, and then stick a very large tablespoonful of the pork/rice mixture in the middle of each leaf, and fold up. Place fold side down in a large baking dish. Repeat ad nauseam until all leaves are parcelled.

Pour the tomato sauce over the top, and then stick in the oven at 180 degrees C for 30-40 minutes. We ate ours with grated cheese on the top...

Mediterranean fish stew

It's been one of those drizzly, mizzly sort of days, that's only cheered up by a bowl of steaming warmth and Captain Jack Wakeman.

You'll need:

fish (I used a couple of trout fillets, cut into chunks)
two tins of tomatoes
whatever potatoes you have left in the cupboard
a couple of green peppers
a few mushrooms
two onions
1/3 jar of black olives
a clove of garlic
salt, pepper, oregano

Fry the onion and garlic in a little olive oil, until it's softened. Add the peppers and mushrooms, and cook for a couple of minutes until they start to go soft too. Add the potatoes, and cook for another couple of minutes.

Bung in the tins of tomatoes, the olives and lots of seasonings, bring to the boil, and then simmer for 45 minutes or so, until the potatoes are soft, and you have a beautiful tomato-y sauce.

Add the fish, and simmer gently for another 10 minutes or so, until it's cooked (it might cook quicker, depending on the size of your chunks, so keep an eye on it).

Serve with some buttered couscous.

Chicken and spinach pie

We spent this afternoon scooting round Jesmond Dene like lunatics - pushing me round on the scooter made you laugh like a drain.

But then it got dark, so we came home and made pie for tea, turning the kitchen into a glorious fug of warmth.

You'll need:

leftover chicken from a roast (doesn't need to be a huge amount)
a couple of small onions, sliced
a clove of garlic, crushed
2/3 bag of spinach
a couple of hundred ml of milk
a good-sized knob of butter
a tablespoon of plain flour
some grated nutmeg
lots of black pepper

shortcrust pastry

Turn the oven on to about 200 degrees C.

Pull your chicken off the bones, and cut into chunks. Stick in the bottom of your pie dish.

Fry the onions and garlic in a little olive oil until they're translucent. Add the spinach, and stir until it's all wilted (usually takes a couple of minutes, if that). Transfer the mixture to the pie dish, and mix in with the chicken. Season with lots of black pepper, and maybe a little salt.

Using the same frying pan, throw your knob of butter in, and let it melt. Add the flour, and cook for a couple of minutes. Gradually add the milk, letting it get absorbed by the flour each time. Keep stirring...

Grate in some nutmeg. Stir a bit more.

Once the sauce is nice and thick, pour over the mixture in the pie dish. Top with the shortcrust pastry, and make whatever fancy designs you like on the top (we had a 'M' today), not forgetting to leave a slit for the steam to escape.

Bake in the oven for 30 mins, or until the pastry is golden brown. Serve with some nice veg (we had broccoli, peas and sweetcorn today...).

Pumpkin soup

Well what else do you do with the inside of the jack o' lantern?


You'll need:

everything you can possibly scrape out of the pumpkin (except the seeds and the stringy bit in the middle)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon ground ginger (or an inch or so of finely grated fresh ginger)
an onion, finely sliced
salt and black pepper
vegetable or chicken stock (when in doubt use some bouillon powder)
a little coconut cream

Fry the onion in a little olive oil, together with the ginger and turmeric, until it's translucent. Add the pumpkin (chopped into small pieces), and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the stock, salt and pepper, bring to the boil, and then simmer for 20 minutes or so.

Either shove in a blender, or use a hand blender, to make it all nice and smooth. Swirl in a little coconut cream on the top. Eat with lots of fresh bread rolls and cream cheese, preferably under the verandah at the Alnwick Garden in the sunshine.

Grandma's stuffing (sage, onion and apple)

Just the thing to go with roast chicken, after a day of climbing, icing Halloween biscuits (better late than never) and watching the Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

You'll need:

half a small box of sage and onion stuffing
some breadcrumbs (a slice of stale bread will do, or whatever's in the freezer)
a small apple, grated
a handful of raisins
an egg
some hot water
salt and pepper

Stick the stuffing and breadcrumbs in a small mixing bowl. It doesn't matter if your breadcrumbs are frozen - they'll defrost soon enough, and anyway you're going to be shoving them in a 200 degree oven shortly.

Add the grated apple and raisins, and mix well. Beat the egg gently, and bung in the mixing bowl too, along with a little salt and pepper. Add some hot water from the kettle - you're looking for a fairly sticky mixture, but you need all the dehydrated stuffing mix and the breadcrumbs to be rehydrated nicely.

Fashion into balls - I just dollop them out onto a baking sheet. Bung in the oven for 20 minutes or so, until they're nice and brown. Just stick them in at whatever temperature the oven's on for the chicken - they'll be fine.

Cheese on toast

You might sniff, but there's absolutely a right way to make this. And then there's the yawning chasm of nothingness which is how it tastes when you make it wrong.

You'll need:

homemade bread, two thick slices (or some nice bread, just so long as you don't use sliced white)
mature cheddar - enough slices to cover the bread
worcestershire sauce
a grill (don't even think about toasting the bread and then melting the cheese in the microwave)

Turn on your grill, and let it heat up a bit. Curse the fact you have a ridiculously large oven/grill, and are therefore paying the electricity company the GDP of a small country to grill two slices of bread.

Stick the slices of bread under, and let them get very lightly browned. Lightly, mind you.

Turn the slices over, and place the cheese on top. Your Dad likes his with cheese covering every available surface; I like a bit of edging for a sure grip when eating. You decide.

Slosh a generous helping of worcestershire sauce on top of the cheese. Place under the grill until the cheese is bubbling, and slightly browned.

