Hot cross buns

We cheated a little with this recipe, in that the bread machine made the dough. These are fantastic when just out of the oven, or toasted then spread with a little butter and gooseberry jam.

Makes 8. You'll need:

1/2 teaspoon fast action yeast
250g strong white flour
1 teaspoon sugar
25g butter
1 tablespoon milk powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
100ml water
100g raisins
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice

Sling all the ingredients in the bread machine. I then stuck mine on the bread dough program, which took a couple of hours, and does the first part of the proving process.

Once your dough is made, divide it into 8 balls, and place on a baking tray (either lightly greased or covered with a silicon sheet). Cover with a tea towel, and allow to prove in a warm place until they've doubled in size (this will probably take about an hour).

Don't forget to stick your oven on at some point during the hour - about 220 degrees C should do it.

Make a paste from a couple of tablespoons of flour and a couple of tablespoons of water. Use this to pipe or drizzle a cross over the tops of the buns. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until they are golden brown.

Szechuan pork

We ate this with some steamed rice and pak choi. There wasn't a lot left.

You'll need:

3 pork loin steaks/boneless chops
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
1 clove of garlic, squished
a little sunflower oil

Stick the oven on at about 200 degrees C.

Mix together the soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar and garlic (you could also add some dried chillies) in a bowl. Dunk the pork in the marinade, and leave for half an hour or so (the longer the better).

Decant the pork and marinade into an ovenproof dish, and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until the pork is browned and any fat has become crispy. You can either leave whole, or slice thinly.

Pasta with anchovies, broccoli and stilton

I know this isn't too dissimilar to the orecchiette with anchovies and broccoli that I posted last July (was it really that long ago?). You can blame Nigel Slater for that - I have a sneaking suspicion both recipes were inspired by his latest book, Tender.

Makes enough for three. You'll need:

1 medium-sized head of broccoli (this would be even nicer with purple sprouting)
a 150ml or so of creme fraiche
4 anchovy fillets
1 onion, sliced
enough pasta for three (that's about 6-7 handfuls in our house)
a slosh of olive oil
a chunk of stilton, crumbled

Sling the pasta in a pan of boiling water, and cook until al dente. In the meantime, chop the broccoli into small florets, and steam for 3-4 minutes.

In a frying pan, gently cook the onion in the olive oil, until it turns translucent. Add the anchovy fillets, and stir to break them up (they'll almost dissolve in the oil). Add the creme fraiche, and simmer for few minutes. Sling in the stilton (dolcelatte would be even better here, I suspect), and let it melt - if the sauce becomes a little thick, then dilute with a little hot water.

Tip in the broccoli and the drained pasta, and toss everything together. Season with lots of black pepper.

Teriyaki chicken

You've decided that this is your favourite chicken dish ever. I predict we'll be eating it again...

Makes enough for three. You'll need:

6-8 boneless skinless chicken thighs (chopped into chunks)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine
2/3 tablespoon dark brown sugar

Sling the soy sauce, rice wine and dark brown sugar into a small saucepan, and heat until the sugar has dissolved. Tip over the chicken, and leave to marinade (for half an hour or so - depends on how hungry you are).

Turn your grill up high, and leave to get hot. Tip the chicken pieces (and the rest of the marinade) into an ovenproof dish (I lined mine with foil in a bid to make it easier to clean afterwards, but the chicken just stuck to the foil, which then stuck to the dish...) and put under the grill. Turn after 5 minutes or so - and then leave for another 5 minutes. Your chicken is ready once it's glazed and browned (and no longer pink in the middle). You can make it even more fancy by sprinkling with a few sesame seeds...

We ate ours with some noodles cooked with ginger, garlic, red pepper and onion, but it would also go well with steamed rice.

Ginger cheesecake

The perfect pudding for Valentine's Day. You hated the ginger, but decided that cheesecake in general was rather nice.

I can't claim credit for the recipe - I pinched it from a little booklet that came with Olive.

Makes enough for 8 greedy people. You'll need

10-15 ginger biscuits, smashed to pieces
25g melted butter
600g cream cheese (I used Quark, which is virtually fat-free)
1 tablespoon flour
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g caster sugar
284ml soured cream
100g crystallised ginger, finely chopped (you could also use the stem ginger in syrup, I guess, as long as you drained it really really well)

Stick the oven on at about 180 degrees C. You'll need a 20cm tin - preferably one of those springform ones, where the sides come apart. Grease it well.

Mangle the biscuits with a rolling pin, until they look like breadcrumbs. Mix with the melted butter, press into the base of the tin, and bake in the oven for 5 minutes.

Sling the cream cheese in a mixing bowl, and add the flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and half the soured cream. Beat everything together until it's smooth - you loved this bit.

