Beef stew with cheese cobbler topping

We ate this on the balcony in the sunshine, after an afternoon spent digging at the allotment. It felt rather more like May than March.

This is adapted from a Hugh Fearnley-Whirligig recipe in the Guardian, and a fish cobbler recipe from Yorkshire. It's not a bad hybrid.

You'll need:

400g stewing beef, chopped into largish chunks
a little flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
a couple of medium-sized onions, cut into large chunks
3 carrots, cut into largeish chunks
4 large mushrooms, chopped into large chunks
a glug of olive oil
fresh parsley
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 bay leaves
150ml bitter/stout
400ml vegetable stock or beef stock

First of all, put the oven on at about 140 degrees C. Dip the chunks of beef in the seasoned flour, and then fry in batches in a frying pan until they're browned. Tip into your casserole dish.

Fry the onions in the meat juices (you may have to add a little extra olive oil) for a couple of minutes, and then tip them into the casserole too. Add the carrots, bitter, stock and the herbs (3 or 4 large stalks of parsley, a couple of bay leaves and the dried thyme. Shove a lid on the casserole dish, bung in the oven, and cook for 1 hour 45 minutes.

In the meantime, fry the mushrooms in a good glug of olive oil, until they soften and colour. You can also make the cobbler (essentially a cheesy scone topping).

You'll need:

8oz self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon mustard powder
2oz butter
3oz cheese (preferably something strong like cheddar, although Wensleydale would also be good)
1 egg, beaten
1/4 pint of milk
a pinch of salt

To make the cobbler, pour the flour, salt, baking powder and mustard powder into a mixing bowl. Rub in the butter, until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs, then add the cheese. Mix in the egg, and however much of the milk you need to form a soft dough (I used all of it, but it does vary depending on your flour).

Once the stew has cooked (you could happily leave it in for a couple of hours or so), bring it out, and crank up the oven temperature to 180 degrees C.

Chuck the mushrooms (and any juices left in the pan) into the casserole dish. Then top with the cheese scone cobbler. You could roll the dough out, and cut out proper scone shapes. I just divided mine up into small-ish balls, squashed them until they were about 2cm thick, and then placed them on top of the stew.

Bake in the oven for about 35 minutes - or until the scone topping is golden and crunchy.

We ate ours with some steamed cabbage and broccoli. It disappeared very quickly.

Steak, celery and onion stew

We spent the afternoon at the swimming pool, with you giggling like a loon whenever I pretended to be a shark. Consequently, lots of stodge was required afterwards.

You'll need:

a large piece of stewing or braising steak
an onion, chopped
four or five sticks of celery, chopped (don't worry about the leafy bits - chuck it all in)
a large teaspoon of flour
a couple of medium potatoes, peeled and chopped into small chunks
dried thyme
lots of black pepper
worcestershire sauce

I made this in the slow cooker, but you could equally stick the oven on fairly low (160 degrees C) for a couple of hours, or cook it on the stovetop.

Chop your steak into small chunks, and brown in a frying pan (you may have to do this in a couple of batches). Chuck into your stock pot. Add a teaspoon of flour to the juices left in the pan - swish it about for 30s or so, and then add a little hot water. Pour the resulting liquid into your stock pot.

Add the celery, onions and potatoes. In a slow cooker, add a little boiling water, so that the veg/meat is barely covered. You'll need to add more if you're cooking this in an oven or on the hob (maybe 1/4 to 1/2 a pint). Season with several splashes of worcestershire sauce, lots of black pepper and a good sprinkling of thyme.

Cook for 4-5 hours on high in a slow cooker, or for a couple of hours in the oven/on the hob.

We ate ours with dumplings - you'll need half suet to flour, and a little cold water to mix. Roll into balls, and then either drop into the stew or slide onto a tray and stick in the oven for 25 minutes until they're golden brown on top and fluffy inside.

Chicken and root vegetable stew

I tried doing this in the slow cooker that Gran and Grandpa gave us for Christmas...it's dead easy to use, but it turned out a little like soup. So beware - reduce the liquid if you're going down that route.

You'll need:

leftover cooked chicken (say hello, Christmas capon)
an onion, sliced
a couple of potatoes, peeled and chopped into small cubes
a couple of carrots (ditto)
half a small swede/turnip (ditto)
a parsnip (ditto)
some leftover white wine (about half a glass)
vegetable stock (I made mine from some stock powder and hot water)
dried thyme, black pepper and a little salt

Fry the onion in a little olive oil until it softens. Chuck into a stew pot, or slow cooker, and add all the other vegetables and chicken. Season with the herbs, pepper and salt. Add whatever leftover white wine you have in the house/freezer, and top up the liquid with some vegetable stock, until the mixture is covered.

Stick a lid on, and put in the slow cooker for 4-6 hours on high (but leave off the lid for the last half hour or so, or you'll have soup), or in the oven (at about 160) for a couple of hours until the vegetables are soft.

If you don't have many potatoes, and you like a slightly thicker stew, you could add some pearl barley or spelt as well.

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.

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.