Eat straightaway. Whatever you do, don't stick it on a plate and forget about it - it'll turn to rubber.

Goulash

Slightly adapted from a Jamie Oliver version, and perfect at the end of a freezing cold day. You had a scarf, hat and gloves on, and ran all the way home from nursery to keep warm.

You'll need:

pork shoulder (I had about 400g of pork shoulder steaks, which I chopped up into chunks)
a couple of onions, sliced
a couple of peppers, sliced
a tin of tomatoes
half a teaspoon of paprika
half a teaspoon of hot smoked paprika
half a teaspoon of caraway seeds, ground
salt and pepper
a little wine vinegar (a couple of tablespoons)

Brown the chunks of pork in your stew pot, in a little olive oil. Chuck in the onions and the spices, and cook until the onions have softened and gone translucent. Add the peppers, and cook for a couple of minutes (I think some mushrooms would also go down well - so you could add them here).

Pour in the tin of tomatoes, the vinegar, and the salt and pepper and leave to simmer gently for a very long time - at least a couple of hours - until the pork falls apart. I did this on the hob today, as it's a bit ridiculous leaving on our oversized oven for a smallish pot of stew, but you could just bung it in the oven on very low.

We ate this with couscous, and some green vegetables. It'd also be lovely with rice, maybe with a little plain yoghurt or soured cream on the side.

Tomato and lentil soup

Lentil recipes we have known and loved, number 9,476.

You'll need:

an onion, finely sliced
a clove of garlic
half a mugful of lentils
some vegetable stock (I saved some sweetcorn cooking water)
a tin of tomatoes
half a teaspoon of cumin seeds and coriander seeds
salt and black pepper

Fry the onion and garlic, together with the cumin and coriander in a little olive oil, until the onion has gone transclucent. Add the vegetable stock (I must have added about a mugful), and the lentils. Leave simmering away for 10 minutes or so. Chuck in the tomatoes, and simmer for another 10-15 minutes. Season to taste with lots of black pepper and a little salt.

Puree with the hand blender, taking care not to cover the kitchen. You could add a little creme fraiche to it, I guess, but that's fancy talk.

Cheese and ham croissants

Your Dad's were rather smellier than yours, due to the Stinking Bishop.

You'll need:

a couple of croissants each (preferably the part-baked ones)
some slices of parma ham
some slices of cheese (mature cheddar is good, also brie. The Bishop was a bit stinky.)

Turn the oven on quite high - about 200 degrees C. Slice each croissant, and bake for 4 or 5 minutes. Stuff each croissant with a slice of ham and cheese, and bake for another couple of minutes until the cheese has melted.

Eat with some fruit, to take away the guilt.

A whole compendium of good recipes

No new recipes today (we just had sausages, mediterranean veg and some potatoes for tea), but a link to a rather good guide to cooking for (and with) kids.

tuna and haricot bean salad

The ultimate storecupboard lunch. Except we ate it for tea as a side dish, together with some green salad and a pissaladiere.

You'll need:

a tin of haricot beans
a tin of tuna (preferably in oil)
a small onion, finely sliced
juice of half a lemon
black pepper

Drain the tuna, but keep the oil. Drain the beans and rinse. Mix the tuna and beans together in a large bowl, and add the sliced onion. Add some of the tuna oil and all of the lemon juice, and season generously with lots of black pepper.

Olive oil pastry

I wouldn't normally have done pastry with olive oil, but Clare was staying with us and is avoiding dairy at the moment. And I didn't have any margarine to use instead.

I used this as a base for an oniony pissaladiere, complete with olives, capers and anchovies.

You'll need:

8oz plain flour
6 tablespoons olive oil
a little salt
a little water, preferably cold from the fridge
a food processor

Chuck the flour and olive oil in the food processor, and then press the button (you like doing this bit). Pulse everything together, until it starts to look a little like couscous. Add a small amount of water, and pulse. Repeat, until you get to the stage of lots of small beads of dough (I think I must have used a couple of hundred ml of water, and that was more than enough - you don't want it too wet). Roughly pull it all together (don't knead), and stick in a tupperware in the fridge for 20 minutes or so.

Roll out as normal, onto a floured surface. It worked pretty well - and the olive taste complemented the onion topping brilliantly. I'm not sure it'd make great jam tarts though.

Baked eggs with lentils and chorizo

Otherwise known as the Vaguely Spanish dish. It was great for a freezing cold day that saw the last trip ever in the Triumph Dolomite. You and your Dad went to the appropriately 1970s Get Carter car park for one last look, and then we all piled in to pick up Clare from the station. Goodbye Triumph, it was nice knowing you.

You'll need:

an egg per person (or two, if you're really really greedy)
a couple of handfuls of red lentils per person
a tin of tomatoes
lots of chorizo, chopped into thick chunks
an onion, finely sliced
a clove of garlic
a teaspoon of smoked paprika, a little thyme, salt and black pepper

Stick the oven on at about 180 degrees C.

Cover the lentils with boiling water, and cook for 10 minutes or so, until they're no longer hard. In the meantime, fry the onion and garlic in a little olive oil until they're translucent. Add the tin of tomatoes and the herbs/spices to the onions, and leave to simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Drain the lentils, and chuck into the tomato sauce. Add the chunks of chorizo, and make sure it's mixed up well. If you wanted, you could leave out the chorizo to make a vegetarian version - you could add chickpeas or some haricot beans at this point to make it a little more substantial.

Put everything into an oven-proof dish. Make little dips/wells in the top, and break an egg into each. Shove in the oven for 20-30 minutes, until the eggs have cooked. Keep an eye on them, as overdone eggs are revolting.