Chuck in the chopped crystallised ginger, and stir. Pour everything into the tin, and smooth it out carefully. Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes - take the cheesecake out near the end, and give it a little shake. If it's still wobbly in the centre, bung it back in for another 5 minutes.

Once you're happy with it, pour over the rest of the soured cream, and stick back in the oven for 5 minutes. Bring it out, and then leave to cool in the tin.

You might want to sprinkle a little icing sugar over the top, if you're being truly decadent. But otherwise just dig in.

Kipper flan

I suppose this is really kipper quiche, but that just sounds too odd. I found this recipe in Delia's Frugal Food - and as I had a couple of kippers hanging about in the freezer, thought we'd try it out. It's nice hot (the kipper bones must be more flexible), but a bit on the bony side when cold.

It's definitely one of those recipes that you wouldn't necessarily go out and buy the ingredients specially to make, but is worth a go.

Makes enough for 4. You'll need:

250g kipper fillets
shortcrust pastry - enough for a 20cm diameter tin (about 8oz flour usually does the trick)
a little lemon juice
2 large eggs (I used 3 small ones)
about 250ml milk
1/4 teaspoon Colman's powdered mustard
salt and pepper

Stick the oven on at about 180 degrees C, and fish out a flan dish (the ones with the removable bottoms are the best).

First of all, grill your kippers for a couple of minutes on each side - sling them on a rack under your grill as they are. In the meantime, line the flan dish with your pastry.

If you've got lots of time, you could bake the pastry case blind - prick the pastry all over with a fork, place some greaseproof paper over the top, and weigh it down with baking beans or rice. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes or so. If you haven't got time for all that malarkey, you can miss it out - you'll have a slighly soggier bottom to the flan, but it'll still be extremely edible.

Skin the kippers, and try to extract as many of the irritating little bones as possible. Flake, and tip onto your pastry base. Squeeze a little lemon juice over the top.

Beat together your milk, eggs and mustard, and pour into the flan. Season with lots of black pepper.

Place the flan dish on a baking sheet (in case of escaping mixture - it's a right pain to get off the bottom of your oven), and sling in the oven for 30-40 minutes. The filling should be golden brown, and puffed up.

Eat warm, with a green salad.

Wheat tortillas

Or wrappers, as they're known in our house. Perfect when there's no bread left, and you've forgotten to stick the bread machine on.

Makes 6. You'll need

5 1/2 oz plain flour
1 oz butter or lard, cut into cubes
90ml warm water (ish)
1/4 teaspoon salt

Sling the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Rub in the butter. Add the water, and bring together to form a soft (but not sticky) dough.

Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead for 5-10 minutes, until the dough turns silky smooth. You really loved this bit, and the dough got pretty well pummelled out of existence.

Leave to rest for half an hour or so - stick it back in the floury bowl, and cover it with a teatowel.

Divide into 6 pieces, and roll out as thin as possible - ours came to about 8in across. Heat a cast iron or heavy-bottomed frying pan, and brush with a little sunflower oil, so the tortillas don't stick.

Put your rolled out piece of dough into the pan, and leave until bubbles appear on the surface (about a minute, if that). Flip over, and cook for another minute or so - once you've got some brown spots on the bottom, you're definitely done.

We ate ours with cream cheese and Branston pickle. Not very Mexican, I know.

Carrot and marmalade muffins

(a) It was a good way of using up the old scraps of marmalade before diving into our new, homemade pots. (b) You picked the recipe, out of the old Women's Weekly muffins book.

Makes 12 enormous muffins, plus about 6 small fairy-cake sized ones. You'll need:

3 medium carrots, grated
385g self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarb of soda
100g brown sugar
55g raisins or sultanas
150g marmalade, warmed up a little so it's runny
100g butter, melted
125ml milk
2 eggs

Stick the oven on at about 180 degrees C.

Sling the flour, bicarb, sugar, raisins, carrots and marmalade in a bowl. Stir well, to create an unholy mess. You loved this bit.

Beat together the butter, milk and eggs in a mixing jug. Pour into the muffin mix, and combine everything together. It'll still look horrendous.

Spoon the mix into your muffin tins/cake cases, and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Obviously, if you're making fairy-cake sized ones, they'll bake faster than large muffins.

Cool on a wire rack.

They're delicious warm - especially for breakfast with a little yoghurt.

Seville orange marmalade

This is one of my favourite things to make – it makes the whole house smell beautiful. It’s a fiddle (harder work than jam, that’s for sure), but *so* worth it.

