Egg and bacon pie

Perfect snow food.

You'll need:

6 rashers of bacon (we like streaky)
4 eggs
1 onion, finely chopped
140ml milk
salt and pepper

shortcrust pastry

Stick the oven on at about 200 degrees C, and fish out a deep pie tin/dish, about 18cm across.

Hardboil 3 of your 4 eggs - sling them in a pan with some cold water, bring it to the boil and then simmer the eggs for 7-8 minutes. Run under some cold water, then peel and chop.

Fry/grill the bacon rashers until they are crispy. Take them out of the pan, and place on some kitchen roll, to absorb any grease. Chop the rashers into small pieces.

You could use a splash of olive oil to fry the onion, or you could just throw caution to the wind and chuck it into the remaining bacon fat, and frying until translucent.

Grease your pie dish, and line with half the pastry. Chuck in the chopped egg and bacon pieces, together with the onion. Beat egg 4 with the milk, and pour over the lot.

Using the second half of the pastry, roll out a lid, and place on top (you might need to dampen the edges a little, to make them seal). Make a small hole in the centre of the pie to let the steam out, then bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Turn the heat down to 180 degrees C, and give it another 25-30 minutes, until the top has turned golden brown.

Eat hot with lots of steamed greens, or cold with a green salad.

Pasta with bacon and broccoli

This should probably be called something fancy, like "orecchiette with purple sprouting broccoli and lardons", but to be honest you'd probably have refused to eat it. Quite right.

You'll need:

pasta - orecchiette would be good, but we only had bows (farfalle)
broccoli - again, this would be fab with the purple sprouting stuff, but ordinary calabrese broccoli does just as well
bacon - a rasher or so of streaky per person, chopped up small
a medium-size onion, sliced
a clove of garlic, minced
a small tub of single cream

Chuck the bacon into a frying pan with a dash of olive oil, and fry until it starts to colour. Add the onions and garlic, and cook for another 5 minutes or so until they're translucent.

In the meantime, stick your pasta into a pan of boiling water, and simmer away. Chop up your broccoli into small florets, and cook in another small pan of water (or if you're really eco-friendly, steam it on top of the pasta). Whip the broccoli out after a couple of minutes, as soon as it's al dente.

Chuck the broccoli into the onion/garlic/bacon mix, and add the best part of a small tub of single cream and lots of black pepper. Simmer for a couple of minutes, until (a) it starts to thicken and (b) the pasta is ready.

Drain the pasta. Empty the sauce over the top. Mix. Eat with lots of cheese grated on top.

Lentil and bacon soup

I think this is probably your Dad's favourite soup. You quite like it too.

Makes enough for three. You'll need:

3 rashers of bacon, snipped into pieces
an onion, finely chopped
3 or 4 carrots, sliced
a leek, sliced
some chicken stock
3 handfuls of red lentils
dried thyme, black pepper

Chuck the bacon and onion in a large saucepan with a little olive oil, and fry for 5 minutes until the onion is translucent.

Add the carrots/leek and fry for another couple of minutes. Pour in the chicken stock, add the lentils, and scatter some dried thyme and black pepper with abandon.

Bring to the boil, and simmer for half an hour. You'll probably have to add some more water - it all depends on how much chicken stock you have, and how soupy you like your soup...

We ate ours with some doughballs hot from the oven and slathered in melted butter.

Rosti

The Swiss would probably take umbrage at this version, but it's rather good. We ate it with some chard from the allotment, and it all disappeared rather rapidly.

Makes enough for two greedy adults and one greedy three-year-old. You'll need:

700g potatoes
1 large onion, finely chopped
5 slices of streaky bacon, sliced into small pieces (lardons would be even better)
salt and black pepper
butter

Scrub the potatoes, and then sling them in a pan of boiling water for 10 minutes, until they're parboiled. Peel (you should be able to easily do this with a knife), and then grate using a coarse grater.