Salmon, tomato and pepper pasta

We ended up at the Tyneside Cinema today, watching the free news reel screening. I'd forgotten how magical it is when the curtain rises up to reveal the screen - you were entranced.

Tea was a bit of a leftover-fest. I used the three or four spoonfuls left of yesterday's peppers in a smoked paprika and tomato sauce and added a little more water and tomato puree to make enough for the two of us.

I then poached a little piece of salmon (Morrisons had some fantastic salmon trimmings last time we were there) in a little hot water for 4 or 5 minutes (you need just enough water to cover the fish). I flaked the fish, checked obsessively for bones, and added it to the tomato sauce, along with a little extra black pepper.

We ate our fishy pasta covered in grated cheese. Your tiny grater has been very popular.

Peppers in a smoked paprika and tomato sauce

We spent this afternoon cruising up and down on your bicycle, rolling out playdoh, and baking scones. It was a bit action-packed...

We ate the peppers with yesterday's leftover pilau rice (your Dad always makes enough to feed a small army), and some chicken legs, roasted in the oven with lots of salt and pepper.

You'll need:

a couple of peppers, sliced (we had red and yellow today, your favourites)
a clove of garlic, finely chopped
a large-ish onion, or 2 small ones, sliced
a tin of chopped tomatoes
a squirt of tomato puree (depending on how watery a tin of tomatoes you've got - top tip, Lidl's are fairly awful)
half a teaspoon of smoked paprika
a teaspoon of thyme
a teaspoon of runny honey
lots of black pepper and a little salt

Fry the onions and garlic in a tablespoon or so of olive oil for 5 minutes. Add the peppers, and fry until they, and the onions, are soft. The more olive oil you use, the glossier and richer the sauce will taste.

Bung in the herbs and all the tomato-type products. Bring to the boil, and then leave to simmer for 15 minutes or so. Have a taste and see what you think - add some salt, pepper, and a teaspoon of honey if the paprika is a little harsh. Leave simmering for another 20-30 minutes - while whatever you've got to eat with it is cooked.

Special pilau rice

This is one of your Dad's favourites.

You'll need:

about a mug full of basmati rice
some oil (usually sunflower is fine)
4 cardomom seeds
a piece of cinnamon stick
an onion, chopped up finely
2 mugfuls of water, or stock (vegetable stock is fine)
a little salt and pepper

Wash the rice under the cold tap for a minute or so, and then leave to drain. Meanwhile, pour a tablespoon or so of oil into the frying pan, add the spices, and fry for 20-30 seconds. Chuck in the onion, and fry until it's translucent and golden.

Throw the rice into the pan, and fry for about 5 minutes.Add the liquid, bring to the boil, and then simmer for 10 minutes or so, until it's all been absorbed and the rice is beautifully soft.

Goes nicely with tandoori chicken and anything lentil-y...

Spicy spinach and tomato

Just the thing to go with very sticky spare ribs and some plain boiled rice, after an exhausting afternoon making Captain Jack a sports car.

You'll need:

a bag of spinach (there was probably about 300g left in ours)
an onion, sliced
a tin of tomatoes
a clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon ground ginger (or if you've got fresh ginger even better - a couple of cm would be great)
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds (or ground cumin, if anyone's particularly fussy about crunchy bits)
lots of black pepper, and a little salt

Fry the onion and garlic in a little oil until it's soft. Then, add the spices, and heat for a minute or two. Chuck in the spinach, and swish around, until it's coated in the spice mix. Add the tomatoes, bring to the boil, and then simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Onion gravy

Nicked and adapted from Nigel Slater, and eaten with his extremely fine toad-in-the-hole after a day of running round and paddling in fountains at the Alnwick Garden.

You'll need

2 onions, finely sliced
a tablespoon of flour
a small glass of red wine (or you could use a little sherry instead, I guess)
250ml stock (ok, I cheated - it was an oxo cube in some hot water...)
salt, pepper, large splash of worcestershire sauce

Fry the onions in some olive oil on a very very low heat for a long time - you want them to be really soft, squidgy and pale brownish. Then add the flour, and fry for a good couple of minutes. Add the wine/stock/seasonings, and bring to the boil. Simmer for at least 15 minutes or so, until the gravy has thickened.

Chocolate cornflake cakes

Yeah, yeah, they're bad for you. But you've got to try them at some point.

You'll need:

100g milk chocolate (we used a leftover Easter egg that we found at the back of the cupboard)
25g butter
1 tsp golden syrup
50g cornflakes

Melt the chocolate and butter in a saucepan, over a very low heat. I suspect this is probably better if you do it in a bain marie - put some water in a pan, suspend a bowl over the top (with the chocolate/butter in), and put on the heat.

Add a teaspoon of golden syrup to the sludgy mixture. Stir. (Don't panic at this point if it all goes wrong and the chocolate mixture separates - we carried on regardless and it all tasted and looked fine.)

Throw in the cornflakes, and swish round with a spoon until they're all coated with chocolate. Spoon into little paper cases, and then put in the fridge to set.

It's easiest if you use cases that will fit into bun tins, and then you can just stick the whole tin, complete with 12 little paper cases, in the fridge.

American-style pancakes

We spent the afternoon on the beach at Tynemouth, in unseasonably hot sunshine. Weird.

Anyway, we were starving. So pancakes it was.

Makes enough for one adult and one toddler:

1 egg, beaten
115g plain flour
a pinch of salt
1 heaped teaspoon of baking powder
150ml milk
a knob of butter, melted

Stick everything in the blender, and persuade sandy toddler to press the button. Ideally you should leave the batter to stand for a bit, but we were too hungry.

