Spinach and feta muffins

I adapted a Hugh Fearnley-Whernley recipe for these - and it turned out a treat.

Makes 12 enormous muffins, or lots and lots of fairy-cake sized ones. You'll need:

1 small onion, finely chopped
whatever spinach you have lurking at the bottom of the fridge, chopped
a little olive oil
half a pack or so of feta, cubed
250g self-raising flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarb of soda
a little salt (not a lot, as the feta's pretty salty)
2 eggs
80g butter, melted and cooled down a bit
200ml buttermilk (either use milk with a squeeze of lemon juice, or add 75g yoghurt to 125ml milk...)

Stick your oven on at about 200 degrees C, and line your muffin tin/cupcake tin with paper/silicon cases of your choice.

Fry the onion in a little olive oil, until it turns translucent. Add the chopped spinach, and stir for a couple of minutes until it's wilted. Take off the heat, and leave to cool.

Sling the flour, bicarb, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl. Whisk the eggs/buttermilk/melted butter together in a jug - and then pour them into the flour mixture. Mix everything gently together. Carefully fold in the onion/spinach mixture, and then the feta cheese.

Spoon the muffin mixture into your cases, and then bake in the oven for about 10-12 minutes (small fairy-cake size), or a 15-20 minutes (large muffin size) until golden.

Eat lots while hot. They'll keep for a while, but are loveliest warm.

Creamy chicken, thyme and leek

This goes really well with some plain rice, and maybe some steamed greens/broccoli.

You'll need:

3-4 chicken thighs, deboned and chopped into large chunks (it's also good with leftover cooked chicken)
1/2 small carton of cream (or whatever you've got left in the fridge)
a couple of large leeks
a clove of garlic, or a bulb of wet garlic, finely chopped
a few sprigs of fresh thyme (or a sprinkle of the dried stuff)
lots of black pepper

Chuck the chicken into a frying pan, together with a slosh of olive oil, and brown the meat. Tip in the leeks and garlic, and fry until they have softened too.

Add the cream and a little water, sprinkle over the herbs, and leave to simmer for 10-15 minutes until the chicken is cooked through (you may have to add a little more water to stop it sticking).

Feta and courgette frittata

Another one in the "ooh, look what I found in the fridge" series.

You'll need:

4-5 eggs, depending on how large they are
a little milk
a handful of sliced cooked potatoes
an onion, finely sliced
a couple of courgettes, chunkily sliced
half a packet of feta cheese, cut into chunks
some dried thyme
lots of black pepper
olive oil

You'll need a reasonably large, heavy-bottomed frying pan (it helps if you've got one without a plastic handle, so it can go under the grill at the end). Start off by frying the onion in a little olive oil until it's translucent. You'll then need to add a really good slurp of olive oil (probably a couple of tablespoons), and layer up the courgette/potato slices. Leave this to cook for 5 minutes or so.

Dot the pan with the chunks of feta cheese. Scatter some dried thyme over the top of everything, and give it a good dose of black pepper. Mix together the eggs with a little milk, and pour into your frying pan.

Turn the heat down low, and leave for 15-20 minutes, until most of the egg has set (I think I left mine for about half an hour - good if you like crispy potatoes on the bottom of the frittata). Turn on the grill, and sling the pan under it for another 5-10 minutes, until the top of your frittata is browned.

We ate this with just a green salad - it was surprisingly filling!

Norwegian pretzels

As you might have guessed, we made these for Eurovision, which was beamed live via satellite from Oslo. Sadly, Morten Harket didn't make an appearance and the UK was marooned at the bottom of the table. But the pretzels were good. Hurrah!

You'll need:

1 envelope of dried yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 teaspoon black treacle
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups bread flour
1 egg, beaten (or a little milk)
extra salt flakes

Stick your oven on at about 220 degrees C. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water, and add the black treacle and salt. Stir to create an unholy mess.