Makes 4 standard marmalade-sized jars (454g each), which you’ll need to sterilise by washing in warm soapy water, and then placing in an oven on a low heat. You’ll need:

1kg oranges (I had 8)
1kg sugar
1 lemon

Wash the oranges, and then place in 2 litres of water in a large pan. Bring to the boil, and then simmer for 2 hours. Leave to cool.

Slice open each orange, and scoop out the flesh inside (try and hang onto as much of the juice as possible). You’ll also need to keep the pips.

You’ll need to slice the orange skin into whatever floats your boat marmalade-wise. You tend to like long thin strips, but I have been known to make it fairly chunky. Sling the sliced skin and any juice in a bowl, and put on one side.

Meanwhile, tip all the pips in the remaining water, and boil for 20 minutes. Strain to get the pips out. Chuck the skin/juice back in, and add the sugar. I also added another litre of water at this point, as I didn’t have much left in the pan. Gently let the sugar dissolve on a low heat.

You then need to stick a plate in the fridge. Bring the marmalade to the boil, and then continue to boil for at least 10-15 minutes. You’ll know when the marmalade is ready – take your cold plate and dollop a little mixture onto it – if you can push the mixture with your finger and the surface wrinkles, it’s done. It might take a while for the marmalade to be ready – mine took 45 minutes (I tested at 10 minute intervals).

Quickly divide up the marmalade into the jars, and put the lids on tightly.

It’s perfect on toast, but you are also quite keen on marmalade flapjack and carrot and marmalade muffins.

Fish pie

We ate this on a cold February day, after zooming to the library to read about pirates, princesses and bears. I made you your own little pie, which you thought was fabulous.

This is great for using up any odds and ends of fish or prawns you’ve got lurking in the back of the freezer. To make enough for 4, you’ll need:

250g (ish) puff pastry (life’s too short to make this stuff)
chunks of fish – we had some cod offcuts from a previous meal, but any firm white fish or salmon would do
prawns – again, we had a mix of shell on prawns (which I de-shelled), and some of those tiny little cheapie frozen ones
1 onion, finely chopped
a couple of tablespoons of flour
1 tablespoon butter
milk – I must have used at least half a pint
a small pile of grated cheese – say 50g

Stick the oven on at about 180 degrees C. You’ll need to find a pie dish of some description – you could use lots of small ones (ramekins are perfect for small people), or a big pyrex or enamel job.

Fry the onions in a little olive oil until they’ve softened, and then tip them into your pie dish.

Next, you’ll need to poach your fish. Place it in a pan, and cover with milk. Bring to the boil, and then quickly turn down to a simmer. Depending on how large your pieces of fish are (in particular how thick), it’ll take from 4-8 minutes to poach them.

Fish the pieces out of the milk with a slotted spoon, and place on a plate. Flake, and check carefully for bones. Sling your small chunks of fish in the pie dish too, and add the prawns (assuming they’ve been defrosted thoroughly if you’ve retrieved them from the freezer!).

You now need to make a white sauce, to go over the fish and onions. Take the warm milk you used to poach the fish, and melt the butter in it. Add the flour, and whisk until it starts to thicken (keep simmering the milk, and don’t let boil). Add the grated cheese, salt and black pepper, and whisk until smooth.

Pour the white sauce over the fish. Roll out the pastry to the size of your dish, and place over the top of the fish mixture – you’ll need to make a couple of slits to let the steam out. Place the dish on a baking tray (in case of spills), and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until the pastry is puffed up and golden.

It’s delicious with some steamed broccoli – and of, course, you’ve got to have peas…

Pork and olive stew

This is perfect with some basmati rice, and some greens on the side. It vanished fairly quickly, but that’s because you have an ongoing love affair with olives – and have had since you were about six months old.

You’ll need:

400g pork shoulder (or something that will do well when stewed for a very long time), cut into chunks
half a jar of black olives
a tin of chopped tomatoes
1 onion, finely sliced
1 red pepper, sliced
a splosh of olive oil
1 tsp paprika
thyme, black pepper, a little salt

First of all, stick the oven on low – maybe 160 degrees C, and fish out a good, ovenproof casserole dish. We’re still using the old one your Dad went to college with.

Brown the pieces of pork in a little olive oil in a frying pan, and then tip into your casserole dish (I used some of the oil the olives were packed in). Fry the onions in the same pan until they turn translucent, and then add the red pepper. Cook for another couple of minutes until it too has softened. Chuck in the tin of chopped tomatoes, a good sprinkling of thyme, the paprika and lots of black pepper – and then bring to the boil. Tip this into the casserole dish with the pork.

Put the lid on (or cover with foil), and then sling the casserole dish in the oven for a couple of hours. Keep an eye on it – you may want to add a little more water near the end to stop it sticking. It’s ready when the pork falls apart – but it’ll keep in the oven for as long as you need it to (as long as you add enough water).