Melt a little butter in the frying pan (or use a bit of sunflower oil), turn the heat up high, and then drop a ladleful of batter into the pan. After about a minute or two, you'll see little bubbles and blisters appear on the surface. Turn the pancake over, and then give it about another minute. Ta da! Repeat ad nauseam until you've run out of batter.

You could make a stack, American stylee, dripping with maple syrup. Or stick some sweetcorn/blueberries/spinach (anything small, essentially), into the ladleful of batter once it's hit the pan. We ate ours today with salty, smoked streaky bacon - either on the side (you) or in the middle of the batter (me). Sadly we'd run out of maple syrup, but Golden Syrup was a fairly good substitute.

Fish pie

Proper nursery food, this. And quite appropriate after an afternoon at Mothercare buying small vests and socks.

For three, you'll need:

a couple of pieces of fish (we had pollack because it was cheap in Morrisons, salmon would be even nicer)
two smallish onions, finely chopped
enough milk to cover the fish
whatever frozen prawns you can rustle up from the freezer, defrosted
a knob of butter
a tablespoon of flour
a couple of really large potatoes
salt, pepper, nutmeg and a bay leaf

Start off with the potatoes. Peel them, chop them up reasonably small, and stick in a pan with boiling water for about 12 minutes. Once they're soft, mash, adding lots of salt and pepper.

Then it's onto the onions. Saute them in a little olive oil for 6 or 7 minutes until they're soft. Chuck them in the bottom of your pie dish.

Check there aren't too many bones in the fish. Cover with milk, add a bayleaf, and simmer for 10 minutes or so, until it's cooked. The length of time will depend on (a) how thick it is and (b) whether you've got it straight out of the fridge and plunged it into a pan. A couple of minutes before the end, chuck in the prawns so they're cooked too.

Lift the fish and prawns out from the milk (don't throw the milk away!!). Take any skin off, flake it, remove any bones, and add to the onions in the bottom of the pie dish.

Add butter, flour and some grated nutmeg to the milk, and whisk gently for 10 minutes or so on a low heat, until the sauce has thickened. Pour over the fish mixture in the pie dish. Top with the mashed potato, and stick in the oven (at about 180C) for half an hour or so, until the top has gone crispy and the fish mixture is bubbling away.

You can get fancier - you could add some celery to the onion, maybe put some cheese on top of the potato, add some peas, vary the fish...the possibilities are endless.

Gruffalo crumble

We spent the morning in Chopwell woods, searching for brambles. The gruffalos had eaten most of them, but we managed a respectable lunchbox-full, despite being bombarded with shards of nuts from two squirrels who were nibbling away at the very top of a large oak tree.

For a small crumble for three you'll need:

a couple of apples (cooking apples would be best, but I only had dessert ones in the fruit bowl)
some brambles (a small lunchbox full)
a couple of tablespoons of granular sugar
2oz plain flour
a teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 oz butter
3/4 oz sugar

Peel, core and chop the apples, and stick at the bottom of a baking dish. Wash the brambles, and mix with the apples. Sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of sugar over the top.

To make the topping, rub the butter into the flour, and then stir in the sugar and cinnamon. Tip over the top of the apple/blackberry mixture. If you're really feeling fancy, you could add some flaked almonds on top.

Bake at 180 degrees C for half an hour or so - until the fruit is soft and the top is crispy and brown. Just watch out the gruffalos don't eat it all.

Salmon with lemon and ginger

Another of the "oh, stick it all together in a foil parcel and it'll taste fabulous" recipes. Very useful, epsecially when you're in the middle of watching Shaun the Sheep, and want something quick to bung in the oven for tea.

You'll need:

a couple of pieces of salmon
a couple of inches of ginger
half a lemon, sliced into small chunks
lots of black pepper

Take two large squares of foil, and plonk each piece of salmon in the middle of one, skin down. Squeeze a little lemon juice over the top from the lemon chunks, and scatter them non-artistically around and over each fish. Peel and finely slice the ginger, and place on top of the salmon. Finish off with a good screw of black pepper.

Close the parcel so no steam can escape, and stick in the oven (at about 180 degrees) for around 20 minutes or so - it all depends on how thick your slices of salmon are. Once they're pale pink, you're onto a winner.

We ate this with noodles, stir fried with broccoli, onion and carrot. Chopsticks were quite popular...

Bacon and parsnip pasta

Yes, I know it sounds an odd one, but trust me, it was excellent. And just the thing after a wet afternoon wandering round Toys R Us spending your birthday money.

It's a Jamie Oliver recipe, slightly hacked about.

You'll need:

3 or so rashers of smoked streaky bacon each, chopped into small pieces
2 large parsnips, peeled and thinly sliced
some butter
a large handful of grated parmesan cheese (I bet mature cheddar would also be good here)
black pepper
fresh rosemary - the leaves from 3 or so stems
a clove of garlic, finely chopped
your pasta of choice

Chuck the bacon in a pan with a knob of butter, the garlic and the rosemary. Fry for two or three minutes, then throw in the parsnips, and fry for another five or six until the parsnips are softened and the bacon is crispy.

Meanwhile, stick your pasta on. Once it's al dente, drain (keep back a little of the cooking water), and throw into the pan with the parsnips/bacon etc. Add another couple of knobs of butter, the parmesan cheese, and a little of the pasta cooking water to loosen it all up. Season with lots of black pepper.

Mmmmm.

Pepper and chickpea couscous

It was a leftovers kind of night - there was some pastry left from yesterday's quiches, and tomato sauce from the night before's sausage, roasted vegetables and couscous. Magically, these became pizza, to be eaten with salad and some chickpea couscous.