Tip in the flour, and mix to a dough. We had to add a little extra water, to get everything to stick together. Knead the dough really well, until it becomes elastic, then divide up into small pieces. Roll each of these out into thin snakes, and then twist into shapes (this was the bit you loved - you were surprisingly brilliant at making hearts).

Place on a baking sheet, and brush with the egg (or milk). Scatter some flakes of sea salt over the top of each.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes if you like them chewy - a little bit longer (maybe switch off the oven and leave them inside as it cools down?) if you want them crispy.

Minced chicken donburi

We've been trying out some recipes from the amazing Harumi's Japanese Home Cooking (by Harumi Kurihara), which I found in our local library. She seems to be a cross between the sainted Delia and Martha Stewart - but her recipes are a winner.

I adapted this donburi one somewhat - she suggests garnishing with mange tout, but we ate ours with some steamed broccoli.

Makes enough for 3. You'll need:

cooked rice (we had our usual mug-ful of rice, two mugs of water)
250g minced chicken (or turkey)
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons caster sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons mirin (we'd run out of this, and of sherry too - so it will be interesting to try it again with some)
3 boiled eggs, quartered

Fry the minced chicken/turkey, until it is browned. Add the soy sauce, sugar and mirin, and simmer until nearly all the liquid has evaporated.

Serve the mince on top of the hot cooked rice, topped with some boiled egg and steamed broccoli.

Harumi also suggests sweetened shiitake mushrooms as an additional topping - she simmers rehydrated shiitake mushrooms in a similar soy sauce/mirin/sugar mix (6 dried mushrooms to 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 1/2 tablespoons mirin and 2 teaspoons caster sugar).

Tabbouleh

We ate this with some cold roast lamb, and pitta breads.

Makes enough for four greedy adults, as a side dish (would be lovely too with some sharp cheese, like feta).

You'll need:

125g bulgar wheat
2-3 large tomatoes, chopped
3 spring onions, chopped
lots of flatleaf parsley, chopped
a good handful of mint, chopped
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice (I used the juice of 1 lemon)

Soak the bulgar wheat in hot water for 20 minutes or so, until it's softened. Drain, and run under the cold tap.

Chuck the bulgar wheat, tomatoes, spring onions, parsley and mint in a large bowl. Mix. Drizzle over the olive oil and lemon juice, and mix again. Season with salt and black pepper.

You can eat this straightaway, but I find it tastes nicer once it's been left for an hour or so, so the flavours have had a chance to mingle.

Fried rice cakes with leeks and poached egg

We're in a post-Paris slump at the moment, trying to forget how gorgeous the croissants were, and how hot and sunny it was.

This revived our spirits no end. You'll need:

enough cooked rice for 2 (we use a mugful of dried rice, and 2 mugfuls of water)
1/2 teaspoon of saffron powder
50-60g grated cheese (mature cheddar is good, feta or parmesan would also be nice)
a couple of leeks, sliced
250ml stock
50ml cream
a pinch of dried tarragon
3 eggs

Dissolve the saffron powder in a tablespoon of water, then mix into the cooked rice. Add the cheese, some salt and some black pepper. Bind all this together with 1 of the eggs.

Meanwhile, fry the leeks in a little olive oil for a couple of minutes. Add the stock, cream, tarragon and more black pepper, and leave to simmer for 10-15 minutes, until the leeks are soft, and the sauce has reduced.

Heat a little olive oil in a non-stick pan, and sling in a couple of good spoonfuls of rice - flatten it down with a spatula. It should be about 1cm thick, and maybe about 5-7cm across (it really depends on the size of the spatula/fish slice you're using to move it around in the pan!). Fry for at least 5 minutes on each side, so the rice goes crispy and lightly browned.

Transfer to a warm place, while you cook the other cakes. Top with the leeks and sauce, and a poached egg (crack an egg into a pan of boiling water, and leave to cook for about 1 1/2 minutes - or until the egg white has stopped being wobbly!). A fried egg would also be good - as would some chorizo.