While the potatoes are boiling, fry the onion and bacon together for 6-7 minutes, until the onion softens. Tip into the grated potato and mix gently - if you find the potato starts to stick, you'll need to add a knob of melted butter - and season with salt and lots of black pepper.

Melt another large knob of butter in your frying pan. Divide the mixture in two, and press half into the pan. Fry for 7-8 minutes on a medium heat (if it starts to burn, add some more butter). Turn the rosti over (it's probably easiest to slide a plate on top, and flip the pan upside down), and fry for another 7-8 minutes until it's crispy on the bottom.

Eat as quickly as possible. Do try not to have a heart attack.

Bacon, feta and pea salad

Our veg box arrived today in the pouring rain, containing a box of freshly picked pea pods and the most amazing bag of salad leaves.

Makes enough for one. You'll need:

some peas, freshly shelled (this is one occasion where the frozen variety probably aren't worth using)
a handful of salad leaves (mizuna or rocket, spinach and butterhead lettuce is a good combination)
25g feta cheese, cubed
2 rashers of streaky bacon
some salad dressing of your choice - something balsamic-y is good

Fry the bacon (you don't need to add any extra oil) for 5 minutes in a pan until it goes crispy. Slice into small pieces.

Sling the salad leaves into a large bowl, and chuck in the peas (uncooked). Add the feta cheese and the bacon pieces, and toss together. Drizzle over a little salad dressing and season with lots of black pepper.

Eat with some nice bread, or failing that some pitta bread that you've dragged out of the freezer and toasted...

Summer bubble and squeak

We trekked over to Whitburn today to visit Souter Lighthouse, which has a rather splendid pirate ship outside to clamber all over. You had fun taking pictures, and dressing up in the princess/pirate outfits. Here's one of yours:



This 'sort-of' bubble and squeak seemed like the perfect idea for tea, and was remarkably popular. Makes enough for 3.

You'll need:

a small spring cabbage, finely shredded (nicer if you take the leaf ribs out too)
enough new potatoes for 3, scrubbed and chopped into small pieces
3 or 4 rashers of streaky bacon per person, chopped into small pieces

Stick the potatoes in a pan, cover with boiling water, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10-12 minutes until tender, and then drain.

Meanwhile, fry the bacon in a large frying pan (you may have to add a little extra olive oil if it sticks) until it starts to go golden. Add the cabbage, and fry until it's tender. At this point, tip in the drained potatoes, and mix everything together. Fry for a couple of minutes (you may have to add a little extra oil if the potatoes start to stick), and then season with black pepper.

Turn out onto a plate and eat at once.

Chicken cacciatore

Back from a week in the sunshine in France with Grandma and Grandad, we needed some comfort food - Gateshead is freezing cold, rainy and windy.

Makes enough for 4. You'll need:

4 chicken thighs (skinned)
1 onion, finely sliced
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 large courgette, sliced
1 tin of chickpeas
1 tin of tomatoes
1 tablespoon of chopped rosemary
2 bay leaves
3 or 4 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, chopped (or a small pack of lardons)
a splosh of balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar

Depending on how much time you have, you can either leave the thighs whole (they'll take longer to cook this way), or take as much meat off the bones as you can (which gives you the added bonus of making chicken stock with the leftovers).

Stick the onion and garlic in a pan with the bacon and a little olive oil. Fry for 5 minutes or so, until the onion has turned translucent. Add the chopped rosemary and chicken, and fry for another 5 minutes or so, until the chicken has browned. Chuck in the tin of tomatoes, about half a tin of water (you could go the whole hog here and add wine instead), a splosh of balsamic vinegar the sugar and the bay leaves. Leave to simmer for 15 minutes, until the chicken is cooked (this may well be nearer 30-40 minutes if you're using the chicken thighs whole).

Chuck in the courgette slices and chickpeas, and simmer for another 5 minutes, until the courgettes have softened and the chickpeas heated through. Season with lots of black pepper and a little salt, and you're done.

We ate this with some couscous and chopped coriander (and sneakily added a few dried chillies on the top).