You'll need

5 handfuls of dried couscous
a little butter
half a large red pepper, chopped
an onion, finely chopped
a clove of garlic, finely chopped
salt and pepper
a can of chickpeas

Stick a little knob of butter in a non-stick pan, and let it melt. Add the couscous, and swirl it about in the butter for a couple of minutes. (If you wanted a spiced couscous, you could add a teaspoon of ras al hanout at this point). Add enough water to cover the top of the couscous by about half a centimetre, and leave on a low heat for a couple of minutes until it's been absorbed. Have a try of the couscous - if it's still too gritty and hard, give it a stir, add a little more water, and take off the heat. When you come back to it in a couple of minutes, it should be done, and you should be able to fluff it up with a fork.

Fry the onion and garlic in a tablespoon of olive oil until softened. Add the pepper, and cook until everything is soft. Drain the chickpeas and add to the mixture. Take off the heat, and add in the cooked couscous. Chuck a bit of salt and pepper over the top, and you're good to go. If you've got some flat leaf parsley hanging around that looks quite nice finely chopped and scattered on top.

Mini spinach and stilton quiches

You were quite nifty at trimming the pastry to the right size for these. Shame you then refused to eat any of your cheese and onion one. Oh well.

This made enough for six mini quiches (five spinach and stilton, and one plain cheddar and onion). I had enough of the base mix left over to make a decent size pizza - so this recipe would make a fairly large single quiche (you'd maybe have had to add another egg and a lot more milk or cream to fill it).

8oz flour
2oz butter
5 fl oz milk
a little salt

We cheated on the base this time - we chucked the flour, butter and salt in the food processor as time was tight, and let that do all the work. We added the milk (somehow doing it in the food processor means you need a little more than usual), pressed the button, and hey presto there was dough. Magic.

Roll out reasonably thinly, and fit into greased mini-quiche tins (the ones with the removable bases are the easiest). Trim off any excess with a knife.

For the filling you'll need:

3 eggs
a little milk (maybe a couple of hundred ml)
2 handfuls of spinach leaves
an onion, sliced
about 3 inches of the end of the stilton cheese, cubed
salt and pepper

To make the filling, fry the onion in a little olive oil until it's softened. Tip into the six little quiches. Add the spinach leaves to the frying pan, and cook for a couple of minutes on low until they've wilted. Divide up, and add a little to each quiche. Chuck in three or four cubes of stilton to each tin. Season each quiche with a little salt and pepper.

Crack the eggs into a measuring jug, whizz round with a fork, and add the milk. Pour the mixture (very carefully) into each quiche. I find it's easiest to stand all the little tins on a large baking tray, then (a) you can lift them into the oven easily and (b) if any of the filling does escape you avoid cleaning the floor of the oven...

Bake at 180 degrees C for about 20 minutes, or until they've turned golden brown.

We ate ours with some salad, lots of chutneys and some chips.

Green tomato chutney

The cherry tomatoes we planted in the hanging baskets misjudged their ripening quite spectacularly this year...

You'll need

lots of unripe, green tomatoes (about 500g), chopped up (mine were cherry tomatoes, so I just halved them)
500g of onions, chopped up quite small
250g raisins or sultanas
250g dark brown muscovado sugar
500ml vinegar (I used mostly cider vinegar, but then ran out so topped it up with malt)
1 teaspoon green cardamoms
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (preferably something that didn't go out of date in 2002)
1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes
2 teaspoons salt

Chuck everything in a large pan (preferably not an aluminium one, as that'll react with the mixture), bring to the boil, and then simmer for an hour or so until it's turned into a deep brown, pulpy (not runny) mass.

Spoon into sterilised jars (there's some notes on this here in the rhubarb chutney recipe), and label, so when you find it at the back of the cupboard in 2015, you've an idea what it is. I found this amount fitted into 2.5 Frank Cooper Oxford marmalade jars (I'm thinking these are a standard 454g - but I'm quite taken with the idea of a marmalade jar measure. Paddington would most certainly approve...)

Chicken casserole

We spent the morning on the beach in the sunshine and wind, looking at the seaweed in rockpools and building a wonky sandcastle. It made us very hungry.

You'll need:

chicken thighs (we had five between the three of us)
three onions, sliced
a clove of garlic, finely chopped
a carrot, sliced
half a glass of white wine
chicken stock
thyme, salt and pepper
a little flour

You'll need the oven on reasonably high for this, if you want it to cook in an hour or so (so about 180 degrees C).

Brown the chicken thighs in a frying pan in a little olive oil, and then chuck into your casserole dish. Add the onions and garlic to the pan, and fry them until they're translucent. At that point add a teaspoonful of flour, and swish them about a bit for a minute or two. Throw this lot (together with the uncooked carrot slices) into the dish.

To your by now rather grotty frying pan, add a little chicken stock. Bring to the boil, and swirl about with a wooden spoon, making sure you get all the brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Pour it all into the casserole dish, together with whatever half-glass of white wine you can get your hands on. Add enough chicken stock (or a stock cube in hot water) until the chicken thighs are covered).

Season with some salt, pepper and a sprinkle of thyme. Cover with a lid (or a sheet of foil) and cook in the oven for an hour or so.

We ate this with some plain boiled rice, and chunks of whole sweetcorn.

Cheese stars

Unaccountably popular with small children (and grown ups). We made these for Sunday's NCT party - it's hard to believe that all eight of you are now three. It's adapted from yet another Nigella recipe - her baking recipes work every time.

100g grated cheese (I used a mixture of Edam and mature cheddar, as that was what we had left. I suspect a little bit of parmesan in there would be nice too).
50g self-raising flour
25g butter, chopped into small pieces (needs to be soft for mixing)
1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (preferably one that smells a little stronger than mine, which was best before October 2002)
a pinch of salt

Stick the oven on at 200 degrees C. Mix everything together in a bowl, and squidge away as if your life depended on it. You don't need to add any liquid - this will come together of its own accord into a rough dough. Pummel it a little further to make it smoother, then roll out with a rolling pin. If you want lots of stars, make the dough thinner rather than thicker...

Slide the stars onto a baking sheet (I use a silicon sheet on my baking tray, then I don't have to bother with greaseproof paper or greasing it), and bake for 8-10 minutes. Once they start going brownish round the edges whip them out - they'll bake a little more as they cool down.

Meatballs

It was an afternoon of biscuit making, followed by some squidging about of raw meat. It doesn't get much better than that.

I borrowed this from Nigella's How to Eat (her section on kids' food is excellent), and adapted it so it tasted a bit less mousse-y.

This makes lots and lots of meatballs - I'd say enough for 4 grownup portions and at least one toddler.

500g mince (I used pork mince)
a couple of slices of bread, turned into breadcrumbs in the blender (actually, I've no idea if it was only a couple of slices - I found a bag of breadcrumbs in the freezer that I'd made a couple of months ago from the ends of the loaf)
some flat leaf parsley, chopped and chopped until it's very small
one egg, beaten
salt and pepper
an ounce or so of parmesan cheese, grated
a little flour

Stick the breadcrumbs, mince, parsley and egg in a bowl, and squidge them all about till they're mixed nicely. Add the salt, pepper and parmesan cheese. Mix wildly again.

Shape the mixture into little balls (you loved this bit), and roll in a little flour (you need two plates at this point - one with a little bit of flour on it for rolling, and an empty plate to put the finished meatballs on).

Drizzle a little olive oil in a frying pan, and then brown the meatballs in batches, turning them carefully.

We had our meatballs with some rice and a tomato sauce - essentially the pizza sauce I normally make with a tin of tomatoes, a chopped onion and some herbs. Once I'd browned the meatballs, I dropped them into the tomato sauce, which had been simmering for 15 minutes or so. I then left the whole lot to simmer for another half an hour (adding a little extra water along the way now and then, so the meatballs had lots of liquid to cook in), until the meatballs were completely cooked.

They were quite possibly the best meatballs I've managed to make.

Rhubarb chutney

Grandma had lots of rhubarb going spare, so we made it into some chutney (we don't often eat puddings, so I'm afraid you're missing out on rhubarb pie or rhubarb crumble). It's pretty good with fishy things, or with cheese and crackers.

You'll need:

lots of rhubarb - about 500g was about right
one onion, chopped
100ml vinegar (I used cider vinegar, as that's what I had in the cupboard)
200g brown sugar
fresh ginger, finely chopped (I used about an inch of ginger). I guess you could also use dried ginger, or some of the lazy stuff in a jar, but I just happened to have some in the fridge.
a pinch of salt

Trim the ends off the rhubarb, peel any grotty bits, and then chop into chunks. Chuck everything bar the rhubarb into a pan (I used a non-stick one to make cleaning up at the end easier), and bring to a rolling boil for 5 minutes.

Add the rhubarb, and simmer for 15-20 minutes, until it's thickened slightly. Pour into a sterilised jar (it makes about 500ml). It should keep for up to a year, I reckon. Once you've opened it though, keep it in the fridge.

(Sterilising jars is dead easy - just do them in the dishwasher, or rinse in hot soapy water and dry in the oven on a low heat - it's best if the jar's still warm if you're flinging very hot sugary chutney into it!)

Pork tenderloin stuffed with prunes

We spent the afternoon at the Baltic, looking at the Yoshitomo Nara + Graf exhibition. You loved the little dog castle/kennel, and Captain Jack had a whale of a time talking to the dogs.

Consequently, tea was a little bit late.

This makes enough for three large people (Ian joined us for tea), and a small one:

a large piece of pork tenderloin
an onion, finely chopped
a couple of handfuls of prunes, stoned and chopped
salt, pepper

Start with the prune stuffing - fry the onion in a little olive oil, until it turns translucent. Add the prunes, and a little water, and cook for 10-15 minutes. The prunes will absorb the water, so you might have to add a little more from time to time (you could also add some madeira, or a little white wine at this point to give the whole thing a bit of a kick).

Lay the pork on a piece of clingfilm, and stretch another sheet of clingfilm over the top. Bash away at it with a rolling pin, or some other large wooden object (you loved this bit). Once it's flattened, carefully spoon the prune mixture in a line down the middle, then roll up the pork (I secured this with a few cocktail sticks, but I'm sure there's a proper trussing method you could use involving string and all sorts).

Roast in the oven for 30-40 minutes, until the top of the meat goes slightly crispy. We ate ours with some steamed leeks, and boiled new potatoes from our pots in the garden.

Oxtail stew with herby dumplings

A bit of a retro one this. If you don't fancy oxtail, you can use some stewing steak instead.

You'll need:

a couple of oxtail pieces
a couple of handfuls of pearl barley
two carrots, sliced
two sticks of celery, chopped
an onion, chopped
worcestershire sauce
salt, pepper and some thyme

Brown the oxtail in your stew pot, using a little oil (I used a little olive oil, but anything would do). Add the onion and celery, and cook for a couple of minutes until the onion starts to go soft. Chuck in the carrots and pearl barley, and add enough water to cover the top of the oxtail. Add a splash of worcestershire sauce, and some salt, pepper and a fair sprinkling of thyme.

Stick a lid on the pot, and either leave on the hob, or stick in the oven at about 160-175 degrees C for a couple of hours.

For the dumplings you'll need double the flour to the suet (vegetarian, of course). For three of us I usually have 50g suet and 100g self-raising flour, mixed together with a teaspoon of thyme and some cold water.