Bacon and blue cheese salad

This is your Dad's kind of salad - one with 'interesting things in'. We ate it today for tea, as the pair of you were still fairly full from IKEA's meatballs and chips at lunchtime...

You'll need:

salad leaves (we had a combination of romaine lettuce, homegrown parsley and celery leaves today)
a couple of cold leftover potatoes, sliced
spring onions, sliced
a large carrot, peeled and sliced thinly
2 or 3 rashers of bacon, chopped into small pieces
a handful of cubes of stilton (or any blue cheese - Roquefort is brilliant, but a little wasted here)
lots of black pepper

Fry the bacon in a small frying pan, until it's crispy. You could even make some croutons by frying cubes of stale bread in the bacon fat, if you're really being fancy.

Chuck the leaves/spring onions/carrot slices in a large bowl. Scatter the bacon pieces and stilton cubes over the top, and toss. Add lots of black pepper, and serve with some crusty bread.

It works very well with a French-ish salad dressing of mustard/olive oil/vinegar/lemon drizzled over the top.

Bacon, leek and potato pie

A ribsticking pie for what turned out to be a surprisingly sunny day. Tea was a bit of a hurried affair yesterday after watching your Dad's promo screening at the Tyneside Cinema, but today was far more leisurely.

You'll need:

4 or 5 rashers of streaky bacon, chopped up
a good wodge of mature cheddar, grated
3 or 4 large leeks, washed and sliced
5 or 6 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and halved
lots of black pepper
2 or 3 tablespoons of cream, creme fraiche, or at a pinch some milk
shortcrust pastry - enough to lay over the top of your pie dish

Stick the oven on at about 200 degrees C. Dunk the potatoes in a pan of boiling water, and cook for 12-15 minutes until they're tender. Drain, and then slice.

Fry the bacon pieces until they've coloured and start to go crispy (you shouldn't need to add any extra oil, but check they don't stick). Lift them out of your frying pan, and then chuck the leeks in - fry them for a couple of minutes, until they've started to soften.

Layer the sliced potatoes and leek/bacon mixture in your pie dish. Grate lots of black pepper over the top (and maybe sprinkle with a little dried thyme if you have any). Top with lots of grated cheese, and then drizzle over 2-3 tablespoons of cream/milk/whatever.

Roll the pastry out to the size of your pie dish, and place on top. Cut a couple of holes in the top for the steam to escape, and then stick in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until the pastry turns golden brown.

We ate this with some steamed broccoli and cauliflower (but it would be equally good cold, with a green salad - it holds together really well, and makes a good picnic pie).

'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.

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...

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.

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.

Bacon, potato and onion pie

I took this from the rather good Pie, by Angela Boggiano, and then adapted it a bit. Mainly because I thought that 7oz of cheese was overkill, and I didn't have any puff pastry in the house.

You helped me make the shortcrust pastry (you're rather good at rubbing in the butter and flour), and then roll it out over the top of the pie dish. We didn't make a bottom, seeing as the pie was carbohydrate-tastic as it was.

You need: (this makes enough for four by the way, although there's mysteriously only one portion left in the fridge at the moment...)

a couple of potatoes, peeled
6 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, chopped
2 large onions, sliced thinly
some cheese (we had Edam in it today, but I suspect that mature cheddar would be nicer)
a little cream - 2 or 3 tablespoons
black pepper

Boil the potatoes (whole) for 10-15 minutes until they're tender. Leave to cool a little and then slice. In the meantime, fry your bacon in a pan until it colours (a couple of minutes), and then add the onions. Cook until the onions turn translucent.

Layer the potato slices and onion/bacon mixture in a pie dish. Grate some cheese over the top, and drizzle the cream. Season with black pepper.

Next, stick your pastry over the top. Make a couple of slits to let the steam out, and then put in the oven at 180 degrees C for half an hour or so, until the pastry has gone light brown and crispy.

We ate this with a green salad, and a few runner beans/broad beans from the garden, which you really weren't keen on. Oh well.