Mould into little balls (I usually make about 8), and plonk them into the stew. Stick the pot in the oven (uncovered this time), for another 25-30 minutes, until the dumplings have gone brown and crispy. Mmmmmm.

Fried rice with chorizo and prawns

We got back from Gran and Grandpa's in need of a little something for lunch after a weekend of travelling on steam trains. This seemed to fit the bill.

You'll need:

some leftover cooked rice (from Thursday's tilapia tea)
some chorizo (how much depends on how greedy you are, and how much you like chorizo - so in your case lots...), sliced
an onion, finely chopped
half a red pepper, chopped
a couple of carrots, sliced
a handful of prawns (if frozen, make sure they are defrosted)
a little sunflower oil
black pepper

Chuck the chorizo in a frying pan (you don't need to add any extra oil), and turn up the heat. Fry for a couple of minutes, then add the onion, and cook until it's translucent. Add the red pepper and carrots, and cook until they're softened - at this point chuck in the prawns and cook for a minute or two. Add the rice and swish everything about in the pan until the rice is reheated. If it starts to stick, you may need to add a little sunflower oil. Season with some black pepper.

You may also like to add a touch of chilli with some Encona or Tabasco. Your dad likes eating this with a little mayonnaise, and he often adds some soy sauce.

Tilapia with lime and butter

You picked these out at the supermarket fish counter today, because they looked friendly. They tasted pretty good too.

For two large people and one small person you'll need:

a couple of large(ish) tilapia, gutted but with the heads and tails still on
a lime, sliced into large pieces
salt and pepper
a knob of butter for each fish

Stick the oven on at about 180-200 degrees C. You'll need a couple of large squares of foil, to wrap the fish in. Stick the fish in the middle of the foil, shove a few pieces of lime inside, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place a knob of butter on the top, and then parcel up the fish, making sure that there's no gaps.

Place both fishy parcels on an oven tray, and cook for 30-40 minutes in the oven. The fish will steam in its parcel - it's quite firm, white flesh. There's a few bones, but as they're huge, it's easy to pick them out (especially if you slice carefully along the backbone, and pull one side of the flesh back).

We ate this with lots of lime chutney, some rice, and steamed broccoli dipped in soy sauce. The rice was a bit overdone because the cat threw up on the bed at an inopportune moment, but the less said about that the better.

Grandma's pizza

Mum used to make this for me and your Uncle Dom back in the 1970s, when the world was orange, brown and lime green.

I wasn't sure if you'd like it, but you ate loads. I suspect if I make it next week you'll hate it - that's three-year-olds for you.

You'll need:

4oz self-raising flour and 4oz wholemeal flour (I didn't have any wholemeal today, so I just did everything with the self-raising. Shame, because it gives it a really nice, nutty taste.)
a pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
2oz butter (or margarine, if you're going for that 1970s wholefood feel)
4-5 fl oz milk

For the topping:

1 large onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 tin of tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato puree
2 bay leaves
a large tin of pilchards/sardines in tomato sauce
oregano, salt and pepper
grated cheese

To make the base, measure out the flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl, and rub in the butter. Mum's original recipe said to sift the flour, but I rarely do. Once all the butter has been rubbed in, mix to a firm dough with the milk. Add 4fl oz and then see - you might need a little more, but then again you might not.

Give the base a good knead, and then press onto a rectangular baking tray. You can roll it out if you're feeling fancy, but to be honest you can just push the dough out with your hands.

To make the topping, lightly fry the onion and garlic in a little olive oil, until they've softened. Add the tomato puree, tin of tomatoes, bay leaves, oregano and black pepper, and leave to simmer for 20 minutes or so, until they've cooked down to a sludgy mass.

Stick the oven on - my original instructions say Gas Mark 5 or 375 degrees F. I have no idea what that is in centigrade, but about 180 degrees C worked fine today.

Mash the sardines, and add to the tomato sauce. Spread over the dough base (don't worry if there's a bit too much topping - that's a marvellous state of affairs because you can have the rest on toast for lunch the next day), and sprinkle the grated cheese (lots) on top.

Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes, depending on how hot Gas Mark 5 actually is.

Toad in the hole

After much explanation that no toads were harmed in the making of this dish, we ate it for tea, with some courgettes, sweetcorn and peas. There was a lot of explaining about Yorkshire pudding too.

You'll need:

sausages - we had about 14 little skinny thinny Cumberland ones
2 eggs
150g plain flour
150ml milk, mixed with 150ml water
a teaspoon of grainy mustard
a little sunflower oil

You need the oven good and hot, so stick it on at about 220 degrees C before you start.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, flour, milk and mustard, until it's stopped being hideously lumpy. According to the God of all sausage dishes, Nigel Slater, you want the batter to be the consistency of double cream, so depending on how large your eggs are, you may have to add a little extra flour.

Now your oven's hot, stick your toad in the hole pan(s) in, with a dollop of sunflower oil in the bottom. I used muffin tins today, to make mini toads, but you could just bung the whole lot in a baking dish (in which case you'll need a couple of tablespoons of oil in the bottom).

Once the oil's hot (should take just a couple of minutes), add the batter to each tin (it should sizzle nicely), and drop the sausages in. Try not to get spattered by any hot fat...

Bake in the oven for about 30-40 minutes, depending on the size of your sausages and how crispy you like your Yorkshire pudding.

Pea (and everything else) soup

Another of the 'let's see what's in the fridge' recipes that's excellent for lunch.

You'll need:

some chicken stock (I had some lurking in the freezer because I'm like that, but to be honest a stock cube of some description would be equally good, dissolved in some hot water)
veg! I used some frozen peas, some celery and an onion
a couple of potatoes (don't on any account use sweet potatoes...it makes for a horribly sweet soup if you mix them with peas...)

Peel the potatoes, and then chop them (and all the veg). Stick the onion/celery and any other similar type things in your pan, with a little olive oil, and fry them until they've softened. Add the potatoes and stock, bring to the boil, and simmer until the potatoes are cooked. Add your peas, and cook for another five minutes or so.

Stick in the blender (or use one of those magic wand/blender things) to make it all smooth. Chuck in a teaspoon of creme fraiche or a dribble of cream if you're feeling in need of a bit of luxury. Some tiny pieces of crispy pancetta or bacon would probably also go down well.

French food

No recipes, sadly, but we've just returned from a week at Grandma and Grandad's, in which you have eaten your own body weight in tresse au chocolat and croissants. They seem to be your favourites, along with anything that includes olives, pistachios, nectarines, lardons and baguettes, or involves sitting in a cafe with a pineapple juice, watching the world go by.

(thanks to Chez Loulou for the photo)

Haggis!

A little unseasonal, but as it's been pouring down all day and currently feels like January, why not?

You'll need:

one haggis (preferably MacSween's, but in an emergency any will do. You can even get vegetarian ones if you're squeamish)
potatoes/swede, if you like the neaps and tatties combo, otherwise just some boiled potatoes will do fine
veg - we had carrots and peas today, but anything solidly British (none of this Mediterranean nonsense) will do
Nigel Slater's esteemed onion gravy (although haggis is also surprisingly good with brown sauce)

Stick the oven on at around 190 degrees C. (Don't even think of boiling a haggis - roasting them makes them much fluffier and nicer.) Wrap your haggis in foil, and put in a roasting tin, with a centimetre or two of water in the bottom. Bung in the oven for about 90 minutes until it's piping hot (although if it comes out piping Scotland the Brave, run for the hills).

If it's Burns Night (25 January), you'll need to spout a bit of poetry (the Address to a Haggis), and then go in for the kill with a large knife. If it's a wet Friday night in Gateshead in September, you're off the hook.

UPDATE: More haggis recipes here, when you get bored with the traditional one.

A 3rd birthday party

You insisted on a 'strawberry party' this year, so we tried to make all the food as red as possible...

You'll need 8 small people to dance like dervishes to musical bumps and musical statues, while you assemble the following on the dining room table:

a large tub of baby tomatoes
a red pepper, sliced
babybels - one for each child to stop any arguments
strawberries, natch
red pizza (we had salami, tomato and mozarella - I was going to make it, but frankly life's too short when you've got a cake to ice as well, so Somerfield catered)
Tunnocks tea cakes
Hula Hoops (so everyone could wear them on their fingers)
jam tarts
Iced Gems (it really isn't a birthday party without these)

We had a red tablecloth on the table, red straws to drink the orange juice through, and lots of strawberry-coloured balloons (as well as some home-made bunting).

And, obviously, the piece de resistance - a strawberry cake.

Glace icing

More birthday preparations - I used this recipe to ice your strawberry cake (recipe for that to follow too).

You'll need:

8oz icing sugar
40ml hot water

Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl. This part is really good fun, even if most of the sugar does have a tendency to go over the worktop. Gradually add the water (you may not need all of it, especially if you're intending to add some liquid food colouring) and beat the mixture with a wooden spoon.

Depending on what texture of icing you want, you'll need to add more or less water. If you just want a thin glaze to drizzle over the top you'll maybe need more than the 40ml. I had fairly thick (but still drippable) icing to cover your cake - in pink for the strawberry part, and then green for the stalk.

Jam tarts

We made these for your third birthday celebrations. You especially liked rolling out the pastry, cutting out the shapes, and dolloping in the jam.

You'll need

shortcrust pastry
jam (the fewer seeds the better)

To make the shortcrust pastry, use half fat to flour (to make around 24 jam tarts took 8oz flour and 4oz (ish) butter), and mix with some cold water from the fridge. The pastry doesn't need much water - you want a stiffish mix.

Let the pastry rest in the fridge for 15 minutes - it'll roll out better. We ran out of time, and didn't, and they still tasted ok. While you're waiting, stick the oven on to around 180 degrees C.

Roll out the pastry, and use some cutters (or an old jam jar, slightly floured), to cut out rounds big enough to fit in the indentations in your tart tin. Dollop one teaspoon of jam in each - not too much, or else it'll run everywhere, and the tart tin will be an absolute pain to clean.

Stick in the oven for 10-15 minutes - take them out once the pastry is golden/light brown, and the jam is bubbling.

We made some raspberry tarts, some strawberry tarts, and some fig tarts (Grandma gave me some fig jam from her next-door neighbour in France). I liked the fig ones the best, but they're probably an acquired taste.

Really good chips

More lemony chicken tonight, roasted in the oven - so we made chips to go with it, and a nice green salad.

We dug up the potatoes last week - I still can't quite believe that we managed to get a good few pounds of potatoes by sticking some old sprouting ones in four black pots, covering them with soil, and leaving them in the back yard to work their magic.

You'll need

a couple of large potatoes per person
some olive oil (and a brush)
a baking tray

Stick the oven on fairly high - around 200 degrees C should do. Wash the potatoes (leave the skins on), and then slice in half lengthways. Cut into thin(ish) slices.

Place the potato slices on a baking tray (I put mine on a silicon sheet, so that they don't stick). Drizzle a little olive oil over the top of them, and then use a pastry brush to make sure that each chip is covered (you really like doing this bit).

Bung in the oven for a good 20 minutes or so. Have a look - maybe turn a few over. Depending on how thick you've sliced them, the chips might be ready - the only way to tell is to try them. If not, stick them back in for a bit longer. I think they took half an hour